USA: Clinic refuses a donor heart to 31-year-old vaccine skeptic
Created: 01/27/2022, 13:08
By: Franziska Schwarz
A person who was not vaccinated against corona flew off the organ transplant list in the USA (symbolic image).
© Alla Kostomarova/Imago
The organ donation guidelines in the USA now apparently also include the corona pandemic.
Vaccination against Covid-19 is required in many places.
Mendon/Massachusetts – A 31-year-old corona vaccine skeptic should not receive a donor heart.
But DJ Ferguson urgently needed this – he was already on the transplant list at Brigham and Women's Hospitals in Boston.
This is reported unanimously by several US media.
Ferguson is the father of two little boys and his partner is expecting their third child.
“My son does not believe in Covid-19 vaccinations.
It's one of his basic principles not to get vaccinated," his father told
CBS.
According to the US public broadcaster
NPR
, the clinic did not want to comment on the case, citing data protection.
However, she referred to her website, which informed that the corona vaccination, along with other immunizations under US law, was in most cases a prerequisite for receiving a donor organ.
Corona vaccine skeptic does not receive organ donation: family collects donations
The clinic also said, according to NPR, that according to studies, organ transplant patients have a higher risk of Covid-19 being fatal to them.
Therefore, follow the guidelines of the American Society of Transplantation and other health organizations.
The clinic emphasized that no candidate would be put on the organ donation list without meeting these criteria.
There would be no "first" on the list, a charge Ferguson's family made, according to the NPR report.
She is now raising funds online for the transplant.
Ferguson's mother, a nurse, insists her son is not a vaccine skeptic and has received other vaccines.
However, due to a previous illness, which is accompanied, among other things, by heart palpitations, he had concerns about the corona vaccination.
Organ donation in the US: "More than 100,000 people on the waiting list"
Meanwhile: "More than 100,000 people in this country are currently waiting for an organ transplant because there is a lack of donors - about half of them will not be able to have an operation in five years," the clinic
told NPR
.
According to the report, hospitals in other US states also treat unvaccinated people in a similar way.
Due to the shortage of donor organs, patients with the highest chance of survival would be preferred.
In these cases, too, there was criticism.
(frs)
