“BEWARE of the Dog,” printed in a bright, glowing orange, was observed as the most prevalent sign in one part of New York city. It was followed by a more official-looking one: “This Property Is Protected by Guard Dogs.”
People can hardly be blamed for seeking protection, especially after repeatedly being mugged or burglarized. But are dogs the answer? Are they really an effective crime deterrent?
What Dog Keepers Say
Dog trainer Arthur J. Haggerty, who has had over seventy rented dogs on nightly duty at construction sites in New York, says: “Contractors have told us that petty thefts and vandalism start to decline as soon as they post a ‘Warning—This Area Patrolled by Attack Dog’ sign on the site. When a dog moves in, thieves just move on to easier pickings.”
Dogs have also proved valuable in protecting stores. “I was robbed eight times in four years,” said Martin Blauvelt, the owner of a small liquor store, as he fondled his huge German Shepherd. “But since I bought Hercules two years ago, nobody has had the nerve to try anything.”
In large department stores, specially trained attack dogs accompanied by a handler patrol floors at night. While thieves may be able to conceal themselves from human guards, it is not so easy to hide from a dog. During the past year, according to Emanuel J. Falcone, security director at Gimbels, more than eighteen persons were apprehended with the help of dogs in one of their New York stores.
Many home dwellers, too, now consider a dog vital for their protection. For example, a family man living in a high-crime area explained: “Ordinarily I wouldn’t keep a dog in the city, especially a large one. But every home in this building has been burglarized, except ours. Besides, I would be afraid to let my wife step outside alone without him.”
A young man interviewed while walking his fierce-looking shepherd near the Brooklyn Heights section of New York felt similarly. Twice he had been mugged in recent months, once being severely knifed. “It wouldn’t have happened,” he claimed, “if my dog had been with me. I rarely go out without him now.”
Even little dogs are valuable, says Diana Henley of the Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Of her own Chihuahuas, she noted: “They couldn’t do anyone much harm, but they are great at alerting me if anyone is outside.” She also keeps a black Labrador that has growled at and scared off would-be muggers that have stalked her while they were out walking.
Even in many small towns and rural areas dogs are now considered important to have. For example, a young man living in the country at Wallkill, New York, recently paid $1,400 for a professionally trained guard dog.
Instinctive Characteristic
Such examples could be repeated thousands of times over. It is estimated that over twenty-five million dogs are maintained by households in the United States. And dog trainer Tom Nova claims that by far the majority of them instinctively protect the home. In addition, he says, many thousands of trained guard dogs are kept specifically for protection.
Most dog owners probably have observed a protective instinct in their dogs. Regarding it, The New Dog Encyclopedia says:
“Once a dog has accepted a person or family as his master, he immediately develops a well-defined sense of proprietorship and is ready to defend them, their home and possessions against all intruders. This sense of guardianship is present in almost all dogs, regardless of the breed, although it naturally asserts itself more in bolder or more aggressive animals. This guardian trait [is] now recognized by science and canine authorities as a definite instinct.”
This protective instinct can be encouraged and developed to a high degree of efficiency. A dog can thus become a weapon more effective, in certain circumstances, than a loaded revolver. For this, however, special training is required. Yet a dog may provide fine protection without any such training.
Dogs Without Guard Training
Professional trainers tend to categorize dogs according to the protection they provide. For example, a so-called “image dog” is large and imposing, belonging to a breed with a reputation for aggressiveness, such as a German Shepherd. Yet the dog need not have any aggressive tendencies. He can be mild-tempered and good with children. Simply his looks are a deterrent to wrongdoers. Interestingly, a dark-colored dog is generally feared more than a light-colored one, and so makes a better “image dog.”
A “watchdog” is a housedog that will bark, which is usually his principal effectiveness. Yet he may instinctively show signs of aggression in the appropriate situation. He may even bite an intruder, but since he has had no real guard training, there is little guarantee he will. You might consider a large “image dog” the best watchdog, but even inoffensive-looking little poodles or Chihuahuas can also make good ones.
Dogs with Guard Training
Then there are dogs with various degrees of special guard training. Some may simply be obedience trained, and developed to the point where they jump to their owner’s protection on command, or upon provocation. But they have, only to a very limited extent, been taught to bite.
It is different with the fully trained “guard dog.” He is trained to fight, and the power of his bite is developed by practice to where it can break an arm or snap a collarbone. He learns to protect himself and his handler from knife, gun and club. Such a dog has been compared to a professional soldier who may feel more at home in battle than in civilian life.
The dog is trained on a leash. A handler holds him while an “aggressor” agitates him with increasing offensiveness—by shouts, menacing gestures, digging a rounded-end stick in the groin, and so forth. The “aggressor” may have a heavily padded arm sleeve for protection, or hold a burlap bag that the dog bites. The dog’s confidence is built up in these attacks for he always drives off the aggressor. He never loses. Thus he is taught to believe that he can subdue any opponent.
An elite guard dog is sometimes called an “attack dog.” Instead of just a few weeks or months of training, he may require a year or so. Such a dog can sell for $4,000 and more. He will not only protect his owner but attack a specified person on command. This dog is, in every sense of the word, a weapon.
Are Dogs with Guard Training Safe?
Theoretically they are, since they supposedly will attack only on command, or under real provocation. Thus experiences are told of guard dogs escaping and being befriended by passersby who took them home and noticed nothing unusual about them. Yet different experiences occur too. Last fall in New Jersey two such dogs kept to protect contracting equipment escaped and killed six-year-old Hubert Russell. When they lunged at police officers, they were shot.
Even owners may not be safe. Craig Iwig paid $1,200 to a well-known New York dog trainer for a German Shepherd to protect his TV repair shop. The dog worked well for about six months. But then one Sunday, while alone in his shop, Iwig stooped to pick up a tool. The dog sprang, hitting him in the side of the face, and raking his scalp with his teeth.
“Guns misfire, and so do guard dogs,” trainer Tom Nova observed. “Like humans, dogs, too, make mistakes. They misinterpret. Two youngsters may be roughhousing, and a guard dog may hit one of them. It happens. I’d never keep one at home.”
Many trainers feel similarly. They are very hesitant to sell a guard dog for home use; some simply refuse to sell one to families with children. As trainer Jack Healy explained: “Sooner or later they’ll tease the animal, and even the finest dog can hit a child, given the right provocation.”
A Protection Dog for You?
Police departments and persons owning or in charge of stores, construction companies, trucking concerns and other commercial establishments may well decide that professionally trained guard dogs are for them. But is such a dog for you?
You might ask yourself: Would I keep a loaded pistol? Would I have it around the house where children might play with it? If not, a trained guard dog is not for you! The risk, not to mention the high price of such a dog, simply is not worth it, except perhaps under the most extreme circumstances.
However, due to skyrocketing crime, you may decide to keep a watchdog, or so-called “image dog.” But first count the cost. A New York city owner of a 75-pound German Shepherd recently calculated his weekly feed bill at $3.40. That is over $175.00 a year! Then there is the cost of collars, chains, license and perhaps veterinarian fees. And remember, a dog kept in an apartment needs to be walked outdoors at least once or twice a day.
Dogs can be wonderful pets and companions. How sad it is that world conditions are so bad that they have been trained to attack people! Happily, the promise of God’s Word is that soon, under His righteous Kingdom rule, all mankind will enjoy true security, with no need to keep dogs for protection.—Isa. 11:6-9.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Watching the World 5
Sacrifice for the Poor?
? In parts of Africa and Asia thousands of people are now very hungry. At the same time, earth’s rich nations continue to glut themselves. Thus, of the international food situation, Science News concludes: “The issue is finally a moral one: Will the United States and other industrialized countries be willing to cut back on meat consumption to free grain for the world’s poor?” Perhaps that question can be partly answered by what took place during the recent petroleum crisis. The National Opinion Research Center says that most Americans, in spite of requests to the contrary, did not use car pools or greatly reduce the amount of driving that they did. Says director James Davis: “What they basically gave up was the Sunday ride.”
“Cult of the Self”
? Campus rebellions have died down in the U.S. A recent study by Daniel Yankelovich, called “Changing Youth Values in the Seventies: A Study of American Youth,” reports that young people now largely reject old-fashioned patriotism, mainline religions and corrupt governmental and business institutions. The report claims that students want to “find self-fulfillment within a conventional career.” On the surface this may seem like a good change. But is it? Not according to Fred M. Hechinger, a member of the New York Times Editorial Board. He says: “No amount of rationalizing can pretty up a picture of a new cult of the self.”
New York Homosexual Issue
? In May, a bill banning discrimination against homosexuals was put to a vote in New York. During the period before the vote the Catholic Church revealed how divided it is on the subject. Two New York Catholic newspapers, The Catholic News and The Tablet, had editorials opposing the bill. But twenty-eight New York Jesuits had other ideas; they issued a statement protesting their archdiocese’s opposition. Members of Dignity, a Catholic homosexual organization, received communion at St. Patrick’s Cathedral before going outside to demonstrate against the editorials. Meanwhile, The Advocate, official newspaper of the nearby Newark, New Jersey, archdiocese, favored the bill, stating: “To Catholics, homosexual acts are objectively wrong in the moral order, although individual homosexuals may be personally free of moral guilt, and should not be condemned by the community around them.”
Lowest Church Membership
? Church membership is declining just about everywhere. But in some parts of the U.S. low church membership is more obvious. Where? A recent study shows that in the Pacific region—Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington—no more than 37 percent of the population are church members. Washington State has the lowest figure—32.5 percent. About half the U.S. population does not have any religious affiliation, according to the study.
The Story’s Other Side
? Dr. George L. Kirkham, an assistant professor in Florida State University’s school. of criminology, wanted to study law enforcement firsthand. So he became a policeman. With what change in his outlook? He writes in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin: “Persons such as myself, members of the academic community, have traditionally been quick to find fault with the police. . . . Now, as a police officer, I began to encounter the offender for the first time as a very real menace to my personal safety and the security of our society. The felon was no longer a harmless figure sitting in blue denims across my prison desk, a ‘victim’ of society to be treated with compassion and leniency. He became an armed robber fleeing from the scene of a crime, a crazed maniac threatening his family with a gun, someone who might become my killer crouched behind the wheel of a car on a dark street. Like crime itself, fear quickly ceased to be an impersonal and abstract thing.”
Fewer Farmers
? Food grows scarcer around the world. But farmers continue at a rapid pace to forsake the land for other occupations. Now, Europe’s Vision magazine reports, farmers in the southern part of the continent are quitting in “massive” numbers. In 1964, for instance, Greece is said to have had 57 percent of its civilian labor force in agriculture; in 1971 the figure was 37.3 percent. Other outstanding drops in the European agriculture labor force about the same period include: Portugal, 42.1 to 30.6 percent; Spain, 37.9 to 27.6 percent; Norway, 20.6 to 12.3 percent; and West Germany, 11.6 to 7.5 percent.
Problems of Dams
? Egypt’s mighty Aswan Dam has come to be considered the “present-day symbol of schistosomiasis,” a parasitic disease already afflicting some 200 million persons in Asia, Africa, South America and the Caribbean. The dam will soon irrigate millions of Egyptian square miles—and spread the disease to millions more persons. Meanwhile, the Colorado River, a major U.S. stream laced with innumerable dams, irrigates some of the most arid land in the southwestern U.S. In its flow, it picks up mineral salts, which poison crops in neighboring Mexico’s fertile Mexicali Valley.
A Bishop’s “Gibberish”
? In this secular age one might expect atheists to refer to the Biblical account about the Tower of Babel and the changing of languages by God as a “myth.” But would a Catholic bishop say such a thing? Fulton J. Sheen recently did, adding: “This was no supernatural phenomenon.” Well, then, what was it? Sheen answers: “A direct result of the complexity of their technology. Architects, engineers, builders, brick masons, astrologers, bookkeepers developed their separate jargons and scientific gibberish so that one could not understand what the others were saying.” The Bible’s report on what happened was “inspired of God.” Where did Bishop Sheen get his information?
Greasy Grease
? Why did not someone think of it before? Make grease greasier! How? Engineers at General Motors Corporation have mixed tiny ball bearings into grease and, in doing so, claim the friction is greatly reduced. At slow-speed applications the new procedure is almost as effective as roller bearings, though at a fraction of the cost. A thousand-pound load placed on the new grease reportedly can be moved with one pound of force.
Drugs and Kidneys
? Both narcotic and medicinal drugs can bring about kidney disease. Dr. Garabed Eknoyan, professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, recently informed the American College of Physicians that kidney disease complications can arise from addiction to narcotics like heroin and cocaine. Meanwhile, Dr. Thomas G. Murray, with the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, claims that in a study of 101 cases of one form of kidney disease that he studied, some 20 percent were due to heavy use of non-narcotic analgesics, including aspirin, as well as other pain-killing, popularly sold drugs.
100th Derby
? On Saturday, May 4, the 100th Kentucky Derby was run in Louisville. But for the 100,000 spectators of this horse race much of the show was not on the track. One man wrote the Louisville Times: “Marijuana smoke filled the air. Drunken teen-agers streaked. Several males relieved themselves in the presence of the spectators. The mob tore down fences.” The city fielded a fourteen-man anti-pickpocket unit. At least 63 persons were theft victims.
Millions Cannot Read
? “There may be over a million adults of normal intelligence in Britain who cannot read properly,” reports London’s Daily Mail. And in the U.S., the results of a four-year testing program reveal that about a million youngsters between the ages of twelve and seventeen cannot read at a fourth-grade level. The test suggests, says the New York Post, that illiteracy is “more pervasive than ever before realized.”
“Increasing Lawlessness”
? Some people like to think that crime is limited to the big cities. But a report from Roundup, Montana (population about 2,000), indicates otherwise. The local weekly newspaper recently ran a front-page editorial referring to the “increasing lawlessness” that has led to talk of vigilantes; it urged citizens not to “take matters into their own hands.” County Sheriff George A. Palmer says that Roundup faces problems similar to those in the big cities: “Drinking, drugs and no respect for the law whatsoever.”
Non-Tobacco Cigarettes
? Non-tobacco cigarettes have been found to be just as harmful to the respiratory system as those made from tobacco. Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, using lettuce and bluestem grass cigarettes, conclude that smoke from any burnable material causes respiratory damage. Their report is found in a recent issue of Archives of Environmental Health.
The War’s Children
? The war in Northern Ireland has brought youngsters into contact with bloodshed and violence. The Irish Republican Army has warned children to stay away from soldiers. The British Army has even cautioned that youngsters should not play with toy guns, which often appear real. No one wants an innocent child to be shot by mistake. However, some youngsters are not entirely innocent as far as the fighting is concerned. According to a London Daily Telegraph report: “The young are rapidly becoming veterans of violence. Many thoroughly enjoy the stonethrowing and gun fights. The other night an 11-year-old told his mother he was going out to ‘pelt the soldiers.’ All the mother replied was: ‘Not in those best shoes you’re not.’”
No Stability
? “Stability,” says a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, “is a larger problem than ever.” As a consequence, around the world fewer leaders seem to be able to hold onto their positions. “It seems,” continues the Journal, “that the modern environment is an acid that attacks democratic leaders. The pace of life is so fast . . . that any problem or dislocation is likely to divide and inflame the public. In such a hectic and impatient age, political leaders cannot build enduring support; they are bound to fall victim to one passing crisis or another. It would be a mistake to underestimate this air of perpetual crisis.”
Bank Losses
? In the last six months of 1973 banks lost about $100 million to criminals. But less than $13 million was taken in holdups. The amount lost to embezzlers is said to be over five times that lost to robbers. California banks lost about $3.8 million as a result of illegal credit cards. “Robberies,” says the Los Angeles Times, “are small potatoes compared to bank losses from forgery, credit card fraud or embezzlement.” Banks are said to spend ten times their actual losses in attempts to protect themselves from criminals.
Doctors’ Hazards
? U.S. physicians suffer the highest rate of alcoholism of any profession, says the head of alcoholic detoxification at San Francisco General Hospital. Their “obsessive, compulsive, industrious” personalities lend themselves to addiction, he adds. These traits may be one reason that their wives have been found to seek mental help out of proportion to the general population, as their doctor husbands often fail to supply the affection wives need. Stresses on female physicians are such that their suicide rate is three times that of women generally.
Soviet Women
? Well over two thirds of the doctors in the Soviet Union are now women. Also, “women scientists account for 39 per cent of the country’s total,” says Soviet Life magazine.
? In parts of Africa and Asia thousands of people are now very hungry. At the same time, earth’s rich nations continue to glut themselves. Thus, of the international food situation, Science News concludes: “The issue is finally a moral one: Will the United States and other industrialized countries be willing to cut back on meat consumption to free grain for the world’s poor?” Perhaps that question can be partly answered by what took place during the recent petroleum crisis. The National Opinion Research Center says that most Americans, in spite of requests to the contrary, did not use car pools or greatly reduce the amount of driving that they did. Says director James Davis: “What they basically gave up was the Sunday ride.”
“Cult of the Self”
? Campus rebellions have died down in the U.S. A recent study by Daniel Yankelovich, called “Changing Youth Values in the Seventies: A Study of American Youth,” reports that young people now largely reject old-fashioned patriotism, mainline religions and corrupt governmental and business institutions. The report claims that students want to “find self-fulfillment within a conventional career.” On the surface this may seem like a good change. But is it? Not according to Fred M. Hechinger, a member of the New York Times Editorial Board. He says: “No amount of rationalizing can pretty up a picture of a new cult of the self.”
New York Homosexual Issue
? In May, a bill banning discrimination against homosexuals was put to a vote in New York. During the period before the vote the Catholic Church revealed how divided it is on the subject. Two New York Catholic newspapers, The Catholic News and The Tablet, had editorials opposing the bill. But twenty-eight New York Jesuits had other ideas; they issued a statement protesting their archdiocese’s opposition. Members of Dignity, a Catholic homosexual organization, received communion at St. Patrick’s Cathedral before going outside to demonstrate against the editorials. Meanwhile, The Advocate, official newspaper of the nearby Newark, New Jersey, archdiocese, favored the bill, stating: “To Catholics, homosexual acts are objectively wrong in the moral order, although individual homosexuals may be personally free of moral guilt, and should not be condemned by the community around them.”
Lowest Church Membership
? Church membership is declining just about everywhere. But in some parts of the U.S. low church membership is more obvious. Where? A recent study shows that in the Pacific region—Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington—no more than 37 percent of the population are church members. Washington State has the lowest figure—32.5 percent. About half the U.S. population does not have any religious affiliation, according to the study.
The Story’s Other Side
? Dr. George L. Kirkham, an assistant professor in Florida State University’s school. of criminology, wanted to study law enforcement firsthand. So he became a policeman. With what change in his outlook? He writes in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin: “Persons such as myself, members of the academic community, have traditionally been quick to find fault with the police. . . . Now, as a police officer, I began to encounter the offender for the first time as a very real menace to my personal safety and the security of our society. The felon was no longer a harmless figure sitting in blue denims across my prison desk, a ‘victim’ of society to be treated with compassion and leniency. He became an armed robber fleeing from the scene of a crime, a crazed maniac threatening his family with a gun, someone who might become my killer crouched behind the wheel of a car on a dark street. Like crime itself, fear quickly ceased to be an impersonal and abstract thing.”
Fewer Farmers
? Food grows scarcer around the world. But farmers continue at a rapid pace to forsake the land for other occupations. Now, Europe’s Vision magazine reports, farmers in the southern part of the continent are quitting in “massive” numbers. In 1964, for instance, Greece is said to have had 57 percent of its civilian labor force in agriculture; in 1971 the figure was 37.3 percent. Other outstanding drops in the European agriculture labor force about the same period include: Portugal, 42.1 to 30.6 percent; Spain, 37.9 to 27.6 percent; Norway, 20.6 to 12.3 percent; and West Germany, 11.6 to 7.5 percent.
Problems of Dams
? Egypt’s mighty Aswan Dam has come to be considered the “present-day symbol of schistosomiasis,” a parasitic disease already afflicting some 200 million persons in Asia, Africa, South America and the Caribbean. The dam will soon irrigate millions of Egyptian square miles—and spread the disease to millions more persons. Meanwhile, the Colorado River, a major U.S. stream laced with innumerable dams, irrigates some of the most arid land in the southwestern U.S. In its flow, it picks up mineral salts, which poison crops in neighboring Mexico’s fertile Mexicali Valley.
A Bishop’s “Gibberish”
? In this secular age one might expect atheists to refer to the Biblical account about the Tower of Babel and the changing of languages by God as a “myth.” But would a Catholic bishop say such a thing? Fulton J. Sheen recently did, adding: “This was no supernatural phenomenon.” Well, then, what was it? Sheen answers: “A direct result of the complexity of their technology. Architects, engineers, builders, brick masons, astrologers, bookkeepers developed their separate jargons and scientific gibberish so that one could not understand what the others were saying.” The Bible’s report on what happened was “inspired of God.” Where did Bishop Sheen get his information?
Greasy Grease
? Why did not someone think of it before? Make grease greasier! How? Engineers at General Motors Corporation have mixed tiny ball bearings into grease and, in doing so, claim the friction is greatly reduced. At slow-speed applications the new procedure is almost as effective as roller bearings, though at a fraction of the cost. A thousand-pound load placed on the new grease reportedly can be moved with one pound of force.
Drugs and Kidneys
? Both narcotic and medicinal drugs can bring about kidney disease. Dr. Garabed Eknoyan, professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, recently informed the American College of Physicians that kidney disease complications can arise from addiction to narcotics like heroin and cocaine. Meanwhile, Dr. Thomas G. Murray, with the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, claims that in a study of 101 cases of one form of kidney disease that he studied, some 20 percent were due to heavy use of non-narcotic analgesics, including aspirin, as well as other pain-killing, popularly sold drugs.
100th Derby
? On Saturday, May 4, the 100th Kentucky Derby was run in Louisville. But for the 100,000 spectators of this horse race much of the show was not on the track. One man wrote the Louisville Times: “Marijuana smoke filled the air. Drunken teen-agers streaked. Several males relieved themselves in the presence of the spectators. The mob tore down fences.” The city fielded a fourteen-man anti-pickpocket unit. At least 63 persons were theft victims.
Millions Cannot Read
? “There may be over a million adults of normal intelligence in Britain who cannot read properly,” reports London’s Daily Mail. And in the U.S., the results of a four-year testing program reveal that about a million youngsters between the ages of twelve and seventeen cannot read at a fourth-grade level. The test suggests, says the New York Post, that illiteracy is “more pervasive than ever before realized.”
“Increasing Lawlessness”
? Some people like to think that crime is limited to the big cities. But a report from Roundup, Montana (population about 2,000), indicates otherwise. The local weekly newspaper recently ran a front-page editorial referring to the “increasing lawlessness” that has led to talk of vigilantes; it urged citizens not to “take matters into their own hands.” County Sheriff George A. Palmer says that Roundup faces problems similar to those in the big cities: “Drinking, drugs and no respect for the law whatsoever.”
Non-Tobacco Cigarettes
? Non-tobacco cigarettes have been found to be just as harmful to the respiratory system as those made from tobacco. Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, using lettuce and bluestem grass cigarettes, conclude that smoke from any burnable material causes respiratory damage. Their report is found in a recent issue of Archives of Environmental Health.
The War’s Children
? The war in Northern Ireland has brought youngsters into contact with bloodshed and violence. The Irish Republican Army has warned children to stay away from soldiers. The British Army has even cautioned that youngsters should not play with toy guns, which often appear real. No one wants an innocent child to be shot by mistake. However, some youngsters are not entirely innocent as far as the fighting is concerned. According to a London Daily Telegraph report: “The young are rapidly becoming veterans of violence. Many thoroughly enjoy the stonethrowing and gun fights. The other night an 11-year-old told his mother he was going out to ‘pelt the soldiers.’ All the mother replied was: ‘Not in those best shoes you’re not.’”
No Stability
? “Stability,” says a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, “is a larger problem than ever.” As a consequence, around the world fewer leaders seem to be able to hold onto their positions. “It seems,” continues the Journal, “that the modern environment is an acid that attacks democratic leaders. The pace of life is so fast . . . that any problem or dislocation is likely to divide and inflame the public. In such a hectic and impatient age, political leaders cannot build enduring support; they are bound to fall victim to one passing crisis or another. It would be a mistake to underestimate this air of perpetual crisis.”
Bank Losses
? In the last six months of 1973 banks lost about $100 million to criminals. But less than $13 million was taken in holdups. The amount lost to embezzlers is said to be over five times that lost to robbers. California banks lost about $3.8 million as a result of illegal credit cards. “Robberies,” says the Los Angeles Times, “are small potatoes compared to bank losses from forgery, credit card fraud or embezzlement.” Banks are said to spend ten times their actual losses in attempts to protect themselves from criminals.
Doctors’ Hazards
? U.S. physicians suffer the highest rate of alcoholism of any profession, says the head of alcoholic detoxification at San Francisco General Hospital. Their “obsessive, compulsive, industrious” personalities lend themselves to addiction, he adds. These traits may be one reason that their wives have been found to seek mental help out of proportion to the general population, as their doctor husbands often fail to supply the affection wives need. Stresses on female physicians are such that their suicide rate is three times that of women generally.
Soviet Women
? Well over two thirds of the doctors in the Soviet Union are now women. Also, “women scientists account for 39 per cent of the country’s total,” says Soviet Life magazine.
Evolution and Religion—The Debate Continues
MOST persons are somewhat acquainted with a debate that started over one hundred years ago. The issue is this: Was man placed on earth as a special creation of God, as stated in the Bible? Or, has man evolved from a lower creature? Do not mistakenly think that this is a dead issue in the 1970’s. Vigorous, even heated, language is still heard from both sides in this ongoing debate.
However, thousands of persons who have heard arguments from both sides are not sure what to believe. Why? Because certain of the participants have confused them. In what way?
Well, the average person expects men of science to support a belief in evolution; most scientists, though not all, usually do. But, on the other hand, most people also ordinarily expect that religious leaders will uphold the belief that God created man, as taught in the Bible. But with growing frequency that is not the case.
Of course, not all clergymen openly embrace and advocate evolution. A large segment of them try to take a “middle of the road” approach to the issue. They do not reject evolution as wrong; but, then, neither do they positively stand behind the Bible. Many try to make it appear that evolution and the Biblical account of creation are compatible and that both, in some way, are correct.
It is difficult for church and synagogue members to understand such reasoning. Why? They have read (or heard read) portions of the Bible book of Genesis, which shows that man was a separate creation of God, a creature that reproduces only ‘after its kind.’ But evolution says that man came forth from a lower “kind,” from animal kind. The Bible also indicates that the first man on earth was created by God about 6,000 years ago. But evolution says that man appeared over a million years ago, and then only after several million years of evolving.
Most people can see that these teachings are opposites. Both could not possibly be right. Thus they understandably expect participants in the debate to take a positive stand for one view or the other—for special creation as taught in the Bible, or for evolution.
It is not the particular purpose of this article to provide scientific details advocating either evolution or special creation. Rather, we want to give our readers an idea of how widespread the teaching of evolution is among religious organizations. With that knowledge one can better appreciate why so many people, even those claiming to be religious, do not have clear opinions on the subject.
Just what are religious men saying currently in this debate?
Some Protestant Views
Many Protestants have been startled to learn that their clergymen are rallying to the side of evolution. For instance, the Episcopalian dean of San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral says:
“That Biblical myth-story was but one of many such which were developed by primitive religions. Over 100 years ago modern science began to dismantle the superstructure of religious myth-stories of origins, and of the Genesis story in particular, by means of scientific investigation. In so doing, science rendered Biblical religion an inestimable service.”
This dean’s views are largely shared by William H. Amos, who teaches at the Episcopalian St. Andrews School in Middletown, Delaware: “The sweep of evolutionary development of man (and of all life) is both magnificent and humbling, and in no way is antithetical to our religious convictions.”
Too, consider the stand that Ernest Marshall Howse, a former moderator of the United Church of Canada, takes on this issue. His church members may expect that he would credit the God of Genesis with the wonders of creation. Yet he writes: “In a billion years the stupendous processes of evolution have worked marvels.” Similarly, Roy Essex, Baptist chaplain at the University of Toronto, says: “I don’t go along with the Adam and Eve stuff.” These are only a sampling of Protestant clergymen who have taken evolution’s side of the issue in the debate.
Evolution and Catholics
Some Roman Catholics have also been strong advocates of evolution, leaving many Catholics unsure as to what to believe in this matter. One prominent Jesuit who taught evolution was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Though he died in 1955, his evolutionary ideas still strongly affect the church. The December 15, 1973, issue of the Jesuit weekly America goes so far as to refer to Teilhard’s “inspiring vision” in which the concept of “God is revealed . . . as the culmination of natural evolutionary processes.”
The Liberal Catholic Church uses Teilhard’s evolutionary views as the basis for many of their teachings. Leading them to what conclusion? The “Reverend” Christopher Francis recently told The Oregonian: “We believe that Jesus Christ is the product of an evolutionary process . . . We do not believe that he is the redeemer.”
But failure to support the Bible’s creation account in this debate reaches outside the “Christian” religions.
What About the Jews?
A Jewish rabbi, Amiel Wohl, of the Congregation B’nai Israel in Sacramento, California, appeared before the California State Board of Education regarding that State’s school textbooks in 1972. Did he come positively to the defense of the Genesis account of creation? No. Part of his statement made reference to the “Adam and Eve stories” and “other Biblical tales.”
If you are Jewish, such a statement may surprise you. But it is hardly inconsistent with the stand taken by the recently released Encydopædia Judaica. In its article on evolution this Jewish work does not clearly favor the Bible’s creation account.
But are such statements by religious men upholding evolution limited to the “mainline religions”? No, more and more members of the churches that are not quite so prominent are also finding that religious leaders and outstanding members of their organizations do not always positively support the creation account.
What About Mormons and Evolution?
As a case in point, consider the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose members are often referred to as Mormons. To understand the stance of some current Mormons on the subject of evolution, it is helpful briefly to consider the views of its first president, Brigham Young, who lived in the nineteenth century. Was he one who clearly advocated the Bible’s creation account? We read in the Journal of Discourses:
“As for the Bible account of the creation we may say that the Lord gave it to Moses, or rather Moses obtained the history and traditions of the fathers, and from these picked out what he considered necessary, and that account has been handed down from age to age, and we have got it, no matter whether it is correct or not.”—(14:115-16), 1871.
From this statement it is evident that Mormonism has not taken an unequivocal stand on the validity of the Bible on this issue. Understandably, Mormons today whose professional field of interest in some way involves evolution often endorse at least some form of that teaching.
Thus Mormon William Lee Stokes, professor of geology at the University of Utah, says that he holds the Scriptures “in high regard.” But the 1973 edition of his textbook Essentials of Earth History states: “Although a century of investigation has revealed a great number of weaknesses in Darwin’s theory, the central idea that natural selection is the guiding principle in evolution remains as powerful as ever.”
A Mormon biologist at California’s American River College, George L. Moore, has a similar opinion:
“I believe in organic evolution to a point. It is quite logical the development of atoms to simple life forms as proposed by leading texts today . . . The exact mechanisms (steps) of course are still open to some discussion and how far this type of evolution proceeded in the development of different forms of life is not a serious conflict in my personal beliefs. Other evidences for evolution are extremely strong also and I feel very comfortable with them . . . I do believe that evolution is presently taking place through natural selection.”
Duane E. Jeffrey, an assistant professor of zoology at the Mormon-controlled Brigham Young University in Utah, states pointedly: “The question of whether species evolve is no longer open; it has long since been resolved affirmatively.”
Yes, religious leaders and prominent members of their flocks in Catholicism, Judaism and Protestantism do not positively support the Bible in this continuing debate. Because of their divided stand many of their religious followers are confused, not sure what to believe about evolution.
What are your views in this matter? Can you state clearly why you believe either one or the other, evolution or the Bible’s account of creation? If there is uncertainty as to what you believe in this respect, could the reason be that your own minister, priest or rabbi is himself not taking an undivided stand on this issue? What does he believe? The only way to know is to ask him.
However, thousands of persons who have heard arguments from both sides are not sure what to believe. Why? Because certain of the participants have confused them. In what way?
Well, the average person expects men of science to support a belief in evolution; most scientists, though not all, usually do. But, on the other hand, most people also ordinarily expect that religious leaders will uphold the belief that God created man, as taught in the Bible. But with growing frequency that is not the case.
Of course, not all clergymen openly embrace and advocate evolution. A large segment of them try to take a “middle of the road” approach to the issue. They do not reject evolution as wrong; but, then, neither do they positively stand behind the Bible. Many try to make it appear that evolution and the Biblical account of creation are compatible and that both, in some way, are correct.
It is difficult for church and synagogue members to understand such reasoning. Why? They have read (or heard read) portions of the Bible book of Genesis, which shows that man was a separate creation of God, a creature that reproduces only ‘after its kind.’ But evolution says that man came forth from a lower “kind,” from animal kind. The Bible also indicates that the first man on earth was created by God about 6,000 years ago. But evolution says that man appeared over a million years ago, and then only after several million years of evolving.
Most people can see that these teachings are opposites. Both could not possibly be right. Thus they understandably expect participants in the debate to take a positive stand for one view or the other—for special creation as taught in the Bible, or for evolution.
It is not the particular purpose of this article to provide scientific details advocating either evolution or special creation. Rather, we want to give our readers an idea of how widespread the teaching of evolution is among religious organizations. With that knowledge one can better appreciate why so many people, even those claiming to be religious, do not have clear opinions on the subject.
Just what are religious men saying currently in this debate?
Some Protestant Views
Many Protestants have been startled to learn that their clergymen are rallying to the side of evolution. For instance, the Episcopalian dean of San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral says:
“That Biblical myth-story was but one of many such which were developed by primitive religions. Over 100 years ago modern science began to dismantle the superstructure of religious myth-stories of origins, and of the Genesis story in particular, by means of scientific investigation. In so doing, science rendered Biblical religion an inestimable service.”
This dean’s views are largely shared by William H. Amos, who teaches at the Episcopalian St. Andrews School in Middletown, Delaware: “The sweep of evolutionary development of man (and of all life) is both magnificent and humbling, and in no way is antithetical to our religious convictions.”
Too, consider the stand that Ernest Marshall Howse, a former moderator of the United Church of Canada, takes on this issue. His church members may expect that he would credit the God of Genesis with the wonders of creation. Yet he writes: “In a billion years the stupendous processes of evolution have worked marvels.” Similarly, Roy Essex, Baptist chaplain at the University of Toronto, says: “I don’t go along with the Adam and Eve stuff.” These are only a sampling of Protestant clergymen who have taken evolution’s side of the issue in the debate.
Evolution and Catholics
Some Roman Catholics have also been strong advocates of evolution, leaving many Catholics unsure as to what to believe in this matter. One prominent Jesuit who taught evolution was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Though he died in 1955, his evolutionary ideas still strongly affect the church. The December 15, 1973, issue of the Jesuit weekly America goes so far as to refer to Teilhard’s “inspiring vision” in which the concept of “God is revealed . . . as the culmination of natural evolutionary processes.”
The Liberal Catholic Church uses Teilhard’s evolutionary views as the basis for many of their teachings. Leading them to what conclusion? The “Reverend” Christopher Francis recently told The Oregonian: “We believe that Jesus Christ is the product of an evolutionary process . . . We do not believe that he is the redeemer.”
But failure to support the Bible’s creation account in this debate reaches outside the “Christian” religions.
What About the Jews?
A Jewish rabbi, Amiel Wohl, of the Congregation B’nai Israel in Sacramento, California, appeared before the California State Board of Education regarding that State’s school textbooks in 1972. Did he come positively to the defense of the Genesis account of creation? No. Part of his statement made reference to the “Adam and Eve stories” and “other Biblical tales.”
If you are Jewish, such a statement may surprise you. But it is hardly inconsistent with the stand taken by the recently released Encydopædia Judaica. In its article on evolution this Jewish work does not clearly favor the Bible’s creation account.
But are such statements by religious men upholding evolution limited to the “mainline religions”? No, more and more members of the churches that are not quite so prominent are also finding that religious leaders and outstanding members of their organizations do not always positively support the creation account.
What About Mormons and Evolution?
As a case in point, consider the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose members are often referred to as Mormons. To understand the stance of some current Mormons on the subject of evolution, it is helpful briefly to consider the views of its first president, Brigham Young, who lived in the nineteenth century. Was he one who clearly advocated the Bible’s creation account? We read in the Journal of Discourses:
“As for the Bible account of the creation we may say that the Lord gave it to Moses, or rather Moses obtained the history and traditions of the fathers, and from these picked out what he considered necessary, and that account has been handed down from age to age, and we have got it, no matter whether it is correct or not.”—(14:115-16), 1871.
From this statement it is evident that Mormonism has not taken an unequivocal stand on the validity of the Bible on this issue. Understandably, Mormons today whose professional field of interest in some way involves evolution often endorse at least some form of that teaching.
Thus Mormon William Lee Stokes, professor of geology at the University of Utah, says that he holds the Scriptures “in high regard.” But the 1973 edition of his textbook Essentials of Earth History states: “Although a century of investigation has revealed a great number of weaknesses in Darwin’s theory, the central idea that natural selection is the guiding principle in evolution remains as powerful as ever.”
A Mormon biologist at California’s American River College, George L. Moore, has a similar opinion:
“I believe in organic evolution to a point. It is quite logical the development of atoms to simple life forms as proposed by leading texts today . . . The exact mechanisms (steps) of course are still open to some discussion and how far this type of evolution proceeded in the development of different forms of life is not a serious conflict in my personal beliefs. Other evidences for evolution are extremely strong also and I feel very comfortable with them . . . I do believe that evolution is presently taking place through natural selection.”
Duane E. Jeffrey, an assistant professor of zoology at the Mormon-controlled Brigham Young University in Utah, states pointedly: “The question of whether species evolve is no longer open; it has long since been resolved affirmatively.”
Yes, religious leaders and prominent members of their flocks in Catholicism, Judaism and Protestantism do not positively support the Bible in this continuing debate. Because of their divided stand many of their religious followers are confused, not sure what to believe about evolution.
What are your views in this matter? Can you state clearly why you believe either one or the other, evolution or the Bible’s account of creation? If there is uncertainty as to what you believe in this respect, could the reason be that your own minister, priest or rabbi is himself not taking an undivided stand on this issue? What does he believe? The only way to know is to ask him.
Watching the World 4
Population and Food
? African nations have increased food production about 22 percent since the early 1960’s. Then why the famine? One reason is that population increase drove already inadequate food consumption per person down 5 percent during the same period. Another reason is the severe drought that parts of Africa have experienced in recent years. “The only certain means of guaranteeing that the present catastrophe will not repeat itself lies with population control rather than with food supplies,” reports Time magazine. But the U.N.’s August and November conferences on population and food face the grim fact that “between now and the time they begin their deliberations, the world’s population will have increased by 30 million.”—May 13, 1974.
“Every Country for Itself”?
? The director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) now says that “by the middle of the year [1974] reserve food stocks will probably equal only three weeks world food consumption.” Another FAO official adds: “One big crop failure anywhere and it could be every country for itself.” But even if a country has grain, sometimes it becomes “every man for himself.” Time magazine reports that in some famine-stricken countries “officials have diverted some of the donated grain to commercial channels for sale at enormous profits. Much . . . remains heaped high on the docks where it is prey to rats, locusts and thieves.” U.N. Secretary-General Waldheim says “the governments told me they cannot ship it to the areas most afflicted” because of lack of roads and vehicles.
Outlook for Sharing
? Will U.S. food producers answer the world’s growing demand? Farm Journal editor Lane Palmer addressed a group of American agricultural editors and congressmen recently, saying that “our farmers can produce whatever food this country needs. I’m well aware of the famine . . . and of hunger elsewhere around the world. But I’m assuming that none of us any longer harbors the illusion that we can underwrite the world’s food security.” Why not? One reason is U.S. farm economics. The National Farmers Union secretary candidly told a Senate subcommittee that “many farmers view permanent scarcity of food as a goal that would be appropriate to their self-interest.”
Food or Golf Courses?
? Just about enough fertilizer to supply this year’s shortage in the world’s poorer countries will be spread by Americans on their lawns, cemeteries and golf courses. Making this point recently to a Senate subcommittee, president of the Overseas Development Council James P. Grant said that “people in the United States should know that the way we eat—and fertilize our lawns—is affecting lives everywhere.”
Garbage “Talks”
? What people throw away can be very revealing. Anthropologist William Rathje says: “What you find in garbage is the result of what people actually did, not what they think they did . . . or wish they did.” He directed a group of University of Arizona teachers and students in a project that went through garbage from various economic areas of Tucson. One finding of their careful inspection was that white households there waste more than minorities. “Cutting down on beef waste alone could possibly save more than 100 dollars a year for a middle-class household,” Rathje notes.
Oil Consumption Record
? Oil embargoes and production cutbacks last year did not stop the flow from reaching record levels. Consumption was up over 7 percent and production almost 9 percent over 1972, according to the British Petroleum Statistical Review. The United States alone used almost a third of the total.
Whole Blood “Unjustifiable”
? A recent medical bulletin to hospitals receiving blood from the German Red Cross advises: “For several years observations have been made . . . with regard to the use of so-called ‘whole blood’ for therapeutic purposes, which, because of the many avoidable side effects, seem to make its further use unjustifiable. . . . Sad to say there is no way to avoid a possible syphilis infection when using fresh blood.” Noting that the responsibility for undesirable reactions “can be put upon the blood donation service,” the German Red Cross says, “we will—as other blood donation services have already done . . . deliver no more whole blood.”
Churches or Homes?
? Rome’s priests continue to lash out against the Hierarchy’s traditional ties with the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. A pamphlet circulated by “lay people, and priests of the St. Leo the Great Parish” complains: “For 25 years now we have worried about building churches which no one wants. . . . so many billions [of lire] were spent that it would have been enough to give a house to all people living in huts. . . . Are we allowed to pray to God in these temples built with the hire of a prostitute’? (Mic. 1:7)”
Naples’ Empty Cathedrals
? The Italian newspaper Vita d’Oggi asks: “Where are the faithful of these splendid churches, which were artistically built and decorated, at very great expense, just to be empty of souls as everyone can witness today?” It has been estimated that ‘if even 10 percent of Neapolitans attended Mass, all the (still open) churches in the archdiocese would not be enough to contain them.’ Why are they “empty”? “It is very certain that everyone is ignorant of Christian doctrine . . . one must conclude that religious ignorance is motivated by the lacking vitality of Neapolitan Catholic education.”
Outlook for Economics
? Seventeen of the 24 industrial nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development are now suffering two-digit inflation (over 10 percent). The average annual rate for all is 12 percent, compared with just 3 percent during the 1960’s—four times as much! Columnist Joseph Alsop writes that the “wisest and most conservative men in the economic and financial communities have begun to talk helplessly about the threat of an onrushing, worldwide financial calamity.” Typical is the comment of the governor of the German Bundesbank, Karl Klasen: “Living with inflation would mean that our free enterprise system will die with inflation.”
“Week-to-Week” Country
? “We are literally fighting to survive,” says the prime minister of Sri Lanka’s 13 million people. The spiraling cost of food imports has left income from tea and rubber exports about $2 billion behind, making it increasingly hard to get loans. Now the nation, whose population has doubled in the last twenty-five years, is badly in need of rice and wheat. Says an economist: “The country is now operating on a week-to-week basis. . . . We don’t think beyond the week. We can’t.”
Belief in Devil Grows
? That fact shocked scientists at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The number of Americans believing rose from 37 to 48 percent in nine years, they were told, with another 20 percent believing the Devil’s existence is probable. Scientists had thought that the evolutionary process and rationalism would gradually eliminate such beliefs. The researcher linked the belief to ‘times of great stress, where things seem to be falling apart.’ A recent Harris survey reports that an even higher figure, 53 percent, believe in the Devil and over a third in demon possession.
Homemade Holocaust?
? The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission recently released a chilling study about the “large and growing” danger of terrorists’ stealing radioactive material to manufacture “simple” homemade atomic bombs. Expert testimony from Theodore B. Taylor, designer of the world’s smallest fission bomb, is the basis for this warning.
U.S. Catholic Decline—Why?
? The latest Official Catholic Directory reports the following one-year net decreases for the U.S. church: Priests, 200; nuns, 3,000; seminarians, 2,400 (a 61-percent drop from 1965); schools, 236; enrollment, 185,000. Church attendance dropped 21 percent. Why the decline? U.S. News and World Report found that “some feel the Church has lost its ‘air of mystery’ or ‘promise of peace and solace,’” due to the changes of the 1960’s. Says one priest: “If the things the Church has said in the last ten years are true, then everything it said for the last 2,000 years is false.”
Soviet Crop Damage
? Russian crops are suffering pest damage amounting to more than $12 billion a year, estimates the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture. Pravda complains that new high-yield wheat strains lack pest resistance. “In twenty years’ time, the harvests from our fields have doubled, while expenses on their protection [from pests] have gone up ten times.”
Australia’s Crime
? The United States is not alone in having a far higher crime rate than is actually reported. A new study shows that two thirds of the crimes in Sydney, Australia, go unreported. One family in four contains a crime victim. The study claimed that assaults on people are five times the number for any U.S. city with similar population. As in the U.S., “the overwhelming reason why the crimes went unreported was lack of confidence in the ability of police to do anything about them,” says The Australian.
Facts of Business Life
? What kind of environment do young people entering the U.S. business world face? Norman Jaspan, head of a New York management consultant firm, recently revealed that their chances of encountering ‘sizable dishonesty’ among any corporation’s personnel are greater than 50 percent. A 75-percent chance of ‘costly malpractice,’ such as wasting paid time, also awaits. He adds that kickbacks, bribes and conflicts of interest are now a dominant factor in business. Does this affect employees? “Employee dishonesty . . . is growing at the rate of 15 per cent a year.”
Murder Risk
? Babies born in 1974 are more likely to be murdered than an American soldier in World War II was likely to die in combat! Applied mathematics instructor Dr. Arnold Barnett of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology determined this from his studies projecting the rapidly rising U.S. murder rate into the future. He says that the commonly held idea that population growth is the reason for the spiraling murder rate is inadequate. It accounts for “less than one-tenth” of the increase that actually occurred from 1962 to 1972.
Beliefs Hinder Medicine
? Doctors have worked hard to try to conquer tropical diseases. Many things have hampered their efforts, such as ignorance, poor nutrition and lack of hygiene. One problem, often overlooked, is people’s beliefs. Says tropical disease expert Hildrus Poindexter of Howard University: “A common belief among many rural Vietnamese is that soil, even if polluted with human feces, cannot hurt people, because the soil is part of man. In Africa, childhood illnesses are often attributed to foul play rather than to infectious diseases, so parents seek the help of a witch doctor rather than that of a physician.”
Monk’s Life
? A recent survey of the world’s 14,000 Capuchin monks shocked the Vatican. Nearly a third of the “sheltered” monks indicated that they would welcome intimate relations with the opposite sex. That proportion also approved of violence, if necessary, to “promote social justice.” Four fifths of them believed that working is a better way of making a living than the Capuchin traditional begging.
? African nations have increased food production about 22 percent since the early 1960’s. Then why the famine? One reason is that population increase drove already inadequate food consumption per person down 5 percent during the same period. Another reason is the severe drought that parts of Africa have experienced in recent years. “The only certain means of guaranteeing that the present catastrophe will not repeat itself lies with population control rather than with food supplies,” reports Time magazine. But the U.N.’s August and November conferences on population and food face the grim fact that “between now and the time they begin their deliberations, the world’s population will have increased by 30 million.”—May 13, 1974.
“Every Country for Itself”?
? The director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) now says that “by the middle of the year [1974] reserve food stocks will probably equal only three weeks world food consumption.” Another FAO official adds: “One big crop failure anywhere and it could be every country for itself.” But even if a country has grain, sometimes it becomes “every man for himself.” Time magazine reports that in some famine-stricken countries “officials have diverted some of the donated grain to commercial channels for sale at enormous profits. Much . . . remains heaped high on the docks where it is prey to rats, locusts and thieves.” U.N. Secretary-General Waldheim says “the governments told me they cannot ship it to the areas most afflicted” because of lack of roads and vehicles.
Outlook for Sharing
? Will U.S. food producers answer the world’s growing demand? Farm Journal editor Lane Palmer addressed a group of American agricultural editors and congressmen recently, saying that “our farmers can produce whatever food this country needs. I’m well aware of the famine . . . and of hunger elsewhere around the world. But I’m assuming that none of us any longer harbors the illusion that we can underwrite the world’s food security.” Why not? One reason is U.S. farm economics. The National Farmers Union secretary candidly told a Senate subcommittee that “many farmers view permanent scarcity of food as a goal that would be appropriate to their self-interest.”
Food or Golf Courses?
? Just about enough fertilizer to supply this year’s shortage in the world’s poorer countries will be spread by Americans on their lawns, cemeteries and golf courses. Making this point recently to a Senate subcommittee, president of the Overseas Development Council James P. Grant said that “people in the United States should know that the way we eat—and fertilize our lawns—is affecting lives everywhere.”
Garbage “Talks”
? What people throw away can be very revealing. Anthropologist William Rathje says: “What you find in garbage is the result of what people actually did, not what they think they did . . . or wish they did.” He directed a group of University of Arizona teachers and students in a project that went through garbage from various economic areas of Tucson. One finding of their careful inspection was that white households there waste more than minorities. “Cutting down on beef waste alone could possibly save more than 100 dollars a year for a middle-class household,” Rathje notes.
Oil Consumption Record
? Oil embargoes and production cutbacks last year did not stop the flow from reaching record levels. Consumption was up over 7 percent and production almost 9 percent over 1972, according to the British Petroleum Statistical Review. The United States alone used almost a third of the total.
Whole Blood “Unjustifiable”
? A recent medical bulletin to hospitals receiving blood from the German Red Cross advises: “For several years observations have been made . . . with regard to the use of so-called ‘whole blood’ for therapeutic purposes, which, because of the many avoidable side effects, seem to make its further use unjustifiable. . . . Sad to say there is no way to avoid a possible syphilis infection when using fresh blood.” Noting that the responsibility for undesirable reactions “can be put upon the blood donation service,” the German Red Cross says, “we will—as other blood donation services have already done . . . deliver no more whole blood.”
Churches or Homes?
? Rome’s priests continue to lash out against the Hierarchy’s traditional ties with the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. A pamphlet circulated by “lay people, and priests of the St. Leo the Great Parish” complains: “For 25 years now we have worried about building churches which no one wants. . . . so many billions [of lire] were spent that it would have been enough to give a house to all people living in huts. . . . Are we allowed to pray to God in these temples built with the hire of a prostitute’? (Mic. 1:7)”
Naples’ Empty Cathedrals
? The Italian newspaper Vita d’Oggi asks: “Where are the faithful of these splendid churches, which were artistically built and decorated, at very great expense, just to be empty of souls as everyone can witness today?” It has been estimated that ‘if even 10 percent of Neapolitans attended Mass, all the (still open) churches in the archdiocese would not be enough to contain them.’ Why are they “empty”? “It is very certain that everyone is ignorant of Christian doctrine . . . one must conclude that religious ignorance is motivated by the lacking vitality of Neapolitan Catholic education.”
Outlook for Economics
? Seventeen of the 24 industrial nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development are now suffering two-digit inflation (over 10 percent). The average annual rate for all is 12 percent, compared with just 3 percent during the 1960’s—four times as much! Columnist Joseph Alsop writes that the “wisest and most conservative men in the economic and financial communities have begun to talk helplessly about the threat of an onrushing, worldwide financial calamity.” Typical is the comment of the governor of the German Bundesbank, Karl Klasen: “Living with inflation would mean that our free enterprise system will die with inflation.”
“Week-to-Week” Country
? “We are literally fighting to survive,” says the prime minister of Sri Lanka’s 13 million people. The spiraling cost of food imports has left income from tea and rubber exports about $2 billion behind, making it increasingly hard to get loans. Now the nation, whose population has doubled in the last twenty-five years, is badly in need of rice and wheat. Says an economist: “The country is now operating on a week-to-week basis. . . . We don’t think beyond the week. We can’t.”
Belief in Devil Grows
? That fact shocked scientists at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The number of Americans believing rose from 37 to 48 percent in nine years, they were told, with another 20 percent believing the Devil’s existence is probable. Scientists had thought that the evolutionary process and rationalism would gradually eliminate such beliefs. The researcher linked the belief to ‘times of great stress, where things seem to be falling apart.’ A recent Harris survey reports that an even higher figure, 53 percent, believe in the Devil and over a third in demon possession.
Homemade Holocaust?
? The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission recently released a chilling study about the “large and growing” danger of terrorists’ stealing radioactive material to manufacture “simple” homemade atomic bombs. Expert testimony from Theodore B. Taylor, designer of the world’s smallest fission bomb, is the basis for this warning.
U.S. Catholic Decline—Why?
? The latest Official Catholic Directory reports the following one-year net decreases for the U.S. church: Priests, 200; nuns, 3,000; seminarians, 2,400 (a 61-percent drop from 1965); schools, 236; enrollment, 185,000. Church attendance dropped 21 percent. Why the decline? U.S. News and World Report found that “some feel the Church has lost its ‘air of mystery’ or ‘promise of peace and solace,’” due to the changes of the 1960’s. Says one priest: “If the things the Church has said in the last ten years are true, then everything it said for the last 2,000 years is false.”
Soviet Crop Damage
? Russian crops are suffering pest damage amounting to more than $12 billion a year, estimates the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture. Pravda complains that new high-yield wheat strains lack pest resistance. “In twenty years’ time, the harvests from our fields have doubled, while expenses on their protection [from pests] have gone up ten times.”
Australia’s Crime
? The United States is not alone in having a far higher crime rate than is actually reported. A new study shows that two thirds of the crimes in Sydney, Australia, go unreported. One family in four contains a crime victim. The study claimed that assaults on people are five times the number for any U.S. city with similar population. As in the U.S., “the overwhelming reason why the crimes went unreported was lack of confidence in the ability of police to do anything about them,” says The Australian.
Facts of Business Life
? What kind of environment do young people entering the U.S. business world face? Norman Jaspan, head of a New York management consultant firm, recently revealed that their chances of encountering ‘sizable dishonesty’ among any corporation’s personnel are greater than 50 percent. A 75-percent chance of ‘costly malpractice,’ such as wasting paid time, also awaits. He adds that kickbacks, bribes and conflicts of interest are now a dominant factor in business. Does this affect employees? “Employee dishonesty . . . is growing at the rate of 15 per cent a year.”
Murder Risk
? Babies born in 1974 are more likely to be murdered than an American soldier in World War II was likely to die in combat! Applied mathematics instructor Dr. Arnold Barnett of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology determined this from his studies projecting the rapidly rising U.S. murder rate into the future. He says that the commonly held idea that population growth is the reason for the spiraling murder rate is inadequate. It accounts for “less than one-tenth” of the increase that actually occurred from 1962 to 1972.
Beliefs Hinder Medicine
? Doctors have worked hard to try to conquer tropical diseases. Many things have hampered their efforts, such as ignorance, poor nutrition and lack of hygiene. One problem, often overlooked, is people’s beliefs. Says tropical disease expert Hildrus Poindexter of Howard University: “A common belief among many rural Vietnamese is that soil, even if polluted with human feces, cannot hurt people, because the soil is part of man. In Africa, childhood illnesses are often attributed to foul play rather than to infectious diseases, so parents seek the help of a witch doctor rather than that of a physician.”
Monk’s Life
? A recent survey of the world’s 14,000 Capuchin monks shocked the Vatican. Nearly a third of the “sheltered” monks indicated that they would welcome intimate relations with the opposite sex. That proportion also approved of violence, if necessary, to “promote social justice.” Four fifths of them believed that working is a better way of making a living than the Capuchin traditional begging.
Major Surgery Without Blood
NOT long ago, blood transfusion was considered a routine part of major surgery. Nearly all doctors felt that they had to use it.
Today this is no longer the case. A growing number of doctors now recognize that they can operate successfully without administering blood. They have developed new techniques to do so. And these new methods are very much appreciated by the increasing number of patients who do not want blood transfusions.
Too, doctors have discovered that the new methods are superior to the older ones in certain important respects. Thus, as a general rule, they now often recommend these new procedures to their patients.
Why the Trend?
Why this trend toward bloodless surgery? Some reasons are noted in an Associated Press dispatch that states: “Two goals of bloodless surgery are to avoid potential hazards from transfusions, including transmitting the liver disease, hepatitis, and to reduce the need for blood donors.”
Blood-transfusion dangers are now widely acknowledged. As reported by Awake! in its May 22, 1974, issue, each year thousands of people are killed and tens of thousands of others are injured by blood transfusions. This is due to factors such as blood-carried contaminants and diseases (particularly hepatitis), technical errors (for instance, mismatched blood) and allergic reactions. Experts frankly admit that no known tests can totally eliminate these hazards. That is why Dr. Stanley Dudrick, chief surgeon in a Philadelphia hospital, says: “We don’t throw around a bottle of blood willy-nilly anymore.”
However, there is another reason why new techniques have been developed to eliminate transfusion of blood in surgery. As the Palo Alto Times of California notes: “The need to develop surgical techniques which did not require blood transfusions was stimulated in part by limitations on usual forms of surgery imposed by the faith of Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose religion opposes transfusion of donor blood.”
Jehovah’s witnesses will not take blood. They reject this form of medical treatment because God’s Word, the Holy Bible, requires Christians to “abstain . . . from blood.” (Acts 15:20) Hence, they look for doctors who will provide some alternative treatment when they are in need of surgery.
At first, nearly all doctors who were not Jehovah’s witnesses refused to perform the more difficult operations without blood. But gradually some came to appreciate the need to help Jehovah’s witnesses as best they could and accepted the challenge of finding ways of operating without using blood. As the new methods proved successful, more doctors began using them.
Many of these doctors are well known in their local communities. In the United States the names of many of them are now included on a list kept at the headquarters of Jehovah’s witnesses in Brooklyn. Such a list does not imply an endorsement of the doctor but is kept for the convenience of persons who need an operation but do not know a surgeon who will perform it without blood.
Can the new methods be used in all kinds of operations? Yes. And such operations include the most delicate and complicated types on vital organs.
“Bloodless” Open-Heart Surgery
At one time doctors considered it unthinkable to perform open-heart surgery without having the option of using blood. It is of interest, therefore, to see how bloodless heart surgery developed over the years.
Among the pioneers in the field were teams of Houston, Texas, doctors. They appreciated that simply refusing to operate on Jehovah’s witnesses was unreasonable, as, in some cases, this refusal would amount to an automatic death sentence.
Thus, in 1962 these doctors began devising methods to take the cases of Jehovah’s witnesses that other doctors had refused. One of the early reports on such surgery was contained in The American Journal of Cardiology of June 1964. In an article entitled “Open Heart Surgery in Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Drs. Denton A. Cooley, E. Stanley Crawford, James F. Howell and Arthur C. Beall, Jr., explained some of their bloodless techniques.
To enable the surgical team to operate on it, the heart may actually be stopped for a period of time. The pumping action is taken over by a “heart-lung” machine, which maintains the flow of blood and its vital oxygen to all parts of the body. It had been the usual practice to use about three pints of blood to prime its pumps and fill its tubing and blood reservoir before the machine was connected to the patient. What did these doctors use instead? They reported:
“The technic developed in our clinic also permits the use of 5% dextrose [a simple sugar] in distilled water to prime the extracorporeal [outside the body] unit without addition of blood. The solution contains 25 mg. of heparin per 1,000 ml. of solution to prevent fibrin depositions in the oxygenator. Priming volume consists of 20 to 30 ml. dextrose solution per kilogram body weight [about two quarts for a 150 pound person].”
Also, since no blood could be used during the operation, the surgeons had to be more meticulous, giving more than the usual attention to “hemostasis.” This is the checking of the flow of blood from severed vessels. From this need there has developed a number of new techniques now widely used.
Where artificial grafts were needed to replace a worn-out artery, special pre-clotted materials were used to prevent blood leakage. And various salt and sugar solutions were fed into the patient’s veins during the surgery.
The continued experience with Jehovah’s witnesses confirmed the beliefs of these early pioneers in bloodless surgery. Then, after nearly a decade of bloodless open-heart operations, a report was issued by The American Journal of Cardiology of February 1972 on the work of these Houston doctors. It covered in particular the surgery performed at the Texas Heart Institute of St. Luke’s–Texas Children’s Hospitals in Houston. Written by doctors John R. Zaorski, Grady L. Hallman and Denton A. Cooley, the report said, in part:
“Since 1962 bloodless prime has been routinely utilized in more than 5,000 operations at this institution with excellent results; and several hundred of these operations were performed electively without blood transfusions in patients most of whom were not Jehovah’s Witnesses. . . .
“The Jehovah’s Witness patients in this series received the same treatment as all other patients except that all Witness patients received injectable iron before and after operation, and no blood was held in reserve for them at the blood bank. The only fluid they received was the priming solution and intravenously administered dextrose in dilute saline or Ringer’s lactate solution.”
The report showed that in the entire period covered, only one of Jehovah’s witnesses died where the cause was “attributed to anemia.” This death came three days after the operation.
The general conclusion of this report was as follows: “We believe that our experience demonstrates the feasibility of open heart surgery in Jehovah’s Witnesses and, moreover, indicates that blood transfusion can and should be used sparingly to reduce morbidity and mortality in all patients.”
Others Begin Using New Methods
As experience was gained and publicized, other surgeons began to use similar bloodless (transfusionless) methods in open-heart cases as a service to Jehovah’s witnesses. For instance, in 1970 Dr. Charles W. Pearce performed bloodless open-heart surgery on one of Jehovah’s witnesses in Methodist Hospital in New Orleans. Dr. Pearce, who served several years as an investigator for the American Heart Association, was assisted in the operation by Dr. White Gibson. Regarding this surgery, an interesting account on the front page of The Sentry News of Slidell, Louisiana, relates:
“Many resident doctors and visiting doctors could not understand how it could be performed and were allowed in the operating room to witness this unusual operation. So many, in fact, that the hospital ran out of surgical gowns.”
The fact that other doctors could not understand how it could be done demonstrates the urgent need for doctors to keep up-to-date with improved surgical techniques. Also, it shows the need of their not rejecting all techniques that depart from what are considered “usual and accepted” methods.
In the case of this patient, observed by so many other doctors, amazement was expressed at the speedy recovery. In fact, a nurse’s aid nicknamed him “Speedy.” Only ten days after the operation, he was discharged from the hospital. The news report stated of the bloodless surgery experiences of Dr. Pearce:
“The surgeon said he believes the method used has proven a boon not only to Jehovah’s Witnesses but to most patients undergoing open heart surgery.
“‘We recently used this technique in 100 consecutive open heart operations for congenital heart defects,’ he explained, ‘and there was only one mortality.’
“The famed surgeon said that this method without the use of blood virtually eliminates the possibility of infectious hepatitis. He said it also reduces the possibility of an allergic reaction . . . that it reduces the more serious reactions of shock . . .
“When blood is used, the functions of the heart, lungs and kidneys sometimes become impaired during the early period following open heart surgery, Dr. Pearce explained. ‘But with the technique used . . . the function of these organs is nearly always satisfactory,’ he added.”
More Widespread Now
Reports from all over the world show that in the past few years, bloodless surgery in the more difficult operations, such as open-heart cases, has become quite widespread and accepted in highly regarded medical institutions. For instance, a Johannesburg, South Africa, heart specialist performed one on a fourteen-year-old girl, one of Jehovah’s witnesses. The Sunday Times there reported that she made a “fantastic recovery,” spending only one day in the intensive-care ward.
In Spokane, Washington, a team of surgeons now performs open-heart operations on Jehovah’s witnesses without using blood. The Seattle Times describes their method: “The physicians adopted a no-blood priming technique using a dextrose (sugar) and water solution alone or the sugar-and-water solution with Ringer’s lactate (a common therapeutic solution of sodium chloride, potassium chloride and calcium chloride).” They noted that there had been no negative results.
In San Francisco a fifty-four-year-old patient was badly in need of a heart operation. He was one of Jehovah’s witnesses. It was Dr. Elias Hanna and his team’s first experience with such bloodless surgery in an open-heart case. After the less than an hour-and-a-quarter-long operation, Dr. Hanna said of the patient: “He’s doing phenomenally well for all the work we did on him.”
In a letter that Dr. Jerome H. Kay of Los Angeles wrote to Awake! magazine in November 1973, he also noted that his team now performs bloodless open-heart surgery on the majority of all his patients. Dr. Kay added: “It has been a pleasure operating upon patients who are Jehovah’s Witnesses. We do not give these patients any blood or blood substitutes.”
It is obvious that if such complex operations as those involving the heart can be performed successfully without blood, others can too. This has proved to be the case. Now fortified by the experience and success of others, more doctors than ever are studying the new techniques and applying them.
Other Operations Without Blood
In Wellington, New Zealand, a fifteen-year-old girl had a brain tumor removed in a complex operation with no blood used. The operation was a complete success, and she was allowed to return home only one week later!
In Milwaukee, doctors operated on a sixteen-year-old who had torn a main artery in his chest. He had lost more than a quart of blood and would lose more during surgery. The Detroit Free Press reported that doctors “used salt water to replace his lost blood while they used a dacron tube to replace the torn part of his aorta.” When surgery was completed, the patient’s red-blood-cell count was only one third of normal. But doctors said that with iron supplements and a high protein diet the youth’s body would replace his lost blood in a few weeks.
The New York State Journal of Medicine contained an article entitled “Extensive Urologic Surgery Without Blood Transfusion.” It was written by Doctors Philip R. Roen and Francesca Velcek from the Department of Urology at St. Barnabas Hospital in New York. The doctors said:
“Our experiences with Jehovah’s Witnesses requiring operative procedures has demonstrated to us that blood transfusions are not necessarily essential even when hemoglobin levels are low—as low as 5 Gm. per 100 ml. in one of our cases!
“This indicates that this experience in avoiding blood transfusion may be applicable to an overwhelming percentage of cases even if the patient will permit such blood transfusion. The only requirement is a careful and more meticulous operative technic. We have adopted this approach in all our cases, and blood transfusion is a most unusual event in our hands. . . .
“Although special technics to reduce bleeding and operative risk have been employed by others, such as induced hypothermia, deliberately induced hypotension, use of colloid blood expanders, and so on, we have not resorted to such measures. The surgical attack has been that of a most meticulous operative technic with emphasis on sparing every milliliter of blood possible and replacement of blood loss with simple crystalloid solution, namely, lactated Ringer’s solution. The results have been most satisfactory.
“It is gratifying, moreover, not to have to be concerned about such complications of whole-blood transfusion as allergic or hemolytic reactions, renal shutdown, and hepatitis.”
What specific “formula” do these doctors use to replace the blood lost before or during surgery? They say:
“Our own method in caring for these patients has been that of employing only lactated Ringer’s solution for blood replacement. No specific formula is employed, but we generally use three times the volume of this fluid over the sustained blood loss. . . .
“Although isotonic dextrose solution and isotonic saline solution are widely used, a ‘balanced’ formulation is better—Ringer’s solution contains potassium and calcium in addition to sodium and chloride. It must be noted that the calcium and potassium are present only in ‘physiologic’ concentration and this preparation is not designed for replacing deficits of these ions.
“‘Improved’ Ringer’s solution contains sodium lactate. The customary Ringer’s solution has a slight acidifying effect; the lactated Ringer’s tends to overcome this acidifying influence and is therefore the preferred crystalloid solution for intravenous administration.”
Also, extensive abdominal operations, such as resections (removal) of the stomach and intestines in cases of malignant disease now have been done many times without the use of blood.
Probing Questions
In view of such successes, the following comment of Doctors Roen and Velcek is worthy of note. They said: “In most instances physicians and hospital authorities have refused operation on Jehovah’s Witnesses because of the problem of blood transfusions. We contend that it is wrong to deny operations to these people, no matter how extensive the contemplated surgery.”
These doctors cite case after case of Witnesses being refused surgery elsewhere, then coming to St. Barnabas Hospital and being operated on successfully without blood. The successes in bloodless surgery performed by other skilled surgeons all over the world confirm their conclusion.
Indeed, it must be said that today doctors who still refuse to operate on Jehovah’s witnesses unless blood is used betray themselves. While no doubt they are sincere, one now has to ask: Why do they refuse? Are they not familiar with what leading, highly respected surgeons are doing in other parts of the world, or in their own country, even in their own state or city? Is it possible that their past training and conditioning has made them close-minded, unwilling to progress with the latest developments in the field of medicine? May it be, in some cases, that they simply lack confidence in their skill? Or could religious prejudice even enter into the matter?
In the light of modern developments in medicine, there is no excuse for any doctor to try to force blood transfusions on people who do not want them.
Additional Procedures
Nor do the above examples exhaust the methods now used or under investigation in bloodless surgery. Another practice that has proved very useful has to do with building up the patient’s blood well before, when time permits, and also after surgery. Various nutrients are given to the patient, such as iron, vitamins and amino acids. In this way, although there may be blood loss during surgery, the remaining blood will be better able to carry the load. The nutrients will also help the body to replace lost blood. One doctor who uses this adjunct to the actual operation stated: “It is amazing how fast patients come around” in response to the buildup.
Another procedure has been worked on by Dr. James E. Eckenhoff, dean of Northwestern University Medical School. This involves hypotension, lowering of blood pressure to reduce blood loss. It is said to be useful in surgery of the head and neck and upper extremities, in neurosurgery and in plastic surgery.
Then there is the form of bloodless surgery called cryosurgery. This involves using extreme cold to lessen blood loss. It has been used to remove malignancies and to treat certain other conditions. One of the doctors who have worked on this method is Dr. Irving S. Cooper of St. Barnabas Hospital in New York.
Another idea was originated by New York physicist Lewis Balamuth. He was awarded a patent for a scalpel that vibrates at very high speed, over 30,000 strokes a second. The distance covered by the stroke is only about five thousandths of an inch. The blood vessels cut are at the same time cauterized, closed off by the heat of friction. This method is said to be useful in eliminating the need to tie off certain severed veins and arteries, and may represent an improvement over electro-cautery techniques in use by many surgeons for the past several years.
Fluorocarbons
Also of interest is a development that is still in the experimental stage. It has to do with the body’s need for oxygen. Normally, this need is taken care of by the red blood cells, which pick up oxygen from the lungs. The heart pumps the oxygenated blood throughout the body, where the oxygen is released to the billions of cells that require it for their normal functioning. However, the plasma volume expanders used now cannot carry oxygen. Thus, when there is very great blood loss, the body’s ability to transport oxygen is impaired.
The experiments involve what are called fluorocarbons capable of carrying oxygen. These are organic compounds in which all hydrogen atoms have been replaced by fluorine. One drawback has been their tendency to accumulate in body tissues with unpredictable effects. However, Science magazine reports that newer fluorocarbons have been devised that are rapidly eliminated from the bodies of experimental animals.
Scientists caution, however, that at this time it is not possible to relate these experiments on animals to practical effects in humans. Also, they note that these fluorocarbons are far from being total blood substitutes. Blood contains hundreds of other chemicals and structures besides the red cells with their oxygen-carrying capacity. So whether such research will ever result in practical help for humans remains to be proved.
Thus, it can be seen from all such efforts mentioned here, and others too, that good work is being done to honor the wishes of patients who do not want transfusions of blood. Already highly skilled surgeons have devised methods of eliminating blood during surgery, with very gratifying results. As more work is done in this direction, further beneficial results can be expected.
Today this is no longer the case. A growing number of doctors now recognize that they can operate successfully without administering blood. They have developed new techniques to do so. And these new methods are very much appreciated by the increasing number of patients who do not want blood transfusions.
Too, doctors have discovered that the new methods are superior to the older ones in certain important respects. Thus, as a general rule, they now often recommend these new procedures to their patients.
Why the Trend?
Why this trend toward bloodless surgery? Some reasons are noted in an Associated Press dispatch that states: “Two goals of bloodless surgery are to avoid potential hazards from transfusions, including transmitting the liver disease, hepatitis, and to reduce the need for blood donors.”
Blood-transfusion dangers are now widely acknowledged. As reported by Awake! in its May 22, 1974, issue, each year thousands of people are killed and tens of thousands of others are injured by blood transfusions. This is due to factors such as blood-carried contaminants and diseases (particularly hepatitis), technical errors (for instance, mismatched blood) and allergic reactions. Experts frankly admit that no known tests can totally eliminate these hazards. That is why Dr. Stanley Dudrick, chief surgeon in a Philadelphia hospital, says: “We don’t throw around a bottle of blood willy-nilly anymore.”
However, there is another reason why new techniques have been developed to eliminate transfusion of blood in surgery. As the Palo Alto Times of California notes: “The need to develop surgical techniques which did not require blood transfusions was stimulated in part by limitations on usual forms of surgery imposed by the faith of Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose religion opposes transfusion of donor blood.”
Jehovah’s witnesses will not take blood. They reject this form of medical treatment because God’s Word, the Holy Bible, requires Christians to “abstain . . . from blood.” (Acts 15:20) Hence, they look for doctors who will provide some alternative treatment when they are in need of surgery.
At first, nearly all doctors who were not Jehovah’s witnesses refused to perform the more difficult operations without blood. But gradually some came to appreciate the need to help Jehovah’s witnesses as best they could and accepted the challenge of finding ways of operating without using blood. As the new methods proved successful, more doctors began using them.
Many of these doctors are well known in their local communities. In the United States the names of many of them are now included on a list kept at the headquarters of Jehovah’s witnesses in Brooklyn. Such a list does not imply an endorsement of the doctor but is kept for the convenience of persons who need an operation but do not know a surgeon who will perform it without blood.
Can the new methods be used in all kinds of operations? Yes. And such operations include the most delicate and complicated types on vital organs.
“Bloodless” Open-Heart Surgery
At one time doctors considered it unthinkable to perform open-heart surgery without having the option of using blood. It is of interest, therefore, to see how bloodless heart surgery developed over the years.
Among the pioneers in the field were teams of Houston, Texas, doctors. They appreciated that simply refusing to operate on Jehovah’s witnesses was unreasonable, as, in some cases, this refusal would amount to an automatic death sentence.
Thus, in 1962 these doctors began devising methods to take the cases of Jehovah’s witnesses that other doctors had refused. One of the early reports on such surgery was contained in The American Journal of Cardiology of June 1964. In an article entitled “Open Heart Surgery in Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Drs. Denton A. Cooley, E. Stanley Crawford, James F. Howell and Arthur C. Beall, Jr., explained some of their bloodless techniques.
To enable the surgical team to operate on it, the heart may actually be stopped for a period of time. The pumping action is taken over by a “heart-lung” machine, which maintains the flow of blood and its vital oxygen to all parts of the body. It had been the usual practice to use about three pints of blood to prime its pumps and fill its tubing and blood reservoir before the machine was connected to the patient. What did these doctors use instead? They reported:
“The technic developed in our clinic also permits the use of 5% dextrose [a simple sugar] in distilled water to prime the extracorporeal [outside the body] unit without addition of blood. The solution contains 25 mg. of heparin per 1,000 ml. of solution to prevent fibrin depositions in the oxygenator. Priming volume consists of 20 to 30 ml. dextrose solution per kilogram body weight [about two quarts for a 150 pound person].”
Also, since no blood could be used during the operation, the surgeons had to be more meticulous, giving more than the usual attention to “hemostasis.” This is the checking of the flow of blood from severed vessels. From this need there has developed a number of new techniques now widely used.
Where artificial grafts were needed to replace a worn-out artery, special pre-clotted materials were used to prevent blood leakage. And various salt and sugar solutions were fed into the patient’s veins during the surgery.
The continued experience with Jehovah’s witnesses confirmed the beliefs of these early pioneers in bloodless surgery. Then, after nearly a decade of bloodless open-heart operations, a report was issued by The American Journal of Cardiology of February 1972 on the work of these Houston doctors. It covered in particular the surgery performed at the Texas Heart Institute of St. Luke’s–Texas Children’s Hospitals in Houston. Written by doctors John R. Zaorski, Grady L. Hallman and Denton A. Cooley, the report said, in part:
“Since 1962 bloodless prime has been routinely utilized in more than 5,000 operations at this institution with excellent results; and several hundred of these operations were performed electively without blood transfusions in patients most of whom were not Jehovah’s Witnesses. . . .
“The Jehovah’s Witness patients in this series received the same treatment as all other patients except that all Witness patients received injectable iron before and after operation, and no blood was held in reserve for them at the blood bank. The only fluid they received was the priming solution and intravenously administered dextrose in dilute saline or Ringer’s lactate solution.”
The report showed that in the entire period covered, only one of Jehovah’s witnesses died where the cause was “attributed to anemia.” This death came three days after the operation.
The general conclusion of this report was as follows: “We believe that our experience demonstrates the feasibility of open heart surgery in Jehovah’s Witnesses and, moreover, indicates that blood transfusion can and should be used sparingly to reduce morbidity and mortality in all patients.”
Others Begin Using New Methods
As experience was gained and publicized, other surgeons began to use similar bloodless (transfusionless) methods in open-heart cases as a service to Jehovah’s witnesses. For instance, in 1970 Dr. Charles W. Pearce performed bloodless open-heart surgery on one of Jehovah’s witnesses in Methodist Hospital in New Orleans. Dr. Pearce, who served several years as an investigator for the American Heart Association, was assisted in the operation by Dr. White Gibson. Regarding this surgery, an interesting account on the front page of The Sentry News of Slidell, Louisiana, relates:
“Many resident doctors and visiting doctors could not understand how it could be performed and were allowed in the operating room to witness this unusual operation. So many, in fact, that the hospital ran out of surgical gowns.”
The fact that other doctors could not understand how it could be done demonstrates the urgent need for doctors to keep up-to-date with improved surgical techniques. Also, it shows the need of their not rejecting all techniques that depart from what are considered “usual and accepted” methods.
In the case of this patient, observed by so many other doctors, amazement was expressed at the speedy recovery. In fact, a nurse’s aid nicknamed him “Speedy.” Only ten days after the operation, he was discharged from the hospital. The news report stated of the bloodless surgery experiences of Dr. Pearce:
“The surgeon said he believes the method used has proven a boon not only to Jehovah’s Witnesses but to most patients undergoing open heart surgery.
“‘We recently used this technique in 100 consecutive open heart operations for congenital heart defects,’ he explained, ‘and there was only one mortality.’
“The famed surgeon said that this method without the use of blood virtually eliminates the possibility of infectious hepatitis. He said it also reduces the possibility of an allergic reaction . . . that it reduces the more serious reactions of shock . . .
“When blood is used, the functions of the heart, lungs and kidneys sometimes become impaired during the early period following open heart surgery, Dr. Pearce explained. ‘But with the technique used . . . the function of these organs is nearly always satisfactory,’ he added.”
More Widespread Now
Reports from all over the world show that in the past few years, bloodless surgery in the more difficult operations, such as open-heart cases, has become quite widespread and accepted in highly regarded medical institutions. For instance, a Johannesburg, South Africa, heart specialist performed one on a fourteen-year-old girl, one of Jehovah’s witnesses. The Sunday Times there reported that she made a “fantastic recovery,” spending only one day in the intensive-care ward.
In Spokane, Washington, a team of surgeons now performs open-heart operations on Jehovah’s witnesses without using blood. The Seattle Times describes their method: “The physicians adopted a no-blood priming technique using a dextrose (sugar) and water solution alone or the sugar-and-water solution with Ringer’s lactate (a common therapeutic solution of sodium chloride, potassium chloride and calcium chloride).” They noted that there had been no negative results.
In San Francisco a fifty-four-year-old patient was badly in need of a heart operation. He was one of Jehovah’s witnesses. It was Dr. Elias Hanna and his team’s first experience with such bloodless surgery in an open-heart case. After the less than an hour-and-a-quarter-long operation, Dr. Hanna said of the patient: “He’s doing phenomenally well for all the work we did on him.”
In a letter that Dr. Jerome H. Kay of Los Angeles wrote to Awake! magazine in November 1973, he also noted that his team now performs bloodless open-heart surgery on the majority of all his patients. Dr. Kay added: “It has been a pleasure operating upon patients who are Jehovah’s Witnesses. We do not give these patients any blood or blood substitutes.”
It is obvious that if such complex operations as those involving the heart can be performed successfully without blood, others can too. This has proved to be the case. Now fortified by the experience and success of others, more doctors than ever are studying the new techniques and applying them.
Other Operations Without Blood
In Wellington, New Zealand, a fifteen-year-old girl had a brain tumor removed in a complex operation with no blood used. The operation was a complete success, and she was allowed to return home only one week later!
In Milwaukee, doctors operated on a sixteen-year-old who had torn a main artery in his chest. He had lost more than a quart of blood and would lose more during surgery. The Detroit Free Press reported that doctors “used salt water to replace his lost blood while they used a dacron tube to replace the torn part of his aorta.” When surgery was completed, the patient’s red-blood-cell count was only one third of normal. But doctors said that with iron supplements and a high protein diet the youth’s body would replace his lost blood in a few weeks.
The New York State Journal of Medicine contained an article entitled “Extensive Urologic Surgery Without Blood Transfusion.” It was written by Doctors Philip R. Roen and Francesca Velcek from the Department of Urology at St. Barnabas Hospital in New York. The doctors said:
“Our experiences with Jehovah’s Witnesses requiring operative procedures has demonstrated to us that blood transfusions are not necessarily essential even when hemoglobin levels are low—as low as 5 Gm. per 100 ml. in one of our cases!
“This indicates that this experience in avoiding blood transfusion may be applicable to an overwhelming percentage of cases even if the patient will permit such blood transfusion. The only requirement is a careful and more meticulous operative technic. We have adopted this approach in all our cases, and blood transfusion is a most unusual event in our hands. . . .
“Although special technics to reduce bleeding and operative risk have been employed by others, such as induced hypothermia, deliberately induced hypotension, use of colloid blood expanders, and so on, we have not resorted to such measures. The surgical attack has been that of a most meticulous operative technic with emphasis on sparing every milliliter of blood possible and replacement of blood loss with simple crystalloid solution, namely, lactated Ringer’s solution. The results have been most satisfactory.
“It is gratifying, moreover, not to have to be concerned about such complications of whole-blood transfusion as allergic or hemolytic reactions, renal shutdown, and hepatitis.”
What specific “formula” do these doctors use to replace the blood lost before or during surgery? They say:
“Our own method in caring for these patients has been that of employing only lactated Ringer’s solution for blood replacement. No specific formula is employed, but we generally use three times the volume of this fluid over the sustained blood loss. . . .
“Although isotonic dextrose solution and isotonic saline solution are widely used, a ‘balanced’ formulation is better—Ringer’s solution contains potassium and calcium in addition to sodium and chloride. It must be noted that the calcium and potassium are present only in ‘physiologic’ concentration and this preparation is not designed for replacing deficits of these ions.
“‘Improved’ Ringer’s solution contains sodium lactate. The customary Ringer’s solution has a slight acidifying effect; the lactated Ringer’s tends to overcome this acidifying influence and is therefore the preferred crystalloid solution for intravenous administration.”
Also, extensive abdominal operations, such as resections (removal) of the stomach and intestines in cases of malignant disease now have been done many times without the use of blood.
Probing Questions
In view of such successes, the following comment of Doctors Roen and Velcek is worthy of note. They said: “In most instances physicians and hospital authorities have refused operation on Jehovah’s Witnesses because of the problem of blood transfusions. We contend that it is wrong to deny operations to these people, no matter how extensive the contemplated surgery.”
These doctors cite case after case of Witnesses being refused surgery elsewhere, then coming to St. Barnabas Hospital and being operated on successfully without blood. The successes in bloodless surgery performed by other skilled surgeons all over the world confirm their conclusion.
Indeed, it must be said that today doctors who still refuse to operate on Jehovah’s witnesses unless blood is used betray themselves. While no doubt they are sincere, one now has to ask: Why do they refuse? Are they not familiar with what leading, highly respected surgeons are doing in other parts of the world, or in their own country, even in their own state or city? Is it possible that their past training and conditioning has made them close-minded, unwilling to progress with the latest developments in the field of medicine? May it be, in some cases, that they simply lack confidence in their skill? Or could religious prejudice even enter into the matter?
In the light of modern developments in medicine, there is no excuse for any doctor to try to force blood transfusions on people who do not want them.
Additional Procedures
Nor do the above examples exhaust the methods now used or under investigation in bloodless surgery. Another practice that has proved very useful has to do with building up the patient’s blood well before, when time permits, and also after surgery. Various nutrients are given to the patient, such as iron, vitamins and amino acids. In this way, although there may be blood loss during surgery, the remaining blood will be better able to carry the load. The nutrients will also help the body to replace lost blood. One doctor who uses this adjunct to the actual operation stated: “It is amazing how fast patients come around” in response to the buildup.
Another procedure has been worked on by Dr. James E. Eckenhoff, dean of Northwestern University Medical School. This involves hypotension, lowering of blood pressure to reduce blood loss. It is said to be useful in surgery of the head and neck and upper extremities, in neurosurgery and in plastic surgery.
Then there is the form of bloodless surgery called cryosurgery. This involves using extreme cold to lessen blood loss. It has been used to remove malignancies and to treat certain other conditions. One of the doctors who have worked on this method is Dr. Irving S. Cooper of St. Barnabas Hospital in New York.
Another idea was originated by New York physicist Lewis Balamuth. He was awarded a patent for a scalpel that vibrates at very high speed, over 30,000 strokes a second. The distance covered by the stroke is only about five thousandths of an inch. The blood vessels cut are at the same time cauterized, closed off by the heat of friction. This method is said to be useful in eliminating the need to tie off certain severed veins and arteries, and may represent an improvement over electro-cautery techniques in use by many surgeons for the past several years.
Fluorocarbons
Also of interest is a development that is still in the experimental stage. It has to do with the body’s need for oxygen. Normally, this need is taken care of by the red blood cells, which pick up oxygen from the lungs. The heart pumps the oxygenated blood throughout the body, where the oxygen is released to the billions of cells that require it for their normal functioning. However, the plasma volume expanders used now cannot carry oxygen. Thus, when there is very great blood loss, the body’s ability to transport oxygen is impaired.
The experiments involve what are called fluorocarbons capable of carrying oxygen. These are organic compounds in which all hydrogen atoms have been replaced by fluorine. One drawback has been their tendency to accumulate in body tissues with unpredictable effects. However, Science magazine reports that newer fluorocarbons have been devised that are rapidly eliminated from the bodies of experimental animals.
Scientists caution, however, that at this time it is not possible to relate these experiments on animals to practical effects in humans. Also, they note that these fluorocarbons are far from being total blood substitutes. Blood contains hundreds of other chemicals and structures besides the red cells with their oxygen-carrying capacity. So whether such research will ever result in practical help for humans remains to be proved.
Thus, it can be seen from all such efforts mentioned here, and others too, that good work is being done to honor the wishes of patients who do not want transfusions of blood. Already highly skilled surgeons have devised methods of eliminating blood during surgery, with very gratifying results. As more work is done in this direction, further beneficial results can be expected.
The World Tries to Manage Her Population
WELL-MEANING men and organizations have long been engaged in programs to relieve the problems attributed to population growth. Many “solutions” have been tried—some agricultural, some economic and some political.
However, as with most “cures” that attack symptoms rather than the cause of a disease, the results have been disappointing. Most programs have either had little success, failed outright or aggravated things still further. A look at some of these “solutions” shows why.
Free Food
A growing population can survive without many things, but not without food. For years the productive North American Great Plains have been a “granary of last resort” for starving nations. When populations living at bare subsistence levels had local crop failures, they could always count on the grain-rich countries to pack off millions of tons of surplus to tide them over.
Now the surplus is nearly gone. World food reserves are reported to be at their lowest in many years. Whether there will be enough food to eat during the year to come depends on the weather during the current growing season. “The world has become dangerously dependent on current production and hence on weather conditions,” says director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization A.H. Boerma.
Should bad weather strike, do you really think people will dip into their own reduced food supplies to aid starving peoples? Or, due to modern food production’s dependence on energy, will they sacrifice their energy supplies to aid these people? As the New York Times recently editorialized: “Affluent Americans could soon be faced with the choice of consuming energy on highways and in air-conditioned rooms, or permitting the production of food to feed whole populations in Africa and Asia.”—March 25, 1974.
Agricultural Self-Sufficiency
Programs to help the poor nations feed themselves have been launched with much fanfare. Dr. Norman Borlaug’s 1970 Nobel Peace Prize citation credited him with a “technological breakthrough that makes it possible to abolish hunger in the developing countries in the course of a few years.” Yet, even so, Dr. Borlaug said his Green Revolution was “not the solution.” It could only delay the food crisis while the nations continue working on population control. “If the world population continues to increase at the same rate, we will destroy the species,” he said.
Now the results are coming in. Among other things, this technology requires large amounts of increasingly costly energy, fertilizer and pesticides. As a result, rich farmers benefit far more than poor ones, who often cannot afford to use it at all. Wealthy households then buy up poor farmers’ lands, thus only adding to unemployment problems.
For these very reasons, a report on one nation’s intensive efforts to use Green Revolution technology says: “They are failing. Their optimistic plans and programs have created only increased human suffering and promise more of the same.”—Natural History, January 1974.
Economic Development
Other efforts attempt to slow the rate of population growth, rather than trying to feed any number that are born. Wealthy industrial nations generally have low growth rates, some even approaching the widely hailed goal of “zero population growth.” Their peoples seem naturally motivated to have fewer, better cared for children. On the other hand, in the less developed countries with largely rural populations, children themselves are considered a form of wealth. Parents desire them to help with farm work and as “social security” to care for them in old age.
As a result, families in these countries average nearly twice as many children as those in industrial nations. Also, “people have six or more children because they know that two or three will die,” says a Bangladesh official. And studies show that families who lose children often overcompensate by producing more living children than those whose children all survive.
Thus many conclude that the answer to overpopulation lies in economic development and industrialization, together with adequate measures to keep children alive so parents will not overcompensate. However, says The Encyclopædia Britannica, “overrapid growth of the population brings in its train an excessive need for [economic] investments . . . just to keep pace with the extra mouths to feed and bodies to clothe and shelter.” Thus, little or nothing is left to improve living standards.—Vol. 14, p. 823.
Recognizing this, most experts now agree that there are just not enough time, energy and other resources to develop the poor nations to the point that birthrates begin to drop naturally. Even if they could be developed, at least a generation passes before results begin to be felt. So the experts say that population growth must be reduced first, before economic development can be successful. That brings up—
Birth Control
Many believe that some form of birth control must be part of any successful population program. Accordingly, some nations are pouring funds into family-planning programs and reducing aid in other fields. What is the outlook for this “solution”? Disappointment.
“Radical” birth-control measures such as abortion and sterilization have morally destructive side effects. Japan legalized abortion in 1948. Professor T. S. Ueno of Tokyo’s Nihon University says, “We can now say the law is a bad one.” Free sex and lack of respect for the life of the unborn are among the moral problems he cited. “Abortion has become a substitute for contraception,” as indicated by the 1.5 million performed in 1972. He believes that where life is held in such low regard, the next step could be euthanasia, putting those over a certain age to death!
India, with perhaps the world’s oldest family-planning program, recently slashed her target figure for reduction in the 1980 birthrate by 40 percent! Many of the people and even their leaders are resisting government and international programs.
Selfish interests keep many from cooperating with family planning. They may want to keep their race, religion or language group numerically superior to gain or maintain political power, though they would be glad to see reduction in other’s populations. One major Latin-American nation recently restricted birth control there, hoping to double her population within the century. The desire for growing national power and fear of overpopulated neighbors were cited as reasons.
The Catholic Church has long used religious dogma to block any “artificial” form of birth control, so keeping her impoverished masses swelling in numbers. The Encyclopædia Britannica summarizes the overall outlook:
“It would be futile to deny that artificial population control is inhibited by powerful moral constraints and taboos. . . . even the most optimistic program of population control can only hope to achieve a slight reduction in the rate of increase by the end of the 20th century.”—Vol. 18, p. 54.
Does a “slight reduction” in twenty-five years sound like the “solution” to you?
“United” Action?
Failure of all the foregoing “solutions” is bringing home to world leaders that population growth is a world problem. Civilization has become tightly interdependent, and nations can no longer act without regard for international repercussions. Growing numbers of leaders are urging a cooperative world approach to solving problems associated with population. Accordingly, the United Nations has declared 1974 to be “World Population Year” and plans a world conference on population control in August.
A “world population plan of action” is expected to arise from this meeting. Will it be binding? One observer notes that the plan “could more appropriately be called a suggestion,” which will outline steps that countries “might wish” to take in their own circumstances. “This all seems pretty weak medicine,” notes this writer, in view of the rapidly escalating situation.—Science, March 1, 1974, p. 833.
The alternative to vigorous worldwide action is seen by many to be a series of jolting hardships that may pave the way for dictatorial control of population and resources, as well as the loss of human freedoms. They foresee forced abortion, sterilization and even such things as genetic engineering and elimination of the weak. Would you want such a “solution” imposed on you? Is there a better one?
However, as with most “cures” that attack symptoms rather than the cause of a disease, the results have been disappointing. Most programs have either had little success, failed outright or aggravated things still further. A look at some of these “solutions” shows why.
Free Food
A growing population can survive without many things, but not without food. For years the productive North American Great Plains have been a “granary of last resort” for starving nations. When populations living at bare subsistence levels had local crop failures, they could always count on the grain-rich countries to pack off millions of tons of surplus to tide them over.
Now the surplus is nearly gone. World food reserves are reported to be at their lowest in many years. Whether there will be enough food to eat during the year to come depends on the weather during the current growing season. “The world has become dangerously dependent on current production and hence on weather conditions,” says director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization A.H. Boerma.
Should bad weather strike, do you really think people will dip into their own reduced food supplies to aid starving peoples? Or, due to modern food production’s dependence on energy, will they sacrifice their energy supplies to aid these people? As the New York Times recently editorialized: “Affluent Americans could soon be faced with the choice of consuming energy on highways and in air-conditioned rooms, or permitting the production of food to feed whole populations in Africa and Asia.”—March 25, 1974.
Agricultural Self-Sufficiency
Programs to help the poor nations feed themselves have been launched with much fanfare. Dr. Norman Borlaug’s 1970 Nobel Peace Prize citation credited him with a “technological breakthrough that makes it possible to abolish hunger in the developing countries in the course of a few years.” Yet, even so, Dr. Borlaug said his Green Revolution was “not the solution.” It could only delay the food crisis while the nations continue working on population control. “If the world population continues to increase at the same rate, we will destroy the species,” he said.
Now the results are coming in. Among other things, this technology requires large amounts of increasingly costly energy, fertilizer and pesticides. As a result, rich farmers benefit far more than poor ones, who often cannot afford to use it at all. Wealthy households then buy up poor farmers’ lands, thus only adding to unemployment problems.
For these very reasons, a report on one nation’s intensive efforts to use Green Revolution technology says: “They are failing. Their optimistic plans and programs have created only increased human suffering and promise more of the same.”—Natural History, January 1974.
Economic Development
Other efforts attempt to slow the rate of population growth, rather than trying to feed any number that are born. Wealthy industrial nations generally have low growth rates, some even approaching the widely hailed goal of “zero population growth.” Their peoples seem naturally motivated to have fewer, better cared for children. On the other hand, in the less developed countries with largely rural populations, children themselves are considered a form of wealth. Parents desire them to help with farm work and as “social security” to care for them in old age.
As a result, families in these countries average nearly twice as many children as those in industrial nations. Also, “people have six or more children because they know that two or three will die,” says a Bangladesh official. And studies show that families who lose children often overcompensate by producing more living children than those whose children all survive.
Thus many conclude that the answer to overpopulation lies in economic development and industrialization, together with adequate measures to keep children alive so parents will not overcompensate. However, says The Encyclopædia Britannica, “overrapid growth of the population brings in its train an excessive need for [economic] investments . . . just to keep pace with the extra mouths to feed and bodies to clothe and shelter.” Thus, little or nothing is left to improve living standards.—Vol. 14, p. 823.
Recognizing this, most experts now agree that there are just not enough time, energy and other resources to develop the poor nations to the point that birthrates begin to drop naturally. Even if they could be developed, at least a generation passes before results begin to be felt. So the experts say that population growth must be reduced first, before economic development can be successful. That brings up—
Birth Control
Many believe that some form of birth control must be part of any successful population program. Accordingly, some nations are pouring funds into family-planning programs and reducing aid in other fields. What is the outlook for this “solution”? Disappointment.
“Radical” birth-control measures such as abortion and sterilization have morally destructive side effects. Japan legalized abortion in 1948. Professor T. S. Ueno of Tokyo’s Nihon University says, “We can now say the law is a bad one.” Free sex and lack of respect for the life of the unborn are among the moral problems he cited. “Abortion has become a substitute for contraception,” as indicated by the 1.5 million performed in 1972. He believes that where life is held in such low regard, the next step could be euthanasia, putting those over a certain age to death!
India, with perhaps the world’s oldest family-planning program, recently slashed her target figure for reduction in the 1980 birthrate by 40 percent! Many of the people and even their leaders are resisting government and international programs.
Selfish interests keep many from cooperating with family planning. They may want to keep their race, religion or language group numerically superior to gain or maintain political power, though they would be glad to see reduction in other’s populations. One major Latin-American nation recently restricted birth control there, hoping to double her population within the century. The desire for growing national power and fear of overpopulated neighbors were cited as reasons.
The Catholic Church has long used religious dogma to block any “artificial” form of birth control, so keeping her impoverished masses swelling in numbers. The Encyclopædia Britannica summarizes the overall outlook:
“It would be futile to deny that artificial population control is inhibited by powerful moral constraints and taboos. . . . even the most optimistic program of population control can only hope to achieve a slight reduction in the rate of increase by the end of the 20th century.”—Vol. 18, p. 54.
Does a “slight reduction” in twenty-five years sound like the “solution” to you?
“United” Action?
Failure of all the foregoing “solutions” is bringing home to world leaders that population growth is a world problem. Civilization has become tightly interdependent, and nations can no longer act without regard for international repercussions. Growing numbers of leaders are urging a cooperative world approach to solving problems associated with population. Accordingly, the United Nations has declared 1974 to be “World Population Year” and plans a world conference on population control in August.
A “world population plan of action” is expected to arise from this meeting. Will it be binding? One observer notes that the plan “could more appropriately be called a suggestion,” which will outline steps that countries “might wish” to take in their own circumstances. “This all seems pretty weak medicine,” notes this writer, in view of the rapidly escalating situation.—Science, March 1, 1974, p. 833.
The alternative to vigorous worldwide action is seen by many to be a series of jolting hardships that may pave the way for dictatorial control of population and resources, as well as the loss of human freedoms. They foresee forced abortion, sterilization and even such things as genetic engineering and elimination of the weak. Would you want such a “solution” imposed on you? Is there a better one?
Is There Really a Population Crisis?
“WE’RE at a point in history that’s never even been dreamed of before,’’ says noted authority William F. Draper concerning the oft-predicted population crisis. “It’s just going to engulf the world.”—Science, March 1, 1974.
What is behind such dire predictions of a world population calamity, which are now echoed by growing numbers of experts? Are they merely the clamorings of alarmists? Their gloomy forecasts have been widely questioned on the ground that they have ignored offsetting forces. Furthermore, it is argued, man’s ingenuity has always prevailed before, has it not?
But population authorities claim that this problem is different from anything mankind has faced before. It is deceptive, they say, because of the way population grows. Rather than a steady, even expansion, it feeds on itself, mushrooming dramatically until, suddenly, the limits of the environment are said to be reached.
How Population Grows
What happens can be illustrated by the anecdote about a man who agreed to work for one cent the first week if his employer would double his income every week thereafter: 2c, 4c, 8c, and so on. At the end of three months he would have only about $80. But, due to the “doubling” effect, from this deceptively slow start the man would have made over $45,000,000,000,000 by the end of a year, if the world’s money supply were not exhausted!
Population grows in a similar fashion, though many other factors enter as well. It took thousands of years for earth to gain its first billion humans, in about the middle of the last century. Yet it took less than a hundred years to double that population! Just thirty more years brought another billion into the world, and fifteen years will have produced the fourth billion, in 1975! The fifth billion? Experts estimate little more than a decade—barring a “miracle”—or a disaster.
Currently, the “doubling time” of earth’s population is under thirty-five years, but that time has been shrinking! The 1974 edition of The Encyclopædia Britannica points out that certain parts of the world are now experiencing a young population “endowed with both a high birthrate and a low deathrate. Such a condition if it lasted very long would result in earth’s population being multiplied 32,000 times in only 500 years.”—Vol. 14, p. 816.
Imagine! Over 200 persons have been added to the world since you started reading this article, about 150 a minute. A city of some 200,000 since this time yesterday, a metropolis of over six million every month, or a nation the size of West Germany every year could be populated! Just think what it takes to feed, shelter, clothe, educate and provide jobs for 78 million people in one year!
Can the World Absorb Them?
The world’s ability to meet these demands grows, but not as rapidly as the population. Shortages now jolting the world are said to prove that mankind is falling behind in the race. Snowballing demands on agriculture, education, housing and other needs have brought the world from abundance to scarcity in just a few short years. Unprecedented inflation even in the wealthy “developed nations” testifies to these shortages.
Further aggravating the situation is the fact that population is now growing more than twice as rapidly in the poor “less developed nations” as it does in the rich industrial ones. Since there are already nearly three times as many people in the poor countries, they must absorb most of the overall population increase. And the half of the world’s population under twenty years of age are living primarily in those countries. Think what a baby boom could lie ahead for them!
More and more persons must share virtually the same limited resources. Growing inequalities result. This process is called “polarization,” a widening gap between opposites. In simpler terms, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Consider:
● Last year’s total value of all goods and services, or gross national product, in the 128 poorer countries was far less than the increase alone in 21 wealthy nations.
● World grain production would have to grow eightfold if the rest of the world were to eat as well as North Americans.
● There are now 100 million more illiterate persons in the world than there were in 1950.
● Less than a third of earth’s people consume over nine tenths of the world’s energy, while more than two thirds must get along on the remaining 8 percent.
How successful are efforts to narrow the gap? A report to the 1974 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science noted that usually, when underdeveloped countries try to increase the educational level of their citizens and redistribute the wealth through land reform, productivity drops and they fall farther behind the developed nations.
As a result, says president of the World Bank Robert S. McNamara, this planet is like a ship with a quarter of its people in “luxury first-class conditions” and the other three quarters in “steerage,” the lowest-class accommodations. He said that it cannot be a “happy ship” with such inequities. Instead, it has become a breeding ground for hunger, misery, economic chaos and political ferment. Will world leaders find a solution? Some authorities believe it is already too late.
Gloomy Predictions
Growing numbers of experts believe that the crisis is rapidly coming to a head. Some even adopt a fatalistic attitude, foreseeing only a “death-rate” solution to the birthrate problem. One forecast, based on the assessment of “most experts on energy, agriculture, population and the global economy,” is that “a billion people, or fully a quarter of the earth’s population, face bankruptcy, social breakdown and mass famine within the next twelve months.”—The Denver Post, March 3, 1974.
Whether such predictions prove true or not, growing unrest over food shortages and high prices in India and the still-raging famine in Africa provide a melancholy background for their assessment. An official in Bangladesh, whose seventy-five million population is three times as dense as India’s, says that “unless we can control population here quickly, we can’t control anything. It is interwoven with our very existence, our survival as a nation.”
Social conduct is reported to be badly deteriorating in south Asia and parts of Latin America. News reports tell of “unexpected hoarding among farmers,” as well as widespread black marketing. “There is unprecedented adulteration of foods by merchants” to make them stretch farther, “sometimes with [poisonous] adulterants.” Another report says: “Bands of youths, armed with guns left over from the 1971 war, are roaming the towns and countryside in Bangladesh, committing antisocial activities unprecedented for the sensitive Bengali people.” Similarly, “bands of roving children, called ‘abandonados,’ now roam the streets of some Latin American cities like . . . packs of abandoned dogs.”
Some authorities believe that the population problem will probably make a “test case” of south Asia. One says: “The quality of life in this region has already begun to decline, with the fabric of society unraveling. And no man has been wise enough to think of a solution.”
This is certainly not because of lack of effort. Solutions have been and are being tried. What is happening to them?
What is behind such dire predictions of a world population calamity, which are now echoed by growing numbers of experts? Are they merely the clamorings of alarmists? Their gloomy forecasts have been widely questioned on the ground that they have ignored offsetting forces. Furthermore, it is argued, man’s ingenuity has always prevailed before, has it not?
But population authorities claim that this problem is different from anything mankind has faced before. It is deceptive, they say, because of the way population grows. Rather than a steady, even expansion, it feeds on itself, mushrooming dramatically until, suddenly, the limits of the environment are said to be reached.
How Population Grows
What happens can be illustrated by the anecdote about a man who agreed to work for one cent the first week if his employer would double his income every week thereafter: 2c, 4c, 8c, and so on. At the end of three months he would have only about $80. But, due to the “doubling” effect, from this deceptively slow start the man would have made over $45,000,000,000,000 by the end of a year, if the world’s money supply were not exhausted!
Population grows in a similar fashion, though many other factors enter as well. It took thousands of years for earth to gain its first billion humans, in about the middle of the last century. Yet it took less than a hundred years to double that population! Just thirty more years brought another billion into the world, and fifteen years will have produced the fourth billion, in 1975! The fifth billion? Experts estimate little more than a decade—barring a “miracle”—or a disaster.
Currently, the “doubling time” of earth’s population is under thirty-five years, but that time has been shrinking! The 1974 edition of The Encyclopædia Britannica points out that certain parts of the world are now experiencing a young population “endowed with both a high birthrate and a low deathrate. Such a condition if it lasted very long would result in earth’s population being multiplied 32,000 times in only 500 years.”—Vol. 14, p. 816.
Imagine! Over 200 persons have been added to the world since you started reading this article, about 150 a minute. A city of some 200,000 since this time yesterday, a metropolis of over six million every month, or a nation the size of West Germany every year could be populated! Just think what it takes to feed, shelter, clothe, educate and provide jobs for 78 million people in one year!
Can the World Absorb Them?
The world’s ability to meet these demands grows, but not as rapidly as the population. Shortages now jolting the world are said to prove that mankind is falling behind in the race. Snowballing demands on agriculture, education, housing and other needs have brought the world from abundance to scarcity in just a few short years. Unprecedented inflation even in the wealthy “developed nations” testifies to these shortages.
Further aggravating the situation is the fact that population is now growing more than twice as rapidly in the poor “less developed nations” as it does in the rich industrial ones. Since there are already nearly three times as many people in the poor countries, they must absorb most of the overall population increase. And the half of the world’s population under twenty years of age are living primarily in those countries. Think what a baby boom could lie ahead for them!
More and more persons must share virtually the same limited resources. Growing inequalities result. This process is called “polarization,” a widening gap between opposites. In simpler terms, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Consider:
● Last year’s total value of all goods and services, or gross national product, in the 128 poorer countries was far less than the increase alone in 21 wealthy nations.
● World grain production would have to grow eightfold if the rest of the world were to eat as well as North Americans.
● There are now 100 million more illiterate persons in the world than there were in 1950.
● Less than a third of earth’s people consume over nine tenths of the world’s energy, while more than two thirds must get along on the remaining 8 percent.
How successful are efforts to narrow the gap? A report to the 1974 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science noted that usually, when underdeveloped countries try to increase the educational level of their citizens and redistribute the wealth through land reform, productivity drops and they fall farther behind the developed nations.
As a result, says president of the World Bank Robert S. McNamara, this planet is like a ship with a quarter of its people in “luxury first-class conditions” and the other three quarters in “steerage,” the lowest-class accommodations. He said that it cannot be a “happy ship” with such inequities. Instead, it has become a breeding ground for hunger, misery, economic chaos and political ferment. Will world leaders find a solution? Some authorities believe it is already too late.
Gloomy Predictions
Growing numbers of experts believe that the crisis is rapidly coming to a head. Some even adopt a fatalistic attitude, foreseeing only a “death-rate” solution to the birthrate problem. One forecast, based on the assessment of “most experts on energy, agriculture, population and the global economy,” is that “a billion people, or fully a quarter of the earth’s population, face bankruptcy, social breakdown and mass famine within the next twelve months.”—The Denver Post, March 3, 1974.
Whether such predictions prove true or not, growing unrest over food shortages and high prices in India and the still-raging famine in Africa provide a melancholy background for their assessment. An official in Bangladesh, whose seventy-five million population is three times as dense as India’s, says that “unless we can control population here quickly, we can’t control anything. It is interwoven with our very existence, our survival as a nation.”
Social conduct is reported to be badly deteriorating in south Asia and parts of Latin America. News reports tell of “unexpected hoarding among farmers,” as well as widespread black marketing. “There is unprecedented adulteration of foods by merchants” to make them stretch farther, “sometimes with [poisonous] adulterants.” Another report says: “Bands of youths, armed with guns left over from the 1971 war, are roaming the towns and countryside in Bangladesh, committing antisocial activities unprecedented for the sensitive Bengali people.” Similarly, “bands of roving children, called ‘abandonados,’ now roam the streets of some Latin American cities like . . . packs of abandoned dogs.”
Some authorities believe that the population problem will probably make a “test case” of south Asia. One says: “The quality of life in this region has already begun to decline, with the fabric of society unraveling. And no man has been wise enough to think of a solution.”
This is certainly not because of lack of effort. Solutions have been and are being tried. What is happening to them?
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