A Louisiana Republican state lawmaker wants to require anyone in the state donating blood to disclose their COVID vaccination status, and wants to allow blood donation recipients to be given a choice of blood from donors who have or have not been vaccinated against the deadly virus.
The CDC says “COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of millions of people in the United States received COVID-19 vaccines under the most intense safety monitoring in U.S. history.”
State Rep. Peter Egan, a freshman GOP lawmaker, has said he has a “background in healthcare,” including as a hospital administrator.
On Monday as reported by the Louisiana Illuminator’s Piper Hutchinson, Egan filed HB 822. The bill reads: “Any person who collects human blood donations for the purpose of providing blood for human blood transfusion shall require blood donors to disclose whether the blood donor has received a COVID-19 vaccine or a messenger ribonucleic acid vaccine during the donor’s lifetime.”
Louisiana is not the only state in the country with a bill requiring vaccination status disclosure. Similar bills have been introduced in Illinois, Rhode Island, and Wyoming. An Alaska bill adds a penalty of a fine up to $1000, up to six months in jail, or both.
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“Amid vaccine skepticism and blood shortages, House Bill 115 would require asking the COVID-19/mRNA vaccine status of blood donors, providing some patients a choice to use blood from the unvaccinated,” Wyoming’s WyoFile reported in February. “House Bill 115 – Donated blood-mRNA disclosure dictates that this decision would only apply in non-emergency situations, but the bill is part of a movement in the U.S. to give patients opposed to COVID vaccines an option.”
The news outlet notes, “multiple blood transfusion groups and the FDA say there is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines harm people via blood transfusions.”
The sponsor of the Wyoming bill, Republican Rep. Sarah Penn, told WyoFile, “Many have strived to keep their bodies free of this technology.”
In Kentucky, Republican state Rep. Jennifer Henson Decker’s bill, HB 163, requires disclosure of COVID vaccination status and the name of the COVID vaccine manufacturer. It also requires a two-week waiting period after being vaccinated, and requires the blood tested for “COVID-19 antibodies, evidence of lipid nanoparticles, and spike protein.”
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Last year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement “advising consumers and health care providers that directed blood donations requested for certain donor characteristics (e.g., vaccination status, gender, sexual orientation, religion) lack scientific support and to be cautious about websites that offer memberships for delivery of blood and blood components from individuals who have not been vaccinated for COVID-19.”
And in February the Red Cross published a fact check: “You can donate blood after getting a COVID-19 vaccine.”
In the United States over 1.2 million have died from COVID-19, while studies suggest that number could be much higher.
The title of this article has been updated to clarify blood donor.