A relative of Vice President JD Vance says an Ohio hospital has refused to put her 12-year-old daughter on its heart transplant waiting list over her vaccine status.
Jeneen Deal, a mom-of-12 from Indiana who is related to Vance’s half-siblings through marriage, adopted Adaline from China as a 4-year-old knowing the little girl had two heart conditions, Ebstein's anomaly and Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, that meant she would one day require a transplant.
The girl has been receiving treatment from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, a leader in pediatric organ transplantation, for almost a decade. On January 17, Deal said Adaline’s doctor confirmed to the family that she was in heart failure.
“My heart's getting sick,” Adaline Deal told Local 12. “I get tired. My legs get [too] tired to stand.”
The facility requires that heart transplant patients receive vaccinations for Covid-19 and flu as recipients are at much higher risk of infection – something the Deals aren’t willing to allow for their daughter.
Deal and her husband Brayton, who are both members of a non-denominational Christian church, said that the vaccines conflict with their religious and medical beliefs and that they would not be willing to inoculate their daughter.
The pair have broadcast both their faith and vaccine skepticism in posts on their Facebook pages.
The parents made their decision after “the Holy Spirit put it on our hearts,” the mom told The Cincinnati Enquirer. The hospital, they say, would not honor their beliefs.
“The heart failure team told me they won’t put her on the list unless we give her the Covid shot and the flu shot. I was like u would let her die if I refuse,” the mom wrote in a Facebook post on January 27. “That’s their policy she said. How nuts is that!”
In an update to The Independent on Thursday evening, Deal said: “Cincinnati Children's Hospital is feeling the pressure from everyone's calls and the media attention but the transplant team still won't go in writing on whether they will continue to refuse to add Adaline to the transplant list.”
The couple is now considering taking Adaline to a different transplant center that won't require her to be vaccinated.
In the meantime, the Deals have crowdfunded more than $58,000 of their $100,000 goal after setting up a GoFundMe page to help pay for the transplant.
Deal said that people had already judged her as a “bad parent” and called her to make an exception so the hospital could put her on the transplant list.
“Yes, I've seen that they are already. But I just know I'm following our heart and what I feel is good for her. And nothing should be forced on us. I mean, it's our God-given right. We can say no," she told Local 12.
On Wednesday, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital released a statement on their transplant evaluations and immunization considerations.
“Because children who receive a transplant will be immunosuppressed for the rest of their life, vaccines play a critical role in preventing or reducing the risk of life-threatening infections, especially in the first year,” it said. “These decisions involve discussion between our providers and the patient’s family.”
Health Resources and Services Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who oversee transplant lists in the U.S., have not mandated vaccination, leaving it up to hospitals to decide their policies.
The American Society of Transplant Surgeons agrees with the hospital’s vaccination policy for patients in need of an organ transplant.
“Transplant candidates and recipients frequently interact with other at-risk individuals in the hospital. The ASTS recommend[s] routine vaccination for all organ recipients and for those on the waitlist,” it said in a position statement on its website.
The Independent has contacted the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for more information.
