October 22

Page Two

RIGHT NOW, all of us are busily manufacturing the resource that fuels their industry. You are making something they want. Who are “they”? Blood banks and plasma collection centers.

Many people believe that the blood industry wants only to save lives. But a growing chorus of critics are charging that blood banking is just another big business. So, in effect, blood cells become money.

Selling Blood Is Big Business

RED GOLD! As the nickname implies, this is one highly valued substance. It is a precious fluid, a crucial natural resource that has been compared not only to gold but also to oil and coal. However, red gold is not mined from veins in the rocks with drills and dynamite. It is mined from the veins of people by much subtler means.

“Please, my little girl needs blood,” implores a billboard that looms over a busy avenue in New York City. Other advertisements urge: “If you’re a donor, you’re the type this world can’t live without.” “Your blood counts. Lend an arm.”

People who want to help others evidently do get the message. They line up in droves, worldwide. No doubt most of them, as well as the people collecting the blood and the people transfusing the blood, sincerely want to help the afflicted and believe that they are doing so.

But after blood is donated and before it is transfused, it passes through more hands and undergoes more procedures than most of us realize. Like gold, blood inspires greed. It may be sold at a profit and then resold at a larger profit. Some people fight over the rights to collect blood, they sell it at exorbitant prices, they make fortunes from it, and they even smuggle it from one country to another. The world over, selling blood is big business.

In the United States, donors were once paid outright for their blood. But in 1971 British author Richard Titmuss charged that by thus luring the poor and sick to donate blood for the sake of a few dollars, the American system was unsafe. He also argued that it was immoral for people to profit from giving their blood to help others. His attack prompted an end to the paying of whole-blood donors in the United States (although the system still thrives in some lands). Yet, that did not make the blood market any less profitable. Why?

How Blood Remained Profitable

In the 1940’s, scientists began to separate blood into its components. The process, now called fractionation, makes blood an even more lucrative business. How? Well, consider: When dismantled and its parts sold, a late-model car may be worth up to five times its value when intact. Similarly, blood is worth much more when it is divided up and its components are sold separately.

Plasma, which makes up about half of the blood’s total volume, is an especially profitable blood component. Since plasma has none of the cellular blood parts​—red cells, white cells, and platelets—​it can be dried and stored. Furthermore, a donor is allowed to give whole blood only five times a year, but he can give plasma up to twice a week by undergoing plasmapheresis. In this process, whole blood is extracted, the plasma separated, and then the cellular components are reinfused into the donor.

The United States still allows donors to be paid for their plasma. Moreover, that country permits donors to give about four times more plasma annually than the World Health Organization recommends! Little wonder, then, that the United States collects over 60 percent of the world’s plasma supply. All that plasma in itself is worth about $450 million, but it fetches much more on the market because plasma too can be separated into various ingredients. Worldwide, plasma is the basis for a $2,000,000,000-a-year industry!

Japan, according to the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, consumes about a third of the world’s plasma. That country imports 96 percent of this blood component, most of it from the United States. Critics within Japan have called that country “the vampire of the world,” and the Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry has tried to clamp down on the trade, saying that it is unreasonable to profit from blood. In fact, the Ministry charges that medical institutions in Japan make some $200,000,000 in profits each year from just one plasma component, albumin.

The Federal Republic of Germany consumes more blood products than the rest of Europe combined, more per person than any country in the world. The book Zum Beispiel Blut (For Instance, Blood) says of blood products: “Over half is imported, mainly from the U.S.A., but also from the Third World. In any case from the poor, who want to improve their income by donating plasma.” Some of these poor people sell so much of their blood that they die from blood loss.

Many commercial plasma-centers are strategically located in low-income areas or along the borders of poorer countries. They draw the impoverished and the derelicts, who are all too willing to trade plasma for money and have ample reason to give more than they should or to conceal any illnesses they might harbor. Such plasma traffic has arisen in 25 countries around the world. As soon as it is stopped in one country, it springs up in another. Bribery of officials as well as smuggling is not uncommon.

Profit in the Nonprofit Realm

But nonprofit blood banks have also come under harsh criticism lately. In 1986 reporter Andrea Rock charged in Money magazine that a unit of blood costs the blood banks $57.50 to collect from donors, that it costs the hospitals $88.00 to buy it from the blood banks, and that it costs patients from $375 to $600 to receive it in a transfusion.

Has the situation changed since then? In September 1989 reporter Gilbert M. Gaul of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a series of newspaper articles on the U.S. blood-banking system.a After a yearlong investigation, he reported that some blood banks beg people to donate blood and then turn around and sell as much as half of that blood to other blood centers, at a considerable profit. Gaul estimated that blood banks trade about a million pints [half a million liters] of blood every year in this way, in a shadowy $50,000,000-a-year market that functions somewhat like a stock exchange.

A key difference, though: This blood exchange is not monitored by the government. No one can measure the exact extent of it, let alone regulate its prices. And many blood donors know nothing about it. “People are being fooled,” one retired blood banker told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “Nobody is telling them that their blood is going to us. They would be furious if they knew about it.” A Red Cross official put it succinctly: “Blood bankers have for years fooled the American public.”

In the United States alone, blood banks collect some 13.5 million pints [6.5 million L] of blood every year, and they sell over 30 million units of blood products for about a thousand million dollars. This is a tremendous amount of money. Blood banks don’t use the term “profit.” They prefer the phrase “excesses over expenses.” The Red Cross, for instance, made $300 million in “excesses over expenses” from 1980 to 1987.

The blood banks protest that they are nonprofit organizations. They claim that unlike big corporations on Wall Street, their money does not go to stockholders. But if the Red Cross did have shareholders, it would be ranked among the most profitable corporations in the United States, such as General Motors. And blood-bank officials do have handsome salaries. Of officials in 62 blood banks surveyed by The Philadelphia Inquirer, 25 percent made over $100,000 a year. Some made more than twice that much.

Blood bankers also claim that they do not “sell” the blood they collect​—they only charge processing fees. One blood banker retorts to that claim: “It drives me crazy when the Red Cross says it doesn’t sell blood. That’s like the supermarket saying they’re only charging you for the carton, not the milk.”

The Global Market

Like the plasma trade, the trade in whole blood encircles the globe. So does criticism of it. The Japanese Red Cross, for instance, stirred a furor in October 1989 when it tried to elbow its way into the Japanese market by giving large discounts on products extracted from donated blood. Hospitals reaped huge profits by claiming on their insurance forms that they had bought the blood at standard prices.

According to Thailand’s newspaper The Nation, some Asian countries have had to clamp down on the market in red gold by ending paid donations. In India as many as 500,000 sell their own blood to make a living. Some, haggard and impoverished, disguise themselves so they can donate more than is allowed. Others are deliberately overbled by the blood banks.

In his book Blood: Gift or Merchandise, Piet J. Hagen claims that the shady doings of blood banks are at their worst in Brazil. The hundreds of Brazilian commercial blood banks operate a $70 million market that draws the unscrupulous. According to the book Bluternte (Blood Harvest), the poor and unemployed stream to the countless blood banks in Bogotá, Colombia. They sell a pint [half a liter] of their blood for a meager 350 to 500 pesos. Patients may pay from 4,000 to 6,000 pesos for the same pint of blood!

Clearly, at least one global reality emerges from the foregoing: Selling blood is big business. ‘But so what? Why shouldn’t blood be a big business?’ some may ask.

Well, what makes many people uneasy about big business in general? It is greed. The greed shows, for example, when big business persuades people to purchase things they don’t really need; or worse, when it continues to foist on the public some products known to be dangerous, or when it refuses to spend money to make its products safer.

If the blood business is tainted with that kind of greed, the lives of millions of people the world over are in great danger. Has greed corrupted the blood business?

[Footnotes]

[Box/​Picture on page 6]

Placenta Traffic

Probably very few women who have just given birth wonder what happens to the placenta, the mass of tissue that nourishes the baby while it is in the womb. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, many hospitals save it, freeze it, and sell it. In 1987 alone, the United States shipped some 1.7 million pounds [0.8 million kg] of placentas overseas. A firm near Paris, France, buys 15 tons of placentas every day! The placentas are a ready source of maternal blood plasma, which the company processes into various medicines and sells in some one hundred countries.

[Graph/​Picture on page 4]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

The Main Components of Blood

Plasma: about 55 percent of the blood. It is 92 percent water; the rest is made up of complex proteins, such as globulins, fibrinogens, and albumin

Platelets: about 0.17 percent of the blood

White Cells: about 0.1 percent

Red Cells: about 45 percent

Gift of Life or Kiss of Death?

“How many people have to die? How many deaths do you need? Give us the threshold of death that you need in order to believe that this is happening.”

DON FRANCIS, an official of the CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control), pounded his fist on the table as he shouted the above words at a meeting with top representatives of the blood-banking industry. The CDC was trying to convince the blood bankers that AIDS was spreading through the nation’s blood supply.

The blood bankers were unconvinced. They called the evidence tenuous​—just a handful of cases—​and decided not to step up blood testing or screening. That was on January 4, 1983. Six months later, the president of the American Association of Blood Banks asserted: “There is little or no danger to the general public.”

For many experts, there was already enough evidence to warrant some action. And since then, that original “handful of cases” has ballooned alarmingly. Before 1985, perhaps 24,000 people were given transfusions tainted with HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which causes AIDS.

Contaminated blood is an appallingly efficient way to spread the AIDS virus. According to The New England Journal of Medicine (December 14, 1989), a single unit of blood may carry enough virus to cause up to 1.75 million infections! The CDC told Awake! that by June 1990, in the United States alone, 3,506 people had already developed AIDS from blood transfusions, blood components, and tissue transplants.

But those are mere numbers. They can’t begin to convey the depth of the personal tragedies involved. Consider, for instance, the tragedy of Frances Borchelt, 71 years old. She adamantly told doctors that she did not want a blood transfusion. She was transfused anyway. She died agonizingly of AIDS as her family watched helplessly.

Or consider the tragedy of a 17-year-old girl who, suffering from heavy menstrual bleeding, was given two units of blood just to correct her anemia. When she was 19 years old and pregnant, she found out that the transfusion had given her the AIDS virus. At 22 she came down with AIDS. Besides learning that she would soon die of AIDS, she was left wondering if she had passed the disease on to her baby. The list of tragedies goes on and on, ranging from babies to the elderly, all over the world.

In 1987 the book Autologous and Directed Blood Programs lamented: “Almost as soon as the original risk groups were defined, the unthinkable occurred: the demonstration that this potentially lethal disease [AIDS] could and was being transmitted by the volunteer blood supply. This was the most bitter of all medical ironies; that the precious life-giving gift of blood could turn out to be an instrument of death.”

Even medicines derived from plasma helped to spread this plague around the world. Hemophiliacs, most of whom use a plasma-based clotting agent to treat their illness, were decimated. In the United States, between 60 and 90 percent of them got AIDS before a procedure was set up to heat-treat the medicine in order to rid it of HIV.

Still, to this day, blood is not safe from AIDS. And AIDS is not the only danger from blood transfusion. Far from it.

The Risks That Dwarf AIDS

“It is the most dangerous substance we use in medicine,” Dr. Charles Huggins says of blood. He should know; he is the director of the blood transfusion service at a Massachusetts hospital. Many think that a blood transfusion is as simple as finding someone with a matching blood type. But besides the ABO types and the Rh factor for which blood is routinely cross-matched, there may be 400 or so other differences for which it is not. As cardiovascular surgeon Denton Cooley notes: “A blood transfusion is an organ transplant. . . . I think that there are certain incompatibilities in almost all blood transfusions.”

It is not surprising that transfusing such a complex substance might, as one surgeon put it, “confuse” the body’s immune system. In fact, a blood transfusion can suppress immunity for as long as a year. To some, this is the most threatening aspect of transfusions.

Then there are infectious diseases as well. They have exotic names, such as Chagas’ disease and cytomegalovirus. Effects range from fever and chills to death. Dr. Joseph Feldschuh of the Cornell University of Medicine says that there is 1 chance in 10 of getting some sort of infection from a transfusion. It is like playing Russian roulette with a ten-chamber revolver. Recent studies have also shown that blood transfusions during cancer surgery may actually increase the risk of recurrence of the cancer.

No wonder a television news program claimed that a blood transfusion could be the biggest obstacle to recovery from surgery. Hepatitis infects hundreds of thousands and kills many more transfusion recipients than AIDS does, but it gets little of the publicity. No one knows the extent of the deaths, but economist Ross Eckert says that it may be the equivalent of a DC-10 airliner full of people crashing every month.

Risk and the Blood Banks

How have blood banks responded to the exposure of all these risks in their product? Not well, the critics charge. In 1988 the Report of the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic accused the industry of being “unnecessarily slow” in reacting to the AIDS threat. Blood banks had been urged to discourage members of high-risk groups from donating blood. They had been urged to test the blood itself, screening it for signs of coming from high-risk donors. The blood banks delayed. They pooh-poohed the risks as so much hysteria. Why?

In his book And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts charges that some blood bankers opposed further testing “almost solely on fiscal grounds. Although largely run by non-profit organizations like the Red Cross, the blood industry represented big money, with annual receipts of a billion [a thousand million] dollars. Their business of providing the blood for 3.5 million transfusions a year was threatened.”

Furthermore, since nonprofit blood banks depend so heavily on volunteer donors, they hesitated to offend any of them by excluding certain high-risk groups, homosexuals in particular. Gay-rights advocates warned darkly that forbidding them to donate blood would violate their civil rights and would smack of the concentration-camp mentality of another era.

Losing donors and adding new tests would also cost more money. In the spring of 1983, the Stanford University Blood Bank became the first to use a surrogate test on blood, which could indicate whether the blood came from donors at high risk for AIDS. Other blood bankers criticized the move as a commercial ploy to attract more patients. Tests do increase prices. But as one couple, whose baby was transfused without their knowledge, put it: “We certainly would have paid an additional $5 a pint” for such tests. Their baby died of AIDS.

The Self-Preservation Factor

Some experts say that the blood banks are sluggish to respond to dangers in blood because they do not have to answer for the consequences of their own failures. For instance, according to the report in The Philadelphia Inquirer, the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) is responsible for seeing that the blood banks are up to standard, but it relies heavily on the blood banks to set those standards. And some of the officials of the FDA are former leaders in the blood industry. Thus, inspections of blood banks actually decreased in frequency as the AIDS crisis unfolded!

U.S. blood banks have also lobbied for legislation that protects them from lawsuits. In almost every state, the law now says that blood is a service, not a product. That means that a person suing a blood bank must prove negligence on the bank’s part​—a tough legal obstacle. Such laws may make blood banks safer from lawsuits, but they do not make blood safer for patients.

As economist Ross Eckert reasons, if the blood banks were held liable for the blood they traffic in, they would do more to ensure its quality. Retired blood banker Aaron Kellner agrees: “By a bit of legal alchemy, blood became a service. Everybody was home free, everybody that is, except the innocent victim, the patient.” He adds: “We could at least have pointed out the inequity, but we did not. We were concerned with our own peril; where was our concern for the patient?”

The conclusion seems inescapable. The blood-banking industry is far more interested in protecting itself financially than it is in protecting people from the hazards of its product. ‘But do all these hazards really matter,’ some might reason, ‘if blood is the only possible treatment to save a life? Don’t the benefits outweigh the risks?’ These are good questions. Just how necessary are all those transfusions?

[Blurb on page 9]

Doctors go to great lengths to protect themselves from their patients’ blood. But are patients sufficiently protected from transfused blood?

[Box/​Picture on page 8, 9]

Is Blood Safe From AIDS Today?

“IT’S Bloody Good News,” proclaimed a headline in the New York Daily News on October 5, 1989. The article reported that the chances of getting AIDS from a blood transfusion are 1 in 28,000. The process for keeping the virus out of the blood supply, it said, is now 99.9 percent effective.

Similar optimism reigns in the blood-banking industry. ‘The blood supply is safer than ever,’ they claim. The president of the American Association of Blood Banks said that the risk of acquiring AIDS from blood had been “virtually eliminated.” But if blood is safe, why have both courts and doctors slapped it with such labels as “toxic” and “unavoidably unsafe”? Why do some doctors operate wearing what look like space suits, replete with face masks and wading boots, all to avoid contact with blood? Why do so many hospitals ask patients to sign a consent form relieving the hospital of liability for the harmful effects of blood transfusions? Is blood really safe from diseases such as AIDS?

The safety depends on the two measures used to protect blood: screening the donors who supply it and testing the blood itself. Recent studies have shown that in spite of all the efforts to screen out blood donors whose life-style puts them at high risk for AIDS, there are still some who slip through the screen. They give wrong answers to the questionnaire and donate blood. Some just want to find out discreetly if they are infected themselves.

In 1985 blood banks began to test blood for the presence of the antibodies that the body produces to fight the AIDS virus. The problem with the test is that a person can be infected with the AIDS virus for some time before developing any antibodies that the test would detect. This crucial gap is called the window period.

The idea that there is 1 chance in 28,000 of getting AIDS from a blood transfusion comes from a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. That periodical set the most likely window period at an average of eight weeks. Just months before, though, in June 1989, the same journal published a study concluding that the window period can be much longer​—three years or more. This earlier study suggested that such long window periods may be more common than once thought, and it speculated that, worse, some infected people may never develop antibodies for the virus! The more optimistic study, however, did not incorporate these findings, calling them “not well understood.”

No wonder Dr. Cory SerVass of the Presidential Commission on AIDS said: “Blood banks can keep telling the public that the blood supply is as safe as it can be, but the public isn’t buying that anymore because they sense it isn’t true.”

[Credit Line]

CDC, Atlanta, Ga.

[Box on page 11]

Transfused Blood and Cancer

Scientists are learning that transfused blood can suppress the immune system and that suppressed immunity may adversely affect the survival rate of those operated on for cancer. In its February 15, 1987, issue, the journal Cancer reports on an informative study done in the Netherlands. “In the patients with colon cancer,” the journal said, “a significant adverse effect of transfusion on long-term survival was seen. In this group there was a cumulative 5-year overall survival of 48% for the transfused and 74% for the nontransfused patients.”

Physicians at the University of Southern California also found that of patients who had cancer surgery many more have a recurrence of cancer if they received a transfusion. The Annals of Otology, Rhinology & Laryngology, March 1989, reported on a follow-up study of a hundred patients by these physicians: “The recurrence rate for all cancers of the larynx was 14% for those who did not receive blood and 65% for those who did. For cancer of the oral cavity, pharynx, and nose or sinus, the recurrence rate was 31% without transfusions and 71% with transfusions.”

In his article “Blood Transfusions and Surgery for Cancer,” Dr. John S. Spratt concluded: “The cancer surgeon may need to become a bloodless surgeon.”​—The American Journal of Surgery, September 1986.

[Pictures on page 10]

That blood is a lifesaving medicine is debatable but that it kills people is not

Transfusions​—The Key to Survival?

IN 1941 Dr. John S. Lundy set a standard for blood transfusions. Apparently without any clinical evidence to back him up, he said that if a patient’s hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying component of blood, goes down to a level of ten grams or less for every deciliter of blood, then the patient needs a transfusion. Thereafter that number became a standard for doctors.

This ten-gram standard has been challenged for nearly 30 years. In 1988 The Journal of the American Medical Association flatly stated that the evidence does not support the guideline. Anesthesiologist Howard L. Zauder says it is “cloaked in tradition, shrouded in obscurity, and unsubstantiated by clinical or experimental evidence.” Others simply call it a myth.

Despite all this vigorous debunking, the myth is still widely revered as a sound guideline. To many anesthesiologists and other doctors, a hemoglobin level of below ten is a trigger for transfusion to correct the anemia. It’s virtually automatic.

No doubt, that helps account for the vast overuse of blood and blood products today. Dr. Theresa L. Crenshaw, who served on the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic, estimates that in the United States alone, some two million unnecessary transfusions are administered every year and that about half of all transfusions of banked blood could be avoided. Japan’s Health and Welfare Ministry decried “the indiscriminate use of transfusions” in Japan, as well as the “blind belief in their efficacy.”

The problem with trying to correct anemia with a blood transfusion is that the transfusion can be more deadly than the anemia. Jehovah’s Witnesses, who refuse blood transfusions primarily on religious grounds, have helped to prove the point.

You may have seen newspaper headlines reporting that one of Jehovah’s Witnesses died because of refusing a blood transfusion. Sadly, such reports rarely tell the whole story. Frequently, it is the doctor’s refusal to operate, or to operate soon enough, that spells death for the Witness. Some surgeons refuse to operate without freedom to transfuse if the hemoglobin level drops below ten. However, many surgeons have successfully operated on Witnesses with hemoglobin levels of five, two, and even less. Says surgeon Richard K. Spence: “What I’ve found with the Witnesses is that the lower hemoglobin does not relate to mortality at all.”

A Wealth of Alternatives

‘Blood or death.’ That is the way some doctors describe the alternatives facing a Witness patient. Yet, in reality, there are many alternatives to blood transfusion. Jehovah’s Witnesses are not interested in dying. They are interested in alternative treatments. Because the Bible forbids the ingesting of blood, they simply don’t consider blood transfusions an alternative.

In June 1988, the Report of the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic suggested that all patients be given just what the Witnesses have been requesting for years, namely: “Informed consent for transfusion of blood or its components should include an explanation of the risks involved . . . and information about appropriate alternatives to homologous blood transfusion therapy.”

In other words, patients should be given a choice. One such choice is a type of autologous transfusion. The patient’s own blood is salvaged during the operation and recirculated back into the patient’s veins. Where such a process is simply an extension of the patient’s own circulatory system, it is quite acceptable to most Witnesses. Surgeons also stress the value of increasing the patient’s blood volume with nonblood expanders and letting the body replenish its own red cells. Such techniques have been used in place of transfusions without increasing mortality. In fact, they can improve safety.

A promising drug called recombinant erythropoietin has recently been approved for limited use. It speeds up the body’s own production of red blood cells, in effect helping a person to make more of his own blood.

Scientists are still searching for an effective substitute for blood that imitates its remarkable oxygen-carrying capacity. In the United States, the makers of such substitutes find it hard to get approval for their products. Yet, as one such maker objected: “If you thought about bringing blood to the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] to be approved, you wouldn’t have a prayer of ever getting it tested it’s so toxic.” Still, hopes are high that an effective chemical will be found that will be approved as an oxygen-carrying substitute for blood.

So there are choices. Those mentioned here are but a few of those available. As Dr. Horace Herbsman, a professor of clinical surgery, wrote in the journal Emergency Medicine: “It’s . . . quite clear that we do have alternatives to blood replacement. Indeed, perhaps our experience with Jehovah’s Witnesses might be interpreted to mean that we do not need to rely on blood transfusions, with all their potential complications, as much as we once thought.” Of course, none of this is really new. As The American Surgeon noted: “The fact that major operations can be safely performed without blood transfusions has been amply documented in the past 25 years.”

But if blood is dangerous, and there are safe alternatives to its use, then why are millions of people transfused unnecessarily​—many of them without knowing it, others actually against their will? The report of the presidential commission on AIDS notes in part the failure to educate doctors and hospitals about the alternatives. It blames another factor too: “Some regional blood centers have been hesitant to promote strategies that minimize the use of transfusion therapies, since their operating income is derived from the sale of blood and blood products.”

In other words: Selling blood is big business.

The Most Precious Fluid in the World

Even if blood transfusions could be dismissed as the dangerous and unnecessary products of a frequently greedy industry, that still would not explain why Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse them. Their reasons are altogether different and much more important. What are they?

A DROP of blood is so easy to take for granted. It wells up from a scratch or a pinprick, a tiny dome of glittering red, and we rinse it away or wipe it off without a thought.

But if we could shrink ourselves down until we were so small that this dome loomed overhead like a mountain, we would find in its crimson depths a world of incredible complexity and order. Within that single drop, there bustle great armies of cells: 250,000,000 red blood cells, 400,000 white blood cells, and 15,000,000 platelets, which are but some of the ranks. Launched into action in the bloodstream, each army sets about its separate task.

The red cells scurry through the intricate network of the vascular system, carrying oxygen from the lungs to every cell in the body and removing the carbon dioxide. So tiny are these cells that a stack of 500 of them would only be 0.04 inches [0.1 cm] high. Yet, a stack of all the red cells in your body would soar up to 31,000 miles [50,000 km]! After about 120 days of making the trip through the body 1,440 times a day, the red cell is retired. Its iron-rich core is efficiently recycled, the rest disposed of. Every second, three million red cells are removed, while the same number of new ones are made in the marrow. How does the body know that a red cell has reached the right age for retirement? Scientists are mystified. But without this system of replacing old red cells, according to one chemist, “our blood would be thick as concrete in a couple of weeks.”

Meanwhile, the white cells prowl the system, seeking out and destroying unwanted invaders. The platelets gather instantly where there is a cut and start the process of clotting and sealing off the break. All these cells are suspended in a clear, ivory-colored fluid called plasma, which is itself made up of hundreds of ingredients, many of them playing vital roles in carrying out the blood’s long list of duties.

Scientists with all their collective brainpower are at a loss to understand everything that blood does, let alone duplicate it. Could this miraculously complex fluid be anything but the work of a Master Designer? And doesn’t it stand to reason that this superhuman Creator has every right to regulate how his creations should be used?

Jehovah’s Witnesses have always thought so. They view the Bible as a letter from our Creator that contains his guidelines on how to live the best life possible; it is a book that is not silent on this matter of blood. Leviticus 17:14 says: “The soul of every sort of flesh is its blood”​—not literally, of course, since the Bible also says that the living organism itself is a soul. Rather, the life of all souls is so inextricably tied up with and sustained by the blood in them that blood is appropriately viewed as a sacred fluid representing life.

For some, that is hard to understand. We live in a world that holds very little as sacred. Life itself is rarely valued as it should be. Little wonder, then, that blood is bought and sold like any other commodity. But those who respect the Creator’s wishes do not treat it that way. ‘You must not eat blood’ was God’s command to Noah and his descendants​—all mankind. (Genesis 9:4) Eight centuries later He put that command in his Law to the Israelites. Fifteen centuries later he reaffirmed it once again to the Christian congregation: ‘Abstain from blood.’​—Acts 15:20.

Jehovah’s Witnesses hold to that law primarily because they want to obey their Creator. By means of the sacrificial death of his own beloved Son, the Creator has already provided mankind with lifesaving blood. It can prolong life not just for a few months or years but forever.​—John 3:16; Ephesians 1:7.

Furthermore, abstaining from blood transfusions has protected Witnesses from myriads of dangers. More and more people besides Jehovah’s Witnesses are refusing blood transfusions today. Slowly the medical community is responding and reducing its use of blood. As the Surgery Annual put it: “Clearly, the safest transfusion is the one not given.” The journal Pathologist noted that Jehovah’s Witnesses have long insisted that blood transfusions are not advisable treatment. It added: “There is considerable evidence to support their contention, despite protestations from blood bankers to the contrary.”

Whom would you rather trust? The wise Being who designed blood? Or the people who have made the selling of blood a big business?

[Pictures on page 15]

The human vascular system, with capillaries (inset) that are so fine that blood cells are forced to travel through them single file

How Did They Get Such Lovely Feathers?

LILAC-BREASTED ROLLERS are common residents of central and southern Africa. They often perch on trees or telephone wires alongside the road. This gives them a good vantage point from which to scan their surroundings for insects and other food.

If you travel through Botswana or Zimbabwe, you may see a streak of bright blue feathers as one of these birds flies across the road. As the name roller indicates, they sometimes show off their colorful feathers in a tumbling aerobatic display. The accompanying picture of the bird and the inset of its wing reveals the roller’s vibrant colors. The wing feathers are a blend of four shades of blue together with black and brown. How well this contrasts with the lilac breast, orange cheeks, white forehead, and light-green crown! This raises an important question: How did they get such lovely feathers?

If you examine the roller’s feet, you will notice that they are covered with scales, not feathers. Did their feathers develop by chance from the scales of a reptile, as evolutionists teach?

Well, consider that a feather is an engineering marvel. Spreading from the shaft of a feather are rows of barbs. “Should two adjoining barbs become separated​—and considerable force is needed to pull the vane apart—​they are instantly zipped together again by drawing the feather through the fingertips,” explains the science textbook Integrated Principles of Zoology. “The bird, of course, does this with its bill.”

Could the hundreds of efficient “zippers” that make up a single feather have arisen by chance? Do scientists have any evidence that a scale actually developed into a feather? “Strangely enough,” admits the above-quoted book, “although modern birds possess both scales (especially on their feet) and feathers, no intermediate stage between the two has been discovered on either fossil or living forms.”

Surely, feathers bear testimony to a Master Engineer who is also an expert at blending lovely colors. Creatures such as the lilac-breasted roller are included among the “winged birds” that “praise the name of Jehovah,” the true God.​—Psalm 148:7, 10-13.

[Picture Credit Line on page 16]

National Parks Board of South Africa

Young People Ask . . .

How Can I Survive My Parents’ Separation?

“After my parents separated, we had to move. We had no car anymore, so Mom had to catch the bus to get around and to drop us off with a baby-sitter. Then we could see changes in the house. Dad was supposed to pay child support, but he often didn’t, and Mom had to make up the difference. Eventually he didn’t pay at all.”​—Anne.a

AFTER 14 years, Anne’s parents are still separated but not divorced. If you have gone through the sad experience of watching your parents separate, you may well know just how she feels. Enough weeks, months, or years may have passed for the initial shock to wear off. But sometimes you may wonder how you will manage to go on living this way. There is still no divorce nor a reconciliation; uncertainty still casts its troubling shadow over your life.

Loneliness may prevail as well. After Brad’s parents separated, his mother took on two jobs and went to school to learn a trade. Brad missed her so much. He recalls: “One night I sneaked into the car to go to work with her. But then once I was there, I was a burden. Someone had to take me home.” Indeed, many children of separated parents feel as if the breakup has cost them both parents, not just one. As another youth, Mike, says: “We lost my dad to some other woman, and then we lost my mom to her jobs.”

Loneliness, uncertainty, a changed economic status​—if your parents have separated, you need to come to grips with such problems. How can you take a positive approach?

Changing Your Focus

This battle, like most, starts with your own mind and heart. You may tend to dwell on your parents’ separation, worry over it obsessively, and even fall into a cycle of self-pity from which it is very hard to escape. However, you can protect yourself from being overwhelmed by anxiety.

In our previous article in this series, we likened surviving your parents’ separation to weathering a storm in your life.b Interestingly, the Bible tells of how the apostle Peter was once caught in a literal storm at sea. At the height of the storm, he saw Jesus Christ walking unharmed right on the surface of the water! Jesus even invited Peter to walk toward him over the sea. But Peter did not make it far before he started to sink. Why?

Matthew 14:30 says: “But looking at the windstorm, [Peter] got afraid and . . . start[ed] to sink.” What Peter needed was faith, not fear. But when he focused on the storm, with its wind-whipped, crashing waves, he became afraid. He lost his focus on Jesus, the one who could keep him from sinking. The same can hold true for you. The more you dwell on your problems, the more fearsome they will look to you. Dwell instead on solutions.

Meg, whose parents are separated, puts it this way: “Don’t focus too much on the immediate situation. You can’t change it anyway.” Randy echoes the thought: “When you think negatively, you just get in this bog, mulling the same thoughts over and over, like a truck stuck in the mud.” How do you get unstuck?

Reach Out to Others

Meg says: “Talk it out with someone who is really seasoned and mature spiritually, someone who can help you to see things clearly.” That kind of friend can help you to focus your thoughts in a more positive direction. As Proverbs 17:17 says: “Friends always show their love. What are brothers for if not to share trouble?” (Today’s English Version) So as you struggle with your parents’ separation, and especially with the loneliness that follows it, you will probably need to reach out to your friends and depend on them more than you ever have.

A word of caution, though. Not all friends will help you get through this. Some will only make more problems for you. Mike recalls: “After my parents split up, I had an almost unnatural devotion to my friends. We had fun together, but mostly we got into trouble together​—like drugs and fighting. For a while I used to think that if I lost my friends, I’d lose everything. That was an illusion, I found out later, because they weren’t really loyal. They turned on me. One of them even pretended to be me when the police caught him vandalizing the school building.”

No, not all friends are real friends. As Proverbs 18:24 says: “There are friends who lead one to ruin, others are closer than a brother.” (The Jerusalem Bible) Fortunately, Mike later found the right kind of friends. He remembers one in particular: “He was like a big brother to me. He studied the Bible with me, and he did other things with me too. He even took me to work with him. And he never made me feel that this was a drudgery for him. To this day I know that affected my life. If I hadn’t met up with him, I don’t know what I’d be right now.”

Where can you find that kind of friend? Jesus promised that the Christian congregation could provide many “brothers and sisters and mothers and children” for those who had none. (Mark 10:30) Thus, Mike found friends at the meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

So did Tom. He recalls: “One brother in the congregation took me in as if I were his older son. And an older sister became like a grandmother to us. The congregation always really loved us, and it’s amazing how much that does for you.” So Tom says: “If you don’t have a father, find one in the congregation. In the meantime, salvage the family relationships you do have, and draw close together.” Brothers, sisters, grandparents, and other relatives can all be faithful friends to you.​—Proverbs 13:20.

But the greatest friendship you will ever form is the one with your Creator, Jehovah. When parents separate, the promise at James 4:8 is especially comforting: “Draw close to God, and he will draw close to you.”

Follow a Spiritual Routine

Going regularly to Christian meetings will help you to do just that​—draw close to God, by learning about him. Meetings will also help you find new friends. (Hebrews 10:24, 25) But meetings and other Christian activities can also give your life a structure and a routine. That is especially important if the separation has wreaked havoc with your family routines, filling your days with uncertainty.

True, you may feel a dangerous urge to rebel against all structured routines right now. School in particular may seem burdensome. Mike remembers: “I adopted an ‘I don’t care’ attitude. I started doing badly in school, and I thought, ‘If my father and mother don’t care enough to keep the family together, then I don’t care either.’ Their breakup became my reason for not trying.”

But don’t make the mistake of using the separation as your excuse for neglecting the very things that will help you the most. The book Surviving the Breakup says that for children of divorce “school was useful precisely because it provided structure . . . It was evident that many children were supported by school in this basic way, regardless of the quality of their academic and social functioning within the classroom.”

School may also help you to build qualities and skills and disciplines that can help you throughout your life​—even render you more employable. If your family has suffered financially because of the separation, as so many do, you can probably see the advantage of preparing yourself now to get a job that will help you to meet your needs in the future.

Your future, after all, is not out of control. You can survive your parents’ separation. You are equipped to do it. Divorce researchers have observed that many youths survive their parents’ breakup intact. Many even learn from their parents’ mistakes and so in some ways are refined by the experience.c

Your future does not have to be uncertain. It does not have to be lonely. If you reach out to the right kind of friends, stick to a structured spiritual routine, and refuse to dwell obsessively on your problem, your future can be quite certain. Without a doubt, it can be long and happy.​—Proverbs 3:1, 2.

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 18]

If your parents separate, you may need friends more than ever. Where can you find the right kind of friends?

When Cancer Is Kept a Secret

ONE day in May 1987, I picked up the June 8 issue of Awake! and started reading the “From Our Readers” column. Immediately, I noticed an item from Japan that read:

“We want to thank you for the articles on cancer that you published. (October 8 and October 22, 1986) Last year our daughter, who had never had a day’s illness in 16 years, was suddenly diagnosed as having tuberculosis and was hospitalized for six months. Then, as no tubercle bacilli were present, she was discharged from the hospital.”

‘Amazing!’ I thought. ‘There’s a girl who’s had the same experience I had.’ I continued reading:

“But the following month we learned that she had cancer of the thyroid and that the cancer had metastasized to her lungs. She immediately underwent surgery to remove her thyroid and surrounding lymph glands, and she had part of her lungs removed. She is now taking cobalt treatments.”

I had undergone the same surgery. I became suspicious. ‘Could this be talking about me?’ I wondered. ‘But I don’t have cancer, do I?’ My heart was pounding as my eyes raced over the rest of the item:

“Her operation was successful, and she is living a normal life. But as parents, we were constantly anxious and worrying as to what to do to help our daughter. Through your articles we felt reassured and regained peace of mind. The articles provided good direction as to how we can encourage our daughter in the future.​—H. K., Japan.”

Why, these are Dad’s initials! So am I this girl? I rushed to my mother. “You did realize it was about you, didn’t you?” she said and smiled. She was trying hard to read my face. That was how I first learned that I had cancer.

Why Not Informed Earlier

In Japan it is not the custom to tell a patient when cancer is diagnosed. My doctors directed my parents to cooperate with that policy. Actually, Mother had leaned toward informing me, but Father did not agree. He worried about my possible despair and hesitated. So they were torn between whether to inform me of the disease or not.

Then a series of articles on the subject of cancer appeared in the October 8 and 22, 1986, issues of Awake! After reading them, my parents decided that at an appropriate time, they should tell me about my cancer. First, though, my father wrote a letter of appreciation for the articles to the Watch Tower Society in Japan. When his letter was published in Awake!, my parents felt the hand of Jehovah, the God of the Bible, was behind this development. It was a kind way of letting me know of my cancer, since the surprise of seeing my father’s letter at that moment overrode all other emotions.

My feelings were not those of fear, for I sincerely believe the Bible’s teaching about the condition of the dead. It says that they are “conscious of nothing at all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5) I also trust the Bible’s promise that “all those in the memorial tombs” will come back in a resurrection.​—John 5:28, 29.

On the other hand, what depressed me was the thought: ‘If I die, how lonely my parents will be while waiting for my resurrection.’ You see, I am their only child. ‘Jehovah will definitely sustain my parents through their years of loneliness,’ I reasoned and dismissed this depressing thought.

Confined in a Hospital

In April 1985, just two years before picking up the Awake! with my father’s letter, I was enrolled in high school. I was just 15. After being given a physical checkup, I received a notice in May advising me: “Bronchiectasis​—Needs thorough examination.”

Even though I felt nothing was wrong with me, the big word had a sobering effect. I had never had a major illness, and everybody thought of me as a healthy girl. Nevertheless, I went to a local hospital for a thorough examination. There I was diagnosed as having tuberculosis and was immediately hospitalized.

Life in the tuberculosis ward was anything but pleasant. For six months no one from outside the hospital was permitted to visit me except my parents. Letters from Christian friends and tape recordings of Christian meetings strengthened me and helped me fight my gloom. In addition to that, reading publications of the Watch Tower Society also prevented me from becoming self-centered in my thinking. But most of all, a personal relationship with God helped me maintain a positive outlook.

My Resolve to Serve God

You see, my parents started to study the Bible when I was four months old, and they brought me up to accept Bible teachings as truth. When I grew older, thanks to my parents’ training, I came to cherish my relationship with Jehovah and cultivated faith in him on my own initiative. I dedicated myself to Jehovah and symbolized my dedication by water baptism on December 4, 1982, when I was 13 years old.

Well, after almost six months in the hospital, I was released in October 1985. For the first time in my life, I realized how sweet the air is when one can move around freely. To show my appreciation, I decided to serve as a temporary full-time minister, or auxiliary pioneer. So in both November and December, I spent 60 hours in Christian volunteer service. In December, however, I learned that I had to be hospitalized again to undergo surgery of the thyroid. Just thinking of the confinement made me cry.

The Blood Issue

God’s Word instructs Christians “to keep abstaining . . . from blood,” and as a dedicated servant of Jehovah, I wanted to do everything to please him. (Acts 15:29) Since surgery was to be performed, I talked to my doctor and explained why I could not accept blood transfusions. He respected my stand and told me not to worry about it.

However, the day before the surgery, I was ushered into a hospital room where more than a dozen doctors were waiting for me. These surgeons, whom I had never met before, were to be present at my operation. My heart beat faster at being confronted by so many professionals.

“We would like to discuss tomorrow’s surgery with you,” began the doctor in charge. “We are going to open up your lungs as well as the thyroid. Now, regarding what you said about blood transfusions, are you sure that you want us to do just as you said even if some unforeseen emergency arises?”

“Yes, I am quite sure,” I replied as the doctors listened with rapt attention. “Please do as I have requested.”

Then some began asking questions, such as: “Why won’t you accept blood transfusions?” “Is that really how you feel?” They all listened respectfully as I replied to their questions. My initial tension gradually disappeared, and I explained how I came to accept God’s view of blood. I also clarified that it was my own appreciation of God’s law, not any pressure from my parents, that moved me to ask for bloodless surgery. The doctors kindly respected my attitude and encouraged me not to worry, as they would prepare very well for the operation.

The Surgery and Cobalt Treatment

The surgery involved opening my neck and taking out the thyroid, the lymph glands, and a portion of the lungs. The doctors discovered that what they had initially diagnosed as tuberculosis were actually cancerous growths that had metastasized from the thyroid. However, I was never told that the operation established that I had cancer.

Since, in the course of the surgery, the doctors had touched my vocal cords, they warned my parents that I might have to go through another operation to be able to speak. So the doctors as well as my parents were overjoyed when I regained consciousness and asked: “You didn’t use blood, did you?”

Thanks to the sincere efforts of the doctors, the operation was a success, and I maintained a clean Christian conscience. The doctors, however, told my parents: ‘Perhaps she can only live for four years. She may even die within the year. Eventually she will have difficulty breathing, and she will die in agony. From now on she will lose weight no matter how much she eats. Please be prepared to face such consequences.’ Of course, I knew nothing about this dire prognosis. But my parents were shocked, and their sadness was enormous.

After the surgery in January 1986, I was hospitalized for cobalt treatments in February and again in November of the same year. The doctor who came into the treatment room was protected with a special apron and gloves. He took out two capsules from a small circular metal container and gave them to me to swallow. I ingested radioactive material, which was to work internally. Thus, I emitted radiation and so had to be confined to a private room for a week at a time. Except for the nurses who came in to feed me, I was cut off from all outside contacts.

I must say, I was surprised to see all the elaborate preparations and was struck by the seriousness of the treatment. Yet, as is the custom in Japan, the fact that I had cancer was kept a closely guarded secret from me.

Since the room was half underground and a barrier was built to prevent the escape of radiation, there was not much I could see through the windows. How heartwarming it was when Christian friends visited and waved to me! I felt their love, which sustained me during my solitary confinement.

Realizing My Life Goal

While I was on cobalt treatment, a nurse asked what kept me so cheerful. I told her that studying the Bible had given me peace of mind. (Psalm 41:3) This conversation sparked her interest, and she started to study the Bible.

Talking to others about my God has always made me happy. So ever since my tender years, it has been my goal to become a full-time minister of Jehovah’s Witnesses. To attain that goal, I had to balance my schoolwork and ministry with my fight against cancer. How happy I was to be appointed to the full-time ministry as a regular pioneer as soon as I finished school in March 1988!

Of course, my illness has not been completely cured. Although I do not now feel especially weak, I have to be hospitalized from time to time for checkups. But even in the hospital, I am able to talk to doctors, nurses, and fellow patients about the hope God offers of everlasting life in a new world.​—Revelation 21:3, 4.

Once a hospital worker told my parents: “With her lungs affected that much, she should be gasping and panting, agonizing as she breathes and just sitting around doing nothing. But Rie is running around. I can’t understand it. Is it your religion that makes her so active and cheerful?”

Indeed, I do have a secret that sustains me so that I do not become disheartened. It is my relationship with Jehovah God. He imparts power to me so that I will not yield to my sickness. (Philippians 4:13) That is why, although afflicted with cancer, I maintain peace of mind and do not lose hope. Of course, I would like to live right into the new world of Jehovah’s making where “no resident will say: ‘I am sick.’” (Isaiah 33:24) But whatever happens, even if death takes me away, I have confidence that Jehovah will not forget me if I keep pleasing him.​—As told by Rie Kinoshita.

[Picture on page 23]

I have served as a full-time minister since March 1988

Human Rule Weighed in the Balances

Part 6​—Blackshirts and Swastikas

Fascism: Government by dictatorship, marked by State control of the economy, social regimentation, and an ideology of belligerent nationalism; Nazism: Fascism as practiced by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Hitler.

THE word “Fascism” generally conjures up images of black-shirted Italian military squads and of swastika-bearing, brown-uniformed German storm troopers. But other countries have had their experiences with Fascism too.

During the 1930’s, Fascism gained prominence in Hungary, Romania, and Japan. During the Spanish Civil War, Fascist support helped Francisco Franco gain control of Spain, although most historians do not view Franco’s dictatorship (1939-75) as having been genuinely Fascist in nature. The Argentine dictatorship established by Juan D. Perón (1943-55), on the other hand, was.

Worshiping the State

“Fascism” comes from the Italian word fascio and refers to an ancient Roman symbol of authority. Called fasces in Latin, it was a bundle of rods from which the blade of an ax projected, an apt symbol of the unity of the people under the supreme authority of the State.

Although some of the roots of Fascism go back to the time of Niccolò Machiavelli, not until 1919, or 450 years after that one’s birth, did Benito Mussolini use the word for the first time. The political corruption of his day, Machiavelli claimed, could only be overcome by an authoritarian ruler, one who would exercise power ruthlessly but with prudence.

A Fascist government needs just such a strong, opportunistic, and charismatic leader if it is to be effective. Appropriately, both Mussolini and Hitler were known simply as “the leader”​—Il Duce and der Führer.

Fascism elevates the State above all other authority, both religious and civil. French jurist Jean Bodin of the 16th century, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes of the 17th, as well as 18th- and 19th-century German philosophers Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Heinrich von Treitschke, all glorified the State. Hegel taught that the State occupies a position of supremacy and that the individual’s supreme duty is to be its loyal supporter.

By their very nature, all governments must exercise authority. But Fascist states are designed to exercise it to the utmost, demanding blind obedience. Viewing humans as little more than slaves of the State, Treitschke said: “It does not matter what you think, so long as you obey.” Typically, Fascism replaced the cry, “Liberty, equality, fraternity,” heard during the French Revolution, with the Italian slogan, “To believe, to obey, to fight.”

Fascism Glorifies War

To fight? Yes! “War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it,” Mussolini once said, adding: “War is to the man what maternity is to the woman.” He called perpetual peace “depressing and a negation of all the fundamental virtues of man.” In saying these words, Mussolini was simply mirroring the views of Treitschke, who contended that war was a necessity and that banishing it from the world, besides being profoundly immoral, “would involve the atrophy of many of the essential and sublime forces of the human soul.”

Against this background of war and dictatorship, we may not be surprised to learn that many historians trace the beginning of modern Fascism back to Napoléon I of France. Dictator during the early 1800’s, he was admittedly no Fascist himself. Nevertheless, many of his policies, such as the establishment of a secret-police system and the skillful use of propaganda and censorship to control the press, were later adopted by the Fascists. And certainly his determination to restore the glory of France is typical of the obsession with national greatness for which Fascist leaders have become known.

By 1922 the Fascists in Italy were powerful enough to install Mussolini as prime minister, a position he quickly used as a stepping-stone to being a dictator. As far as wages, hours, and production goals were concerned, privately owned industry was subjected to rigid government control. In fact, private enterprise was encouraged only to the extent that it served government interests. Political parties other than the Fascist were outlawed; labor unions were banned. The government skillfully controlled the media, silencing opposers by means of censorship. Special attention was given to indoctrinating the young, and personal liberty was seriously curtailed.

Fascism, German Style

“Despite the coincidence of their paths to power,” says the book Fascism, by A. Cassels, “Italian Fascism and German Nazism were markedly different in temperament and in their vision of the future.”

Besides the aforementioned German philosophers who served as forerunners of Fascist thought, others, like 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, helped create a brand of Fascism uniquely German. Not that Nietzsche was a Fascist, but he did call for a ruling elite, a race of supermen. In doing so, however, he had no one race or nation in mind, least of all the Germans, for whom he had no particular liking. But some of his ideas were close to what National Socialist ideologists considered ideally German. So these ideas were appropriated, while others, not agreeing with Nazi doctrine, were discarded.

Hitler was also strongly influenced by German composer Richard Wagner. Extremely nationalistic and patriotic, Wagner viewed Germany as destined to perform a great mission in the world. “For Hitler and Nazi ideologists Wagner was the perfect hero,” says the Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. It explains: “The composer epitomized Germany’s greatness. In Hitler’s view Wagner’s music justified German nationalism.”

Author William L. Shirer adds: “It was not his [Wagner’s] political writings, however, but his towering operas, recalling so vividly the world of German antiquity with its heroic myths, its fighting pagan gods and heroes, its demons and dragons, its blood feuds and primitive tribal codes, its sense of destiny, of the splendor of love and life and the nobility of death, which inspired the myths of modern Germany and gave it a Germanic Weltanschauung [world view] which Hitler and the Nazis, with some justification, took over as their own.”

The thinking of both Nietzsche and Wagner was shaped by Comte Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, French diplomat and ethnologist, who, between 1853 and 1855, wrote Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines (Essay on the Inequality of Human Races). He argued that racial composition determines the fate of civilizations. Diluting the racial character of Aryan societies would ultimately lead to their downfall, he warned.

The racism and anti-Semitism that developed from these ideas were characteristic of German-style Fascism. Both policies were less significant in Italy. In fact, evidences of anti-Semitism in Italy were considered by many Italians to be an indication that Hitler was replacing Mussolini as the dominating force behind Fascism. Indeed, as time passed, Hitler’s influence on the policies of Italian Fascism grew.

In striving to achieve national greatness, Italian Fascism and German Fascism looked in opposite directions. Author A. Cassels explains that “where Mussolini might exhort his countrymen to emulate the deeds of the ancient Romans, the Nazi revolution of the spirit aimed at inciting the Germans, not only to do what the distant Teutonic giants had done, but also to be those same tribal heroes reincarnated in the twentieth century.” In other words, Italian Fascism sought to regain bygone glory, as it were, by dragging Italy, an industrially underdeveloped land, into the 20th century. Germany, on the other hand, sought to regain former glory by retreating into a mythical past.

What Made It Possible

In most countries, Fascists have come to power after a national disaster, an economic collapse, or a military defeat. This was true in both Italy and Germany. Although on opposing sides during World War I, they both emerged from the struggle greatly weakened. Nationalist discontent, economic dislocation, and an intensification of the class war plagued both countries. Germany experienced runaway inflation, and unemployment soared. The democratic principle was also weak, still hampered by the military and authoritarian tradition of Prussia. And everywhere loomed the specter of the feared Soviet Bolshevism.

Charles Darwin’s idea of evolution and natural selection was another significant factor in the rise of Fascism. The book The Columbia History of the World speaks about the “reawakening of Social Darwinism in the ideologies of the Fascists, expressed both by Mussolini and by Hitler.”

The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich agrees with this appraisal, explaining that social Darwinism was “the ideology behind Hitler’s policy of genocide.” In harmony with the teachings of Darwinian evolution, “German ideologists argued that the modern state, instead of devoting its energy to protecting the weak, should reject its inferior population in favor of the strong, healthy elements.” They argued that war is normal in the struggle for survival of the fittest, that “victory goes to the strong, and the weak must be eliminated.”

Has the Lesson Been Learned?

The days of black-shirted Italian military squads and of swastika-bearing, brown-uniformed German storm troopers are over. Yet, even in 1990, vestiges of Fascism remain. Two years ago Newsweek magazine warned that in practically every Western European nation, “the forces of the far right are proving once again that barely disguised racism and an appeal to nationalistic and authoritarian values can still gather surprising support.” No doubt one of the most dynamic of these movements is Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front in France with a message basically “the same as that of National Socialism.”

Is it sensible to place trust in neo-Fascist movements? Do the roots of Fascism​—Darwinian evolution, racism, militarism, and nationalism—​form a sound foundation upon which to base good government? Or would you not agree that like all other kinds of human rule, Fascism has been weighed in the balances and found wanting?

[Box on page 26]

Fascism​—Is Its Foundation Sound?

Darwinian Evolution: “An increasing number of scientists, most particularly a growing number of evolutionists . . . argue that Darwinian evolutionary theory is no genuine scientific theory at all.”​—New Scientist, June 25, 1981, Michael Ruse.

Racism: “The chasm between human races and peoples, where it exists, is psychological and sociological; it is not genetic!”​—Genes and the Man, Professor Bentley Glass.

“Human beings of all races are . . . descended from the same first man.”​—Heredity and Humans, science writer Amram Scheinfeld.

Militarism: “The ingenuity, labor, and treasure poured out on this . . . insanity truly stun the mind. If nations did not learn war any more, there would be nothing mankind could not do.”​—American author and Pulitzer prize winner Herman Wouk.

Nationalism: “Nationalism divides humanity into mutually intolerant units. As a result, people think as Americans, Russians, Chinese, Egyptians or Peruvians first, and human beings second​—if at all.”​—Conflict and Cooperation Among Nations, Ivo Duchacek.

“So many of the problems that we face today are due to, or the result of, false attitudes​—some of them have been adopted almost unconsciously. Among these is the concept of narrow nationalism​—‘my country, right or wrong.’”​—Former UN Secretary-General U Thant.

[Pictures on page 25]

Ancient religious symbols, such as the swastika, and the motto, “God With Us,” did not save Hitler’s rule

The fasces, Mussolini’s symbol for Fascism, is found on some U.S. dimes

Watching the World

WHERE VIOLENCE REIGNS

The United States has been called the murder capital of the industrialized world, and statistics bear the claim out. According to researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics, out of every 100,000 American males between the ages of 15 and 24, an average of 21.9 are killed every year. Of 21 other countries studied, the next highest homicide rate was in Scotland, with 5 males of that same age group killed per 100,000. Austria’s rate was the lowest, with 0.3 per 100,000. Guns account for much of the U.S. carnage. Not only are today’s guns more deadly but criminals are more callous toward bystanders. According to one crime expert, some gunmen even call bystanders “mushrooms”​—fit to be trampled on if they get underfoot.

◆ Much violence in the United States is directed at women. Newsweek magazine cites these statistics, compiled by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee: “Every hour 16 women confront rapists; a woman is raped every six minutes. 3 to 4 million women are battered each year; every 18 seconds a woman is beaten. 3 out of 4 women will be victims of at least one violent crime during their lifetime. . . . The United States has a rape rate 13 times higher than Britain’s, nearly 4 times higher than Germany’s and more than 20 times higher than Japan’s.”

ADVERTISING DEATH

The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, prepared by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A., noted that although ‘cigarette smoking is the most important preventable cause of death in the United States, cigarettes are one of the most heavily advertised products.’ This results in increased cigarette consumption because it encourages children to experiment with cigarettes. It also deters current smokers from quitting and prompts former smokers to begin smoking again. The report states that the pervasive presence of cigarette advertising “may contribute to the perception that smoking is less hazardous, more prevalent, and more socially acceptable than it is.”

THE DOOMSDAY THREAT LIVES ON

Euphoric talk of peace notwithstanding, the superpowers are still locked in what one arms negotiator describes as an “unstable, apocalyptic embrace.” According to a 1989 report, the Soviet Union has about 11,000 nuclear warheads. The United States currently has some 12,000 nuclear warheads aimed at the Soviet Union. Time magazine notes, though, that even some experts who believe that such weapons are a deterrent to war also believe that 3,000 or even 1,000 of them might be enough. For example, if only a third of the U.S. warheads should ever reach their targets, every Soviet city with more than 25,000 people would be wiped out. A single warhead detonated over the Kremlin in Moscow would devastate every structure within a four-mile [6 km] radius; the United States has 120 such warheads aimed at Moscow alone.

HOMOSEXUAL RABBIS

Reform Judaism has become the first major religious group in the United States to accept homosexual clergymen and sanction homosexual behavior. A recent convention of Reform rabbis approved a statement asserting that “all Jews are religiously equal regardless of their sexual orientation.” The statement likewise welcomed “all rabbis regardless of sexual orientation.” Biblical condemnation of homosexual acts is weighed against “the knowledge of our own time and experience,” according to the Reform rabbis’ president, Samuel Karff. So the new policy asks only that homosexual rabbis be discreet, not celibate.

AVOIDING ALCOHOL

In Japan, where employees are often evaluated by how well they socialize, many men feel pressured to drink against their wishes. A survey of nondrinkers, reported on in the Mainichi Daily News, showed that many dodge invitations to go out for drinks with colleagues with such excuses as: “I have a previous engagement,” “Doctor’s orders,” or, “I’ve got work to do.” Now, however, some nondrinkers in Japan have formed an association. When offered a drink, they boldly produce a membership card that says, “Non Drinkers Associate.”

FARMING THREATENS DRINKING WATER

The quality of the drinking water in France is in danger. According to the French newspaper Le Monde, the principal source of the pollution is not industry but agriculture. Since the second world war, chemical fertilizers have gradually replaced natural fertilizers as more and more farmers adopt modern agricultural methods. However, chemical fertilizers are easily leached out of the soil by rainfall. They thus find their way into water supplies, contaminating drinking water with nitrates. A recent nationwide survey of French water supplies showed that at least two million people receive drinking water that exceeds the safety limit that the European Community has set for nitrates. Nitrates are especially harmful to infants and may be linked to certain kinds of cancer in adults.

A HEALTHY SIESTA

Recent scientific research suggests that the midafternoon urge to take a nap, or siesta, is a normal part of the human natural sleep cycle. According to Canada’s Equinox magazine, Roger Broughton, a neurologist and sleep researcher, has concluded that “people are biologically wired for both a major sleep period and one nap a day, typically in midafternoon.” Research shows that “after napping, people not only feel better but also do significantly better on tests of mental performance requiring concentration and complex decision making,” says Equinox. However, the magazine adds that “it may be some time before people are able to convince their supervisors that a little siesta is just the thing they need to get their work done.”

CURES AND DONATIONS

Can a sick person guarantee that he will get well by making a generous donation to his church? The Brazilian magazine Veja quotes evangelical pastor Edir Macedo as asserting: “The donations of the faithful are fundamental to our being able to spread the Word of God. Thus, the divine cure is effective in proportion to the individual effort in making a donation.” Veja later commented on the different approach taken by Jehovah’s Witnesses: “They do not agree with tithing. Each of the faithful gives to the church the amount he is able to. Contributions are confidential. Giving in public is condemned because it may lead to competition over generosity among the faithful.” In fact, the Bible advocates voluntary contributions, not for personal healing, but as an aid to others, especially spiritually.

UNHEALTHY TEENAGERS

Teenagers in the United States were recently given a far-from-clean bill of health by a national commission of 37 leaders in the fields of medicine, education, and business. The commission’s report noted that the health problems of today’s teenagers stem mainly from their own behavior. It cited these disturbing statistics: Every year about one million teenage girls (nearly 1 out of every 10 in the country) get pregnant, while 2,500,000 teenagers contract sexually transmitted diseases; 10 percent of teenage boys and 20 percent of teenage girls have attempted suicide; over half of the high school seniors get drunk every month, with alcohol-related accidents the leading cause of teenage death.

CRIMINAL YOUTH

Ever since a schoolboy and a former student held the entire school and staff at gunpoint in Ladysmith, South Africa, much attention has been focused on the growing tendency of the young to commit crimes. South Africa’s magazine Personality reports that in one recent year, the courts convicted 1,235 children under 17 years of age of sex crimes. Another 2,278 were convicted of drug offenses, while 15,814 were convicted of general theft. According to one high-school teacher: “Many parents are too absorbed in their own lives to be concerned with their children. They seem to care only about academic achievement. We get the impression that moral guidance is left up to the child.”

From Our Readers

Vacation at Home Your article (June 22, 1990) seems to have been written just for me. All the recommendations were so good, such as doing things with others, working on the house, improving my room, visiting local attractions, and doing more Bible reading. As I still attend school, I have seven weeks’ vacation in the summer. Thanks to your help, I will spend this time more wisely.

M. K., Federal Republic of Germany

Bullfighting Your article on bullfighting (July 8, 1990) was quite noteworthy. Most youths in Spain would rather go to a soccer match than attend such a hullabaloo, but travel agents insist on pushing tourists to the bullfight. The stage of the fight, when the picadors engage the bull, is even crueler than your description reveals, as the horses used are often injured.

C. M., Federal Republic of Germany

French Revolution Thank you for your article on the French Revolution. (December 22, 1989) Being an American of French descent, I found the article very informative and interesting. I appreciate the diversity and range of articles that appear in Awake!

J. F. S., United States

Lupus I had been ill for about six months, and doctors did not know what was wrong with me. A few days after reading your article on lupus (May 8, 1990), diagnosis confirmed that I have lupus also. If it had not been for this article, I would not have had a clue as to what the doctors were talking about. Because I knew something about the disease, I was able to ask questions that I could not otherwise have asked. Thank you very much for enlightening me.

K. S., England

Dinosaurs As an archaeologist and geologist, I quite enjoyed the Awake! articles on dinosaurs. (February 8, 1990) With regard to the time of their disappearance, the articles stated that human fossils occur in rock layers well above those containing dinosaur fossils and that there are rock layers in between. In many parts of the world, these intervening rock layers, or strata, also contain fossils. Many new varieties, or kinds, of animals appear in these layers, such as elephants, saber-toothed cats, and several varieties of flightless running birds. This would strongly suggest that God was still creating new animals after the dinosaurs were gone and that the dinosaurs disappeared during the sixth creative epoch.

G. S., Canada

The Bible does not specify the time of either the creation or the disappearance of dinosaurs. Nevertheless, the comments of G. S. are of interest.​—ED.

Living With Epilepsy Regarding epilepsy (June 22, 1990), I find that many people do not understand it. People tell me I’ll swallow my tongue, but doctors say it is physically impossible. I’ve also been told I had a devil in me because of what the Bible says at Matthew 4:24. Because of prejudice, people refuse to allow epileptics to do certain things. But really, very little is impossible for us.

V. E., Australia

Much misunderstanding has occurred regarding Matthew 4:24, which tells of Jesus’ curing “demon-possessed and epileptic and paralyzed persons.” However, a careful reading of the context reveals that the Bible actually makes a distinction between demon-possession and physical illnesses, such as epilepsy.​—ED.

What Exercise Can Do for You

A LANDMARK study of 17,000 Harvard alumni, described in The New England Journal of Medicine four years ago, showed that physical exercise could counter an inherited tendency toward early death. “You’re healthy because you’re active,” concluded Dr. Ralph S. Paffenbarger, Jr., director of the study.

In June 1989 The Journal of the American Medical Association said: “Physical activity has been associated with the prevention and control of numerous medical conditions, such as coronary heart disease (CHD), hypertension [high blood pressure], . . . and mental health problems.” It added: “CHD is 1.9 times more likely to develop in a physically inactive person than a physically active person. This association is impressive.”

In November 1989 this same medical journal published a study involving 13,344 subjects, and it further showed the value of exercise. The comprehensive study revealed that even minimal exercise​—such as a brisk half-hour walk once a day—​results in significant protection from death from a wide range of causes.

Dr. Norman M. Kaplan, with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas, who is an authority on hypertension, says that he has changed his mind on the value of exercise in treating high blood pressure. “As I have seen the evidence accumulate in the last three or four years I have become more encouraging to people about exercise.”

Dr. Kaplan now prescribes aerobic exercise for patients with high blood pressure. “I tell my patients to get their pulse rate up,” he explains. “I tell people to start slowly. Don’t jump into it. Begin with walking and slow running and build up. If you encounter any problems, back off.” To be a real health benefit, exercise must be practiced regularly, preferably three or four times a week for a period of 20 to 30 minutes or more each time.

Organized to Serve God

“I have gone through different religions and sects,” writes a man from Mexico. “But I have never seen such organization.” The man had just finished reading the brochure Jehovah’s Witnesses​—Unitedly Doing God’s Will Worldwide. He explained: “What impresses me the most is the seriousness with which you fulfill the commission to preach the good news of the Kingdom from house to house, at work, on the street, in buses. It is marvelous to find people who take the doing of God’s will seriously in this age of so much religious hypocrisy.”

Learn what Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, how they are organized, and how their organization operates worldwide. If you wish to receive a copy of the 32-page brochure Jehovah’s Witnesses​—Unitedly Doing God’s Will Worldwide, please fill in and mail the coupon below.

I would like to receive the 32-page brochure Jehovah’s Witnesses​—Unitedly Doing God’s Will Worldwide. (Outside the U.S.A., write to local Watch Tower branch for information. See page 4.)