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We appreciate advancements that have been made in the medical field. In fact, bloodless
treatments developed to help Witness patients are now being used to benefit all in the
community. In many countries, any patient can now choose to avoid blood-transfusion risks, such
as blood-borne diseases, immune-system reactions, and human errors.

Myth: Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that faith will heal a person’s ailments.
Fact: We do not practice faith healing.
Myth: Avoiding blood transfusions is very costly.
Fact: Medical treatments that avoid blood transfusions are cost-effective.
Myth: Many Witnesses, including children, die each year as a result of refusing blood transfusions.
Fact: This statement is totally unfounded. Surgeons regularly perform such complex procedures
as heart operations, orthopedic surgery, and organ transplants without the use of blood
transfusions.
* Patients, including children, who do not receive transfusions usually fare as well as or better than
those who do accept transfusions.
* In any case, no one can say for certain that a patient will die because of refusing blood or will
live because of accepting it.

Why don’t Jehovah’s Witnesses accept blood transfusions?
This is a religious issue rather than a medical one. Both the Old and New Testaments clearly
command us to abstain from blood. (Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 17:10; Deuteronomy 12:23; Acts 15:28,
29) Also, God views blood as representing life. (Leviticus 17:14) So we avoid taking blood not only
in obedience to God but also out of respect for him as the Giver of life.

Changing viewpoints
At one time, the medical community generally viewed strategies for avoiding transfusions, so-
called bloodless medicine, as extreme, even suicidal, but this has changed in recent years. For
example, in 2004, an article published in a medical education journal stated that “many of the
techniques developed for use in Jehovah’s Witness patients will become standard practice in years
to come.”
* An article in the journal Heart, Lung and Circulation said in 2010 that “‘bloodless surgery’ should
not be limited to J[ehovah’s] W[itnesses] but should form an integral part of everyday surgical
practice.”
Thousands of doctors worldwide now use blood-conservation techniques to perform complex
surgeries without transfusions. Such alternatives to blood transfusions are used even in
developing countries and are requested by many patients who are not Jehovah’s Witnesses.

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