The patients demanding unvaccinated blood transfusions

If you’ve ever donated blood, you know about the screening process: Have you traveled to certain countries? Engaged in risky sexual activities?

One question that they don’t ask is: Have you been vaccinated against Covid-19?

But some patients and their families, worried by misinformation around Covid-19 vaccines, are insisting on getting blood transfusions from donors who haven’t been vaccinated. When that happens, says Deva Sharma, an assistant professor of hematology-oncology and transfusion medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, they often don’t speak directly to the physician. Instead, the families — often parents of pediatric patients — turn to their nurses, or even directly call the blood bank to make requests. (That approach does not work, according to Sharma.)

On this episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” host Torie Bosch speaks with Sharma, who recently co-authored a study looking at 15 patients and families who requested directed donor blood transfusions — that is, transfusions from donors they know personally. That might seem harmless, Sharma says, but there are serious risks: “[T]here were delays in medical care, including delays in transfusion for very severe anemia and also delays in surgical care,” she told me.

They discuss the need for hospital policies on direct donations, the ethical considerations, and why, exactly, patients are so insistent on unvaccinated blood.