America’s Latest Unfounded Health Panic: 'Vaccinated' Blood Donations

In a sign of our ever idiotic times, recent research suggests that some people are increasingly refusing to receive blood from vaccinated donors. Doctors at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee examined blood donation data from patients visiting the center. Requests for non-anonymous, or directed, blood donations had risen over the past two years, they found, all tied to not wanting vaccinated blood. Though the total number of these donations was small, they often delayed care and might have even contributed to serious complications in some cases. “Despite being framed as ‘safer,’ directed donations may paradoxically increase risk,” the authors wrote in their paper, published late last month in the journal Transfusion. One of the most serious ramifications of the covid-19 pandemic has been the resurgence of the anti-vaccination movement. Advocates have falsely accused the covid-19 mRNA vaccines of being unsafe and dangerous to the public. Our current Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has even called them the deadliest vaccines ever made. A particular way this paranoia has manifested has been with blood donation, with anti-vaxxers claiming that vaccinated blood