Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood Transfusions:

Doctrine

• Blood represents life^[13] and is sacred to God.^[14][15] After it has been removed from a creature, the only use of blood that God has authorized is for the atonement of sins.^[16] When a Christian abstains from blood, they are in effect expressing faith that only the shed blood of Jesus Christ can truly redeem them and save their life.^[14]
• Blood must not be eaten or transfused,^[10][17] even in the case of a medical emergency.^[18]
• Blood leaving the body of a human or animal must be disposed of.^[16]
• Certain medical procedures involving blood fractions or that use a patient’s own blood during the course of a medical procedure, such as hemodilution or cell salvage, are a matter of personal choice, according to what a person’s conscience permits.^[19]
• A baptized Witness who unrepentantly accepts a blood transfusion is deemed to have disassociated himself from the group by abandoning its doctrines and is subsequently subject to organized shunning by other members.^[8][10]

Prohibited procedures[edit source]

• Transfusion of allogeneic whole blood, or of its constituents of red cells, white cells, platelets or plasma.^[22]
• Transfusions of pre-operative self-donated (autologous) blood.^[23]

Permitted procedures and products[edit source]

• Blood donation strictly for purpose of further fractionation of red cells, white cells, platelets or plasma for either allogeneic or autologous transfusion.^[22][25]
• Transfusions of autologous blood part of a “current therapy”.^[23]
• Hemodilution, a modified technique in which equipment is arranged in a circuit that is constantly linked to the patient’s circulatory system.^[23]
• Intraoperative blood salvage (autologous) or cell-saver scavenging, a method of picking up blood that has spilled from the circulatory system into an open wound, cleaning and re-infusing it.^[23]
• Heart-Lung Machine, a method in which blood is diverted to an artificial heart-lung machine and directed back into the patient.^[23]
• Dialysis, wherein blood circulates through a machine, is filtered and cleaned, then returned to the patient.^[23]
• Epidural Blood Patch, consisting of a small amount of the patient’s blood injected into the membrane surrounding the spinal cord.^[23]
• Plasmapheresis, wherein blood is withdrawn and filtered, having the plasma removed and substituted, and returned to the patient.^[23]
• Labeling or Tagging, blood is withdrawn, mixed with medicine, and then returned to the patient by transfusion.^[23][26]
• Platelet Gel, blood is withdrawn and put into a solution rich in platelets and white blood cells.^[23]
• Fractions from red blood cells:
  • Hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying component of red blood cells.
• Fractions from white blood cells:^[22]
  • Interferons
  • Interleukins
• Fractions from platelets:^[22]
  • Platelet factor 4
• Fractions from blood plasma:^[22]
  • Albumin
  • Globulins
  • Cryoprecipitate
  • Cryosupernatant (cryo-poor plasma)^[27]
  • Clotting factors, including Factor VIII and Factor IX derived from large quantities of stored blood
  • Wound healing factor
• Erythropoietin (EPO).^[22]
• PolyHeme, a blood substitute solution of chemically modified human hemoglobin.^[22]
• Hemopure, a blood substitute solution of chemically stabilized bovinehemoglobin derived from cow’s blood.^[22]