A 12-year-old girl in Indiana needs a heart transplant, but her parents refuse to put her on a heart transplant waiting list at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, who would require the girl to be vaccinated.
Janeen Deal, who is related by marriage to JD Vance’s half-siblings, said the hospital requires her daughter to receive COVID-19 and flu vaccinations, which Janeen and her husband are unwilling to do.
The couple adopted Adaline from China when she was 4 years old. Adaline was born with two heart conditions, Janeen said, and they adopted Adaline knowing she would one day need a heart transplant. Janeen said Adaline has been receiving treatment at Cincinnati Children's for almost 10 years, and they hoped she would receive a heart transplant there because they consider it the best hospital in the area.
Earlier this month, when the family was informed that she would need the two vaccinations to be put on the transplant list, the couple said vaccines conflict with their religious and medical beliefs.
Janeen said she believes the vaccines are unsafe, and also said they came to their decision after “the Holy Spirit put it on our hearts.”
- Janeen and her husband have 12 children, including eight who are adopted. She said she’s confident Adaline won’t have any problems with COVID-19 after her heart transplant.
- “We’ll take it as we can if it happens,” she said. “But I know I cannot put this (vaccine) in her body knowing what we know and how we feel about it.”
They are nondenominational Christian.
The hospital refused to allow a religious exemption, so the family is now considering two other transplant centers in Greater Cincinnati that perform heart transplants.
“At Cincinnati Children’s, clinical decisions are guided by science, research and best practices,” spokesperson Bo McMillan wrote in an email, relaying the hospital’s statement. “We tailor care plans to each patient in collaboration with their family to ensure the safest, most effective treatment.”
Transplant patients are at higher risk of severe illness and death from infection because they need long-term immunosuppressants so they don’t reject the new organ, making them more susceptible to infection.
But wait, there’s more! An Ohio MAGAt may sponsor a bill to allow Ohio MAGAts to make stupid choices based on religious liberty!
Janeen says, “I’m so hopeful that this bill will save all the other children and adults so they don’t have to go through what Adaline’s had to go through,” she said. “It’s 2025. It’s time to move on from all this madness. (Getting vaccinated) should be your choice.”
