“The Food and Drug Administration has determined there’s no safety risk, so there’s no reason to label the units,” said Dr. ![]() don’t retain data noting whether donors have been infected with or vaccinated against covid, and there’s no federal requirement that collected blood products be identified in that manner. In addition, outside of research studies, blood centers in the U.S. “Less than 10% of the blood we collect does not have antibodies,” Busch noted. Michael Busch, director of the Vitalant Research Institute, who is monitoring antibody levels in samples from the U.S. Overall, more than 90% of current donors have either been infected with covid or vaccinated against it, said Dr. Based on samples, Katz estimated that as much as 60% to 70% of the blood currently being donated is coming from vaccinated donors. In practical terms, blood centers have only limited access to donated blood that has not in some way been affected by covid. “I know of no one who has acceded to such a request, which would be an operational can of worms for a medically unjustifiable request,” Katz wrote in an email. And the resounding answer from centers and hospitals, he added, has been “no.” Louis Katz, chief medical officer for ImpactLife, an Iowa-based blood center, said he’s heard from “a small handful” of patients asking for blood from unvaccinated donors. So far, such demands have been rare, industry officials said. Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Morning Briefing. “While the antibodies that are produced by the stimulated immune system in response to vaccination are found throughout the bloodstream, the actual vaccine components are not,” Jessa Merrill, the Red Cross director of biomedical communications, said in an email. Red Cross officials said they’ve had to reassure clients that a covid vaccine, which is injected into muscle or the layer of skin below, doesn’t circulate in the blood. Julie Katz Karp, who directs the blood bank and transfusion medicine program at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals in Philadelphia.Įmily Osment, an American Red Cross spokesperson, said her organization has fielded questions from clients worried that vaccinated blood would be “tainted,” capable of transmitting components from the covid vaccines. “We are definitely aware of patients who have refused blood products from vaccinated donors,” said Dr. ![]() That’s led some patients who are skeptical of the shots to demand transfusions only from the unvaccinated, an option blood centers insist is neither medically sound nor operationally feasible. population fully vaccinated, most of the nation’s blood supply is now coming from donors who have been inoculated, experts said.
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