America’s Blood Centers (ABC) has published the March 2023 edition of the Blood Bulletin to address requests for directed donations and misinformation concerning mRNA COVID-19 vaccinated donors. The issue titled “Directed Donations and COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinated Blood Donors” is now available. Key Points include:
- hospitals and blood centers have been confronted with a growing number of directed donation requests for individuals asking for blood components from COVID-19 unvaccinated blood donors;
- blood donors who have received the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine do not pose a risk for the safety of the blood supply;
- information on COVID vaccination or the type of vaccine used is not collected during the donor interview because it is not medically relevant. Hence, it is not possible to label or segregate blood accordingly; and
- while not medically indicated, providing directed donations from COVID-19 unvaccinated donors is also logistically arduous and costly for blood centers and hospitals alike. Health care providers should strongly discourage legislation that requires collection facilities to provide a medically unjustified service.
The article was written by Daniela Hermelin, MD, Chief Medical Officer at ImpactLife; Louis Katz, MD, Chief Medical Officer Emeritus at ImpactLife; Nancy Van Buren, MD, Medical Director at Innovative Blood Resources and Community Blood Center of Kansas City, divisions of New York Blood Center; Kip Kuttner, DO, Vice President and Medical Director at Miller-Keystone Blood Center; Richard Gammon, MD, Medical Director at OneBlood; Debra Smith, MD, PhD, Medical Director at Carter BloodCare; and Kirsten Alcorn, MD, Co-Chief Medical Officer at Bloodworks Northwest. Contributors included: Rita Reik, MD, FCAP, Chief Medical Officer at OneBlood; Claudia S. Cohn, MD, PhD, Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota; and Theresa Nester, MD, Co-Chief Medical Officer at Bloodworks Northwest.
Blood Bulletin is a quarterly publication reviewed and edited by ABC’s Scientific, Medical, and Technical (SMT) Publications Committee. An archive of previous editions of Blood Bulletin is also available.