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Matthew Moore: Fighting the curse of the face-eating tumour [LINK-ZUM]

A Jehovah's Witness who for decades refused all surgery on his horrific facial disfigurement has been given hope by a British doctor and new medical technology. Unwilling to accept a blood transfusion, Jose Mestre has allowed the bloody tumour that first appeared on his lip in adolescence to obliterate almost all of his face. Now 15 inches long and weighing 12 pounds, it has blinded him in one eye and made eating a daily ordeal. As it begins to block his airways, doctors fear his life could be in danger. But now one of Britain's leading facial surgeons has proposed treating Jose, 51, by employing ultrasound waves to coagulate the blood before the operation. This should allow his growths to be removed without risk of heavy bleeding - satisfying his religious prohibition on blood transfusions that has so far hampered his search for treatment.

[Article with photographs continues at link. The Watchtower Society, also known as the Jehovah's Witnesses, have predicted the end of the world no less than five times. According to their founder Charles Taze Russell, their second President J.E. Rutherford, and their official magazines The Watchtower and Awake!, the world was to end in 1914. But 1914 came and went without the world ending. So the date changed to 1915. But 1915 came and went without the world ending. So the date changed to 1918. But 1918 came and went without the world ending. So the date changed to 1925. But 1925 came and went without the world ending. So the date changed to 1975. But 1975 came and went without the world ending. So they stopped making public predictions about the end of the world and purged members (nearly 30,000 in 1978 alone) who questioned these false prophecies. Making failed predictions is a sure way to look stupid, but looking stupid isn't so bad. Where the Watchtower Society really stands out is denying medical care for their children, based on fickle revelations from God to their leadership. Sometimes they ban medical procedures such as blood transfusions, sometimes they do not ban them - too bad for you if your was eaten away by a tumor while the ban was in effect. Blood transfusions were forbidden to members of the Watchtower Society, as described in The Watchtower on September 15 1961 (pp. 563-564) and February 15 1964 (pp. 127-8). Then again, Blood transfusions were not forbidden to members of the Watchtower Society, as described in The Watchtower on November 15 1964 (pp. 680-3) and June 15 2000 (p. 31). I am glad for advances in medical science, but it is upsetting that they are applied in the accommodation of superstition. Perhaps a God who would give you haemangioma isn't a God worth worshiping; perhaps a religion that convinces you to to do nothing about it isn't worth following. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, religion, science, watchtower

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