Man Can't Get Heart Transplant Because He's Not Vaccinated Against COVID

[LetMyPeopleVote]

This is a good policy

Link to tweet

BOSTON (CBS) – David Ferguson is speaking out passionately on behalf of his son DJ. He says the 31-year-old is fighting for his life at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in desperate need of a heart transplant.

“My son has gone to the edge of death to stick to his guns and he’s been pushed to the limit,” Ferguson said.

The family says he was at the front of the line to receive a transplant but because he has not received the COVID-19 vaccination he is no longer eligible according to hospital policy. Ferguson says his son refuses to get the shot.

“It’s kind of against his basic principles; he doesn’t believe in it. It’s a policy they are enforcing and so because he won’t get the shot, they took him off the list of a heart transplant,” Ferguson said.

Brigham and Women’s released a statement saying, “And like many other transplant programs in the United States – the COVID-19 vaccine is one of several vaccines and lifestyle behaviors required for transplant candidates in the Mass General Brigham system in order to create both the best chance for a successful operation and also the patient’s survival after transplantation.”

[KentuckyWoman]

1. Not true.

He doesn't qualify for a scarce resource because he doesn't meet the risk /benefit. This isn't about the vaccine no matter how much they want to make it that. If he insisted on other life threatening choices the decision to move him down or off the list would be the same.

I feel for the guy and his family, but we all make our choices.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

17. Let's Go Darwin

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[RockRaven]

2. There aren't enough hearts to go around, and there's no good reason to allocate it to

someone who is going to throw it away or be careless. If other people in need are willing to do the various things which will get the most years of life out of the deal, and he isn't, then they should be ahead of him in line.

It would be different if there were plenty of hearts available for anyone who needed one, but there aren't. And this is not difficult to understand.

[Cha]

3. Medical Profession has seen the

patients and the statistics and don't like the chances of the Unvaccinated.

[mercuryblues]

4. Give him a transplant from an unvaccinated

Covid patient who dies.

Let's see how much he "believes" in it then.


Then again, we are in the same boat. Neither of us can get a transplant because of non-vaccinated. Only I am and the unit has shut down because it got overrun with covid.

Fuck that piece of shit.

[Ms. Toad]

5. I don't know of any place which has shut down deceased donor transplants because of COVID

It is a life-saving surgery which has to be performed when an organ is available. All heart transpants are in that category.

Live donor transplants of kidneys were delayed. Dialysis provides a short term solution for those in need of a kidney transplant - so those surgeries could be (and were) delayed. Some live donor liver transplants may also have been delayed, although likely not those near death since there isn't an equivalent of dialysis for livers.

[mercuryblues]

6. I am waiting on a bone marrow transplant

I will be donating to myself. Only emergency transplants are being done. Since I am in remission, I'm not considered an emergency, no no transplant until they decide it is safe to do so. I understand, but it pisses me off to no end.

In the meantime,

A symptom of the type of cancer I have is a low WBC count. As a result, an infection can kill me.

I was being facetious when I suggested giving him a heart from a Covid patient.

[Ms. Toad]

9. That falls into the category of a live donor transplant -

there isn't the sense of urgency asociated with a cadaver transplant.

I had surgery 3 times at the peak of COVID last year (aggressive cancer - not transplant), but my daughter has a liver disease so I'm intimately familiar with that transplant process - and know several others with her disease who have had transplants very recently, or during the peak last year. I'm pretty sure I've seen some of her peers even had living donor tramsplants within the last 2 weeks.

You might have been facetious - but they are doing amazing things with transplants from people with contagious illnesses - as long as it leaves the organ in good shape. Livers from people with HIV have been transplanted into others with HIV, for example. And recently I just heard of a process to "clean up" a liver that otherwise would have been trashed. (I was doing translation for someone who wasn't communicating clearly - I found the research article about whatever term she used to refer to it by, and got the gist of "clean up," but not the details. When my daughter gets closer to transplant I'll have to look it up.

But, yeah. I understand being pissed off. I had symptoms in December which ordinarily wouldn't have interfered with anything - but they match COVID symptoms in vaccinated people. (It may have been COVID even though I tested negative, since my daughter had it 6 days later). But I had to cancel my 3-month scans for metastasis, and my 1st annual meeting with the surgeon, post-surgery. Complicating things, a boss who decided to punch down when people trashed his job performance, so I'm having a surprise retirement and had to switch to medicare with no notice. It wasn't clear I'd have insurance coverage at all in January. So I had to reschedule in mid-February (2/3 of the way through the next 3-month period). Fortunately, I was able to reschedule the critical scans, so I at least know there is no metastasis.

Not to mention that I couldn't travel last year to a high volume sarcoma center for a second opinion regarding treatment because of COVID.

And that's just the way COVID (and COVIDiots) has interfered with my medical care.

Good luck with getting that bone marrow transplant.

[mercuryblues]

11. Thank you.

Have medical problems are hard enough. To navigate them during a pandemic because imbeciles refuse to do their part to end it infuriates me.

I am self-donating, so I am familiar with "cleaning up." Though the process is likely different it achieves the same result.

My best wishes for you and your daughter.


I believe another reason they won't transplant if you are an anti vaccer is that they wipe out your immune system so that you won't reject the transplant. This wipes out all of your vaccinations. I will have to be re vaccinated for just about everything. MMR, Hepatitis, Pertussis, Polio, etc.

It is pretty safe to say if this guy is unwilling to get a Covid Shot he will forgo all of those. It would be a waste of a heart.

Even though they knew I would need my Covid Vaccine again when I was healthy enough, they urged me to get it ASAP.

[Ms. Toad]

13. Multiple reasons.

Another is the need to demonstrate enough compliance with medical directions so there is some level of confidence you will be able to comply with the anti-rejection regime for the rest of your life. Anyone so fixated on an anti-medical concept that they are risking their life now, when their hold on it is so tenuous that death is starting them in the face, is even more likely to be noncompliant post transplant.

[Silent3]

7. Since when is belligerent stupidity a matter of "principles"? n/t

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. the anti-vaxxers are the most likely group to actually need a transplant after they get COVID19.

Link to tweet

[struggle4progress]

10. Up next: 85 year-old highwire acrobat unable to purchase life insurance!

His friends call him Crazyman, and he plans to walk across the Grand Canyon on a mile-long tightrope. He says that he needs daily doses of crack-cocaine to stay alive, and he hopes the stunt will pay him enough money to supply him with the drug for years to come. But now he finds himself unable to obtain a life insurance policy. So naturally he is angry. The latest company that refused to sell him insurance told us they didn't know about his Grand Canyon plans: they said that his house burned down twice when he fell asleep with a cigarette in hand; that he had wrecked three cars in recent years while driving drunk, and that he has been hospitalized several times after suicide attempts. But his wife says the companies are making excuses because they are only interested in money

[dalton99a]

12. Noncompliant patients have poor outcomes

FACT.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

15. Hospital refusing heart transplant for man who won't get vaccinated

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Dr. Arthur Caplan, the head of medical ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, explains that being vaccinated is necessary for this type of procedure.

"Post any transplant, kidney, heart whatever, your immune system is shut off," Caplan said. "The flu could kill you, a cold could kill you, COVID could kill you. The organs are scarce, we are not going to distribute them to someone who has a poor chance of living when others who are vaccinated have a better chance post-surgery of surviving."

DJ is a father of two children with a third child on the way. His family says they're not sure what they plan to do. They're thinking about transferring him, but he may be too weak to be moved.

"We are aggressively pursuing all options, but we are running out of time," David Ferguson said.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

14. I agree with the hospital.

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[LetMyPeopleVote]

16. From the Hoarse Whisperer

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[Hekate]

18. I'm so very sorry for this family's troubles. How do they manage life while being complete idiots?

The man and his wife found each other in this great wide world, looked in each other’s eyes and said, “This is the idiot destined for me.” And lo, they had children.

Given that the young man’s father sounds the same as his sick son — I really don’t hold out much hope for the children.