Patients Request Blood from Donors Who Have Not Received mRNA COVID-19 Shots
A growing number of patients are requesting blood transfusions from donors who have not gotten the COVID19 shot, according to a Mar. 28, 2026 report published in the journal Transfusion. In the report, researchers at Vanderbilt Medical Center Medical Center evaluated 15 cases over a period of two years between 2024 and 2025 in which patients requested blood from donors who had not received an mRNA COVID-19 shot.
The median age of patients was 17 and more than half were children. Of the 15 patients, 13 received at least some blood from directed donors, or donors the patients chose themselves. The hospital says these requests were a deviation from standard blood transfusion protocol and caused “care delays, escalation, and inefficiencies.”1 2
The report further notes that requests for blood transfusions from unvaccinated donors were associated with postponed or rescheduled surgeries and treatments, during which time at least two patients “clinically deteriorated” while waiting for directed donations. One patient developed anemia and another progressed to hemodynamic shock, which is a life-threatening condition caused by inadequate blood flow and oxygen delivery to tissues. The Vanderbilt University authors also stated that a significant portion of collected blood units ultimately went unused.2 It is estimated that health care waste in the United States costs nearly $1 trillion annually.