Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston (United States) has made a difficult decision: have not been put on the waiting list for a heart transplant to a man who refused to get the coronavirus vaccine. The decision may seem drastic, and has been highly controversial in the country, but the toilets had a good reason to do so. But let’s take a good look at what happened.
DJ Ferguson is just 31 years old, has two children (and another on the way) and needs a heart transplant. However, by not wanting to get the coronavirus vaccine, cannot receive an organ, as explained from IFLScience. In fact, Ferguson is anti-vaccine: “It goes against his basic principles a little bit; he doesn’t believe in it,” explains his father.
Therefore, your decision not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 you have been left off the heart transplant waiting list. At least, as long as he continues to refuse to be immunized.
Heart transplant
The reason for the health workers to deny him a new heart is that donor organs are scarce. This is because not all organs are suitable for transplants, but rather the donor must have died of brain death. It is then, as we already told you in hypertextual, when the toilets put in place all the protocols to carry out transplants. For example, an organ from a person who died in cardiorespiratory arrest is useless because the blood does not continue to circulate and, therefore, oxygen does not reach the organs. Once the person dies of brain death and a compatible recipient for the transplant is found, the organs can travel very long distances in a very short time.
The organ shortage for transplants means that doctors have to carefully select the people who are going to receive them. This means that the organ will be taken by the person who will live with it the longest. And that includes being vaccinated against this coronavirus; since transplant recipients are immunosuppressed and, therefore, are patients at risk if they contract COVID-19.
“Given the shortage of available organs, we do everything possible to ensure that the patient who receives a transplanted organ has the best chance of survival,” they explain in a Press release from the hospital.
This requirement for patients is not unique to the coronavirus vaccine but is made with others and even with lifestyles. “Our Mass General Brigham Health System requires several CDC-recommended vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine, and lifestyle behaviors from transplant candidates to create both the best chance for success of the operation and for optimize patient survival after the transplant, since their immune system is drastically suppressed.
Transplant patients, whether of the heart or another organ, are immunocompromised because the immune system is suppressed to prevent organ rejection. This makes them especially vulnerable against any pathogen; but in the case of COVID-19 they are even more, as we have learned over these almost two years of the pandemic. Therefore, the fact that a person who is going to receive a heart transplant does not want to get the coronavirus vaccine, as established by the protocols established in the United States, kicks you out for not meeting medical criteria to receive an organ.
In short, if Ferguson wanted a new heart he should drop his stance and get immunized with the coronavirus vaccine. This would be the only way for him to be put on the waiting list to receive a donor organ.