D.J. Ferguson, a 31-year-old man, is fighting for his life at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Ferguson has been hospitalized since November when his lungs started filling with blood and fluid due to a hereditary heart issue. He desperately needs a heart transplant. The good news had been that he was first on the transplant list. But then he refused to get the COVID vaccine, and hospital policy mandated his removal. The policy exists because the shortage of available hearts, and all other organs for that matter, means transplants are reserved for those patients most likely to survive the operation. As a transplant requires immunosuppressive drugs to reduce the chances of rejection, it raises the odds you will get COVID. And if you get COVID, it increases the likelihood you will die from the disease. Dr. Arthur Caplan, head of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, explains.
“Post any transplant, kidney, heart whatever, your immune system is shut off. The flu could kill you, a cold could kill you, COVID could kill you. The organs are scarce, we are not going to distribute them to someone who has a poor chance of living when others who are vaccinated have a better chance post-surgery of surviving.”
Brigham and Women’s hospital issued a statement,
“And like many other transplant programs in the United States – the COVID-19 vaccine is one of several vaccines and lifestyle behaviors required for transplant candidates in the Mass General Brigham system in order to create both the best chance for a successful operation and also the patient’s survival after transplantation.”
Which raises the question, why doesn't Ferguson get the vaccination? He’s in a long-term relationship with a woman with whom he has two children with a third on the way. I would think a desire to stick around for your kids would be paramount. But that is to misunderstand how far down the rabbit hole anti-vaxxers are.
DJ’s father, David Ferguson, gives us an insight.
“It’s kind of against his basic principles; he doesn’t believe in it.“
Adding, “My son has gone to the edge of death to stick to his guns and he’s been pushed to the limit.”
And, “I think my boy is fighting pretty damn courageously and he has integrity and principles he really believes in and that makes me respect him all the more. It’s his body. It’s his choice.”
But David does admit,
“We are aggressively pursuing all options, but we are running out of time,”
“Aggressively pursuing all options?” How can he say that, when the one option that would solve the problem would be DJ getting vaccinated?
What has, up until now, been incomprehensible becomes a farce when you hear the reason why DJ is determined not to get the vaccination. According to his GoFundMe page, Ferguson is resistant to the vaccine due to his fear of heart inflammation. Is his concern valid? No. While it is true that there have been rare cases of inflammation associated with the vaccine, all have been mild. And weighed in the balance, the relative risk of getting the vaccine pales against not getting the vaccination. I don’t know why DJ doesn’t take the doctors’ advice. If he doesn’t trust medical opinions, why is he even in a hospital?
The family is searching for a facility that does not require a COVID vaccination for a transplant. But even if they find one, DJ is too weak to be moved. And every day he occupies his hospital bed is another day he denies it to another patient.
Doctors are not always right. But they are right far more often than the Internet.