Your Body, Your Choice is the first book addressed to the lay person on the revolutionary scientific advancements currently challenging the whole practice of one of medicine's oldest therapies -- blood transfusion. Scientific scrutiny is proving quite conclusively that the old notion -- donated blood is the "gift of life" -- is deeply flawed. Indeed, all too often, the "gift of life" has become the "bringer of death."

Trail-blazing leaders of "bloodless" or "transfusion-free" medicine and surgery are taking definitive steps to replace time-worn medical treatments with safer approaches based on the ever-evolving evidence. Your Body, Your Choice encapsulates a whole new world of thinking. It focuses on the extraordinary revolution destined to have direct and vital impact on the lives of all seeking treatment in hospitals or medical clinics.

Your Body, Your Choice:

- Traces the manipulation of blood through medical history;

- Describes how science and medicine continue to discover unwelcome truths about transfused blood and its effect on the immune system -- possibly the most life-threatening transfusion complication;

- Examines the growing list of known viral, parasitic and bacterial diseases -- all of them blood-borne -- as well as the threat of new and emerging viruses and the threat of the blood-borne unknown;

- Reveals the stunning fact that the historically assumed efficacy of blood transfusion has never been established scientifically;

- Explains the rapid growth of "bloodless" medicine and surgery centers in the United States and around the world;

- Takes the reader step by step through the growing acceptance and application of bloodless surgery techniques and procedures;

- Tells how minimal use of blood in surgery promotes faster healing, shorter hospital stays and lower hospital bills;

- Poses the now most relevant question: Given modern science's vastly expanded knowledge and scope, how much longer will blood transfusions continue?