More people requesting ‘unvaccinated’ blood for themselves or their children
These requests often delay care and, in some cases, harm
patients’ health, according to a report published late last week in Transfusion. Health
systems need to develop standardized policies, include counseling, to handle
these requests, the report’s authors wrote.
The US blood supply is incredibly safe, the authors wrote.
Donations are carefully screened for HIV and other potentially infectious
microbes. There’s no evidence that blood from unvaccinated people is any safer
than other blood.
The requests for “unvaccinated blood” increased after the release
of COVID-19 vaccines, which saved
an estimated 20 million lives in their first year of use, but
which have been the subject of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center received 15 requests
for unvaccinated blood from January 1, 2024, to December 31, 2025, according to
the new report. The median age of patients was 17 years old; more than half
were children.
Problems with ‘direct’ blood donations
Hospitals have no way to know if donated blood comes from
vaccinated or unvaccinated donors, and there are no tests that can
differentiate the blood of vaccinated from unvaccinated people.
That leads some patients to ask for blood donation from
particular people, such as relatives, whom they know to be unvaccinated. That’s
a risky request, because such “direct donations” from first-time donors are
more likely to contain potentially harmful pathogens compared with blood
collected from people who donate regularly, authors noted.
In the study, 13 patients received blood donated
specifically for them by family members.
Two patients got much sicker after refusing a transfusion
with standard blood. One developed anemia, which occurs when people don’t have
enough iron in their blood. The other developed hemodynamic shock, a
life-threatening condition in which people have inadequate blood flow and
oxygen delivery to tissues, which can cause multi-organ failure.
These cases challenge the claim by some anti-vaccine
activists that insisting on blood from unvaccinated donors is “a benign or
low-risk accommodation,” authors wrote.
Lawmakers in several states— including Connecticut, Kentucky, Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wyoming—have
attempted to mandate that patients have access to blood transfusions from
unvaccinated donors.
In January, an Oklahoma legislator went so far as to propose
that his state run its own blood bank in order to provide blood donations from
unvaccinated people.
So far, none of the bills has passed.
