Adaline Deal relative to JD Vance a victim of religious fervor? Indiana 12 year old girl denied being put on Cincinnati Children’s Hospital organ donor transplant list for refusing to vaccines which her adoptive parents refuse to give her on religious grounds.
The adopted parents of an Indiana 12 year old girl who is related to Vice President JD Vance have decried a Cincinnati, Ohio hospital’s mandate requiring all potential organ transplant recipients to be vaccinated in an effort to allow for the most successful chance of a donor organ and donor recipient.
The consternation comes as the family of Adaline Deal, a distant relative of Vance’s by marriage through his half-siblings, has taken public outcry over Cincinnati Children Hospital’s decision to deny their adoptive daughter a possible heart transplant over the adoptive parents insistence that their ‘religious’ values ought to take precedence over medical mandates.
Religious freedom vs medical mandates
The 12 year old — who was adopted from China when she was 4 — and who has been treated at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for nearly 10 years on account of a defective heart condition which has gradually deteriorated is almost certain to require a potentially life-saving heart transplant, if she is to survive her ordeal.
But there’s a catch, the children’s hospital remains adamantly opposed to putting Adaline ahead of other potential donors who have taken the measures to have all necessary vaccinations, paediatrics demand in order to stave off potential illnesses which would make a possible organ transplant the best fitting match.
Adaline has not had any vaccinations as they conflict with her family’s religious beliefs as as nondenominational Christians, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.
‘I thought, wow. So, it’s not about the kid. It’s not about saving her life,’ mom, Janeen Deal told the outlet of the hospital’s decision to deny her daughter.
The mom, who believes vaccines are unsafe, told the outlet that she and her husband, Brayton Deal decided not to vaccinate Adaline against COVID-19 or the flu after ‘the Holy Spirit put it on our hearts.’
Define Holy Spirit? Define a matter of life or death?
The parents reticence to have Adaline vaccinated comes as hospitals mandate a recipient having ‘necessary vaccinations’ in order to have the best chance of accepting the organ donor organ and warding off preventable diseases given the fact that transplant recipients are much more vulnerable to infections.
Donor organs in short supply
For patients with severe illnesses like Adaline, who has Ebstein’s anomaly and Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, there is a higher risk of death if infected with COVID compared to other patients, according to Dr. Camille Kotton, the clinical director of transplant and immunocompromised host infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.
‘The first year after transplant is when they’re at highest risk for infection, but they do have a lifelong risk of severe disease and transplant patients are still dying because of COVID-19,’ Kotton told the Enquirer.
Responded Janeen, ‘I cannot put this (vaccine) in her body knowing what we know and how we feel about it.’
But what about any vaccine the organ donor may have taken before passing away?
The Cincinnati Children’s Hospital told the Enquirer that the hospital’s clinical decisions are ‘guided by science research and best practices’ and that the hospital follows guidelines from the National Institutes of Health.
Religious/political opposition to vaccination
Adaline’s parents now hope to take her to a different transplant center that won’t require her to be vaccinated, (do you suppose?) with a GoFundMe for the transplant raising more than $56,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.
And then there were these comments below on social media that caught this author’s attention. See what you think?
‘As a recipient, you are a steward of a precious organ and have an obligation (to the donor and others who may have been a candidate to receive) to protect yourself against infections, especially those that are preventable.’
‘The parents refuse to give this child ANY vaccines, yet they will allow her to go through this traumatic surgery and then have to be on anti-rejection medication for the rest of her life which in itself is worse than any vaccine because it pretty much wipes out her immune system.’
‘Transplants are not a right! Nowhere in the constitution does it mention the right to a transplant. The hospital board awards them to the candidate with the most chance of survival, and that means all vaccinations are done. You have the liberty and choice to get vaccinated or not, the hospital has the liberty and choice to decide who gets the transplant.’
‘Transplant hospitals and doctors very much want their patients to survive. This is not politically motivated, but based on their expertise.’
