Parents refuse to use ‘blood tainted by vaccination’ for baby ahead of life-saving surgery

New Zealand’s health service is applying for the guardianship of a sick four-month-old baby after its parents refused to use blood from vaccinated donors for the child’s open-heart surgery.

The couple spoke with anti-vax campaigner and conspiracy theorist Liz Gun, who posted a video of the conversation on social media, from the hospital room. The couple said their baby urgently needs open-heart surgery and that they want the blood to come from people who have not received the Covid vaccine.

The four-month-old baby has severe pulmonary valve stenonis, the parents said. Surgery is needed “almost immediately”, said the parents, but added that they are “extremely concerned with the blood [the doctors] are going to use”.

“We don’t want blood that is tainted by vaccination,” the father said. “That’s the end of the deal – we are fine with anything else these doctors want to do.”

The country’s health agency has taken the matter to court and said it has the “child’s best interests” in mind.

Dr Mike Shepard, Auckland’s interim director at the health service agency, was quoted as saying by the New Zealand Herald that “the decision to make an application to the court is always made with the best interests of the child in mind”.

On Wednesday, the health agency and the parents appeared in court to set a date for an urgent hearing.

There was a gathering of some 100 anti-vaxxers outside the court as well, reported local media.

New Zealand health service’s lawyer Paul White told the court that medical professionals said the child with such a condition would have been treated several weeks ago in normal circumstances.

The parents’ lawyer, Sue Grey, argued that the parents wanted better care for their child than what the state was offering. “Because they label my clients as conspiracy theorists, [their position] is that anything my clients say can be ignored,” she told the court.

Justice Layne Harvey, of the High Court in Auckland, set down an urgent hearing for 7 December and encouraged the two parties to continue discussions in the meantime.

Auckland University’s Immunisation Advisory Centre medical director Professor Nikki Turner was quoted as saying by Newstalk ZB that “almost all blood in New Zealand will have Covid antibodies in it so unless you’re going to refuse all blood, I can’t imagine how you’ll get round this”.

“The next thing is that Covid antibodies per se are not in any way going to be a problem for the person receiving them, they’re just going to offer the person extra protection against Covid disease,” she added.

The New Zealand Blood Service website also states that “any mRNA from the vaccine that is in the blood is broken down within a few hours after vaccination”.

University of Otago bioethics lecturer and research scholar Josephine Johnstone told RNZ that while parents hold significant decision-making authority over their child’s life, there is “a huge zone of discretion for parents to make decisions including about medical issues”.

“But there are limits to that, and this is one of those tragic cases where the limit has life and death consequences,” she added.