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,” I spoke 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.
