Anti-vaccine parents defend trying to stop baby receiving life-saving blood ‘tainted by vaccination’

Two anti-vaccine parents have defended their decision to deny a life-saving “vaccinated blood” transfusion for their sick baby, who has since been placed in temporary medical custody by a New Zealand court.

The case of Baby W, a six-month-old child born with a congenital heart defect who urgently needs surgery that includes a transfusion, has become the latest cause du jour of a child-obsessed, feisty anti-vaccine and conspiracy movement in New Zealand.

Baby W’s parents refused to consent to a blood transfusion due to their baseless claim it was “tainted by vaccination” — a decision that has garnered global attention. There is no evidence that vaccinated blood represents any risks to recipients. Billions of doses of the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine have been administered around the world.

The New Zealand Blood Service said that spike proteins from the vaccine are found in “vanishingly small quantities” in vaccinated people and that there’s even a smaller chance they would be found in donated blood, which is filtered during processing. The service added there is no evidence this presents any risks to recipients, and that regardless it does not separate donations into vaccinated and non-vaccination categories and so would be unable to carry out a request for either. 

This week, the Auckland High Court sided with New Zealand’s health service Te Whatu Ora and granted temporary guardianship of Baby W to his paediatric heart surgeon and cardiologist to allow the surgery and associated transfusion and recovery. Outside of this order, which will likely extend to January 2023 at the latest, his parents remain guardians in all other matters.

The story has been the focus of New Zealand’s still active anti-vaccine, so-called “freedom movement” for the past week. Protesters gathered outside the courtroom throughout the case and held a candle vigil earlier this week. Some of the movement’s figures baselessly spread new conspiracies about nurses “sabotaging” the child’s recovery by underfeeding him. Meanwhile, the fate of Baby W has captured the attention of some of the world’s best-known conspiracy theorists.

Not long after the decision, the parents appeared on the internet show of Alex Jones, who recently filed bankruptcy after he was ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the families of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School killings, after falsely claiming the family members were “actors” who staged the shooting.

The parents used the interview to double down on their false claims and defend their decision to place their child at risk, while Jones introduced new conspiracy claims.

“You don’t have any rights,” the father said. “You’re just going to get pumped full of what they’ve deemed is safe for you.” 

“And you’re speaking, detained with your wife and children in this medical facility now being converted to a Nuremberg-violating, angel-of-death operation — I’m sorry, that’s what this is,” Jones replied.

Other figures like world-famous anti-vaccine campaigner Robert F Kennedy Jr and former internet entrepreneur-turned-misinformation promoter Kim Dotcom have also amplified the case.

Since more than 97% of Australians have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine, anti-vaccine campaigners have moved to focus on children’s vaccination. Traditionally, conspiracy movements and moral panics have often focused on stories around children. Children’s vaccinations are a safe and important part of ensuring children’s well-being. Refusing to vaccinate them when recommended by health authorities puts them at a greater risk of illness. 

The case of Baby W is the latest example of how the unfounded fear spread by a movement founded on misinformation can place children’s lives at risk.