By Speakin’ Out News staff, compiled from AL.com and other sources
A bill filed in the Alabama House of Representatives would prevent healthcare providers from denying organ transplants based on a person’s vaccination status.
Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, R-Trinity, introduced House Bill 519, also known as The Adaline Deal Act, named after a 12-year-old Indiana girl who was denied a spot on a heart transplant list because she had not received the COVID-19 or flu vaccines, according to her parents.
Adaline Deal, who was adopted from China at age 4, was born with two heart conditions and will eventually need a transplant, her family says. Her parents, Jeneen and Jason Deal, believe the vaccines are unsafe and said their decision was spiritually guided. The family has since raised more than $65,000 through GoFundMe to seek care at a different transplant center that does not require vaccination.
Adaline is a distant relative of Vice President J.D. Vance, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
Under current U.S. policy, transplant centers can set their own vaccine requirements, which often align with guidance from the National Institutes of Health, the American Journal of Transplantation, and other medical bodies. Those guidelines recommend COVID-19 and flu vaccines for transplant recipients and their close family members, due to the high risk of infections in immunocompromised patients.
“The first year after transplant is when they’re at highest risk for infection,” Dr. Camille Kotton of Massachusetts General Hospital told the New York Post. “But they do have a lifelong risk of severe disease, and transplant patients are still dying because of COVID-19.”
Despite those risks, Jeneen Deal said she remains confident her unvaccinated family—including their 11 other children—can manage without the shots. “We’ll take it as we can if it happens,” she told the Post. “But I know I cannot put this [vaccine] in her body knowing what we know and how we feel about it.”
If passed, HB519 would authorize Alabama’s Attorney General to impose a $50,000 fine on any entity that denies organ donation or receipt based solely on vaccine status. The bill is currently pending in the House Committee on Health.
Rep. Yarbrough and representatives from the Alabama Hospital Association declined to comment.
At the federal level, U.S. Reps. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., and Mike Rulli, R-Ohio, introduced similar legislation last month—the COVID-19 Vaccination Non-Discrimination Act—in the U.S. House of Representatives.