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For many Americans needing blood transfusions or blood products, the specter of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is casting a sinister shadow over a life-sustaining procedure. For example, 18 cases of AIDS have been reported in hemophiliacs, with 12 deaths, since March 1982, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Now a Denver physician is saying that one immediately available means of countering the threat is to make blood products less necessary for hemophiliacs.
"And that can be done by teaching hemophiliacs self-hypnosis which, by reducing anxiety, can reduce their needs for remedial transfusions," says Wallace L. LaBaw, MD. LaBaw and his wife, Jeanine L. LaBaw, PsyD, have been teaching self-hypnosis to hemophiliacs since 1968.
"With hypnosis, you can cut the need for transfusion by up to 50% in some patients," say the LaBaws (J Haematologia 1975;9:103-110).
The AIDS peril is not being taken lightly by the National Hemophilia Foundation,