JD Vance’s Family Member Denied Transplant Because She’s Unvaccinated

A young member of Vice President J.D. Vance’s family has been denied a life-saving transplant because she is not vaccinated against Covid-19 or its subsequent variants.

Adaline Deal, a 12-year-old Indiana girl and distant relative to the vice president, has reportedly been left off the heart transplant list because doctors deemed her ineligible, according to her parents. Doctors cited her lack of vaccinations against Covid variants as well as the flu.

Adaline, who moved from China to the U.S. when she was 4 years old, had been undergoing treatment for two rare heart conditions at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. When her parents explained that no one in the family receives vaccines because it goes against their deeply held religious beliefs, doctors did not make an exception, they told the Cincinnati Inquirer.

“I thought, wow. So, it’s not about the kid. It’s not about saving her life,” mother Janeen Deal said, the New York Post reports.

Janeen said neither she or her husband believe in any form of vaccines because “the Holy Spirit put it on our hearts.”

The transplant industry requires stringent vaccines from organ recipients due to an increased risk of infection. For patients like Adaline, who suffers from Ebstein’s anomaly and Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, there is a higher risk of death from contracting Covid according to Dr. Camille Kotton, the clinical director of transplant and immunocompromised host infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“The first year after transplant is when they’re at highest risk for infection, but they do have a lifelong risk of severe disease and transplant patients are still dying because of COVID-19,” Kotton told the outlet.

Janeen, however, said she and her family are confident that Adaline will not be mortally wounded from a Covid infection following a heart transplant.

“We’ll take it as we can if it happens,” Janeen said. “But I know I cannot put this (vaccine) in her body knowing what we know and how we feel about it.”

A spokesperson for the hospital told the Post that a decision to leave Adaline off the transplant list had been “guided by science research and best practices” and that the hospital follows guidelines proffered by the National Institutes of Health.

“We tailor care plans to each patient in collaboration with their family to ensure the safest, most effective treatment,” spokesperson Bo McMillan said.

Adaline’s parents now hope to take her to another hospital that will look past her unvaccinated status and proceed with a transplant. A GoFundMe page associated with defraying their costs has reached $50,000 as of Wednesday morning.

Shortly before last year’s election, Vice President Vance went on the Joe Rogan podcast and told listeners he had been “red-pilled” about vaccines after suffering side effects from one he had taken but did not disclose the identity of.

“We’re not even allowed to talk about the fact that I was as sick as I’ve ever been for two days, and the worst COVID experience I had was like a sinus infection. I’m not really willing to trade that,” Vance claimed according to ABC News.