Many unvaccinated Americans are refusing blood transfusions from vaccinated donors for fear that the blood from someone who has received a Covid-19 vaccine is tainted in some way.
Of course, the mainstream media and some health news websites quickly jumped on the opportunity to label these so-called anti-vaxxers as spreaders of medical misinformation. They say that these “anti-vaxxers” believe that the blood of a vaccinated individual contains a microchip or ingredients necessary for human cloning.
According to official statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the majority of Americans are now believed to be vaccinated against Covid-19, with 60 percent of the US population and 72 percent of adults at least partially vaccinated. This means that available blood donors in the country at this point are mostly vaccinated.
Dr Julie Katz Karp, director of the blood transfusion program at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals in Philadelphia, said: “We are definitely aware of patients who have refused blood products from vaccinated donors.
“If for some reason we didn’t want vaccinated people to donate blood, we’d be in a real problem, wouldn’t we? Please believe us when we tell you it’s fine.”
Blood centers in the US only have limited access to donated blood that has not in some way been affected by Covid-19. Katz estimated that, based on samples, as much as 70 percent of the blood currently being donated is coming from vaccinated donors.
Dr Michael Busch, director of the Vitalant Research Institute, said that more than 90 percent of current donors in the US have either been infected with Covid-19 or vaccinated against it. Busch has been monitoring antibody levels in blood samples from the US supply.
Currently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not recommend routine screening for Covid-19 among blood donors. In general, respiratory viruses are not known to spread by blood transfusions, and there has been no reported case of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease, being transmitted through blood.
