A heartfelt thank you to Dr. Drew Pinsky for the invitation to join his live program and to Attorney Tom Renz for supporting our work. Dr. Drew has become a major force for open-mindedness and scientific integrity. Tom has become a lead champion of the rights of patients and their families.
In this post I will expand on several issues Dr. Drew raised.
Watch the full episode here: https://rumble.com/v74xil4-unsafe-blood-babys-massive-clot-blamed-on-mrna-vaxxed-donor-transfusion-w-t.html
Transfusion in post-2020 America
2020 was the last year in which there was no pseudouridine modified mRNA vaccines in any human blood. Prior to that, directed donations—where a patient personally directs who their matching blood donor will be—was considered a natural human right and entirely non-controversial.
This was true not only in the United States, but internationally. In many countries of the developing world, directed donations are the primary means by which patients procure blood for their surgeries.
However, with the introduction of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and the unsupported claim of “safe and effective” that was authorized by governments around the world and enforced through social media, this right to directed donations suddenly became controversial and in some cases negated.
In Switzerland, where SafeBlood was founded, and throughout the European Union, directed donations are no longer allowed. Patients there have no choice or control over the source of the blood they must receive if they need it. One partial exception has been Italy, where patients sometimes have threatened to sue their hospitals and then have been accommodated.
In the United States, the situation has been far better than in Europe, but not across the board. Patients in the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast, parts of Texas, and increasingly parts of the Midwest have been denied the right to choose their donor.
As a result, many have traveled to other states to receive surgery where they could also express their right to chose their own donor—traveling from Idaho to Utah, for example, Washington State to Pennsylvania, Minnesota to Florida, Hawaii to California.
In the US, getting access to a directed donation depends upon the policies of both the hospital and the blood bank with which a hospital is contracted. If either has a policy against directed donation, the patient will be denied.
Unfortunately, these policies are currently encouraged by a 2023 statement by the FDA discouraging directed donations on the basis of the safety of the mRNA vaccines.
SafeBlood is lobbying the FDA to remove this Biden-era misinformation.
Why historical memory matters: lessons from the HIV blood supply crisis
Dr. Drew asked whether history offers a parallel to the present moment.
I pointed to the HIV blood supply crisis of the 1980s, where early warnings about transfusion risk were not rapidly translated into protective national policy. A major retrospective analysis was published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (originally Institute of Medicine) as HIV and the Blood Supply: An Analysis of Crisis Decisionmaking (1995).
The review discovered three areas of failure on the part of decision makers that are now repeating themselves again today:
Underestimation of risk and failure to mitigate risk.
Over reliance on the blood industry in shaping policy.
Over emphasis of scientific certainty (i.e., proof) of risk to the blood supply rather than realistic probability of risk before acting.
The result was that half of the country’s 16,000 hemophiliacs contracted HIV in the early 1980s. Most died from it. Activists referred to this as the Hemophiliac Holocaust. As many as 29,000 or more Americans altogether contracted HIV/AIDs, although the true totals are unknown. Because America is a great exporter of blood products the harm was multiplied internationally.
Today we are again receiving the same false assurances “that vaccines do not pose a risk to patients receiving blood transfusions” * that fly in the face of both common sense and experience.
Logic dictates that harmful components which circulate in the blood are transferred with the blood. In addition, we have an increasing number of reports of patients who experienced mRNA vaccine adverse reactions whose only exposure was through a blood transfusion.
Historically, that means we are still in the window between when unbiased observers recognize risk and when health authorities take action to protect the public from those risks. During the AIDS crisis that window was seven years, nine years if you include how long it took the new protective policies to be instituted across the country.
Forward thinking doctors at Stanford and elsewhere had been sounding the alarm from the very beginning, and in that seven to nine year window a lot of people were irreparably harmed.
In the current window that we are in, the public needs to think for themselves, take action to protect themselves, and have their right to do so guaranteed.
mRNA Vaccine Components and Effects in the Blood
Dr. Drew raised a valid technical distinction: whole blood exposures differ from packed red blood cells (pRBCs), and processing may reduce circulating components. Since pRBCs represent the majority of blood transfusion this is a highly relevant issue.
The issue of the safety of blood products like pRBCs, and how they compare with other blood products like frozen plasma and IVIG, is currently unknown and an area where unbiased research is needed.
Many experts who SafeBlood relies on for our scientific assessments believe these product either do or could contain harmful mRNA vaccine components.
Peer-reviewed literature has documented signals that justify careful inquiry into persistence and circulation:
Detection of vaccine-related mRNA signals in blood compartments in certain contexts.
Detection of spike antigen in plasma following mRNA vaccination in at least some recipients, with timing and duration varying across individuals, but in many cases persisting for multiple years after their last vaccination.
The discovery of potentially cancer causing DNA plasmids (Moderna, Pfizer) and SV40 promoter (Pfizer) in the vaccine vials combined with detection of these in the blood of patients long after their last vaccination.
Therefore, until more is known, it must be assumed that the risk is not zero, and therefore informed consent and patient freedom is paramount.
Evidence of Harm: The Baby Alex Case
Baby Alex, a newborn who died from a blood clot after a transfusion in Washington State has become an iconic case used in support of the need for directed donations.
Dr. Drew, when discussion Baby Alex with Attorney Tom Renz, commented that blood clots are common and not in themselves evidence of mRNA injury via the blood.
Since I was no longer available for comment in the interview, I will clarify the details of this case here.
Dr. Drew’s statement is valid regarding a normal blood clot. However, the clot that Baby Alex died from extended from his knee to his heart. It was the length of half his body. The knee is the location where Alex was transfused, as is normal in infant transfusions. The clot formed within hours of being transfused, unaffected by normal anti-clotting agents that were administered to him, in continued to grow until he died.
This clot was by all accounts one of the “calamari” clots, documented by Dr. Ryan Cole and Tom Haviland. These were virtually unknown before the rollout of the COVID vaccines, but now they are reported by a majority of morticians in the US.
The Baby Alex case demonstrates the criteria for case reports SafeBlood is compiling to better understand the risks of mRNA vaccine injury via transfusion:
The patients had no other potential exposure to the mRNA vaccine other than a blood transfusion.
The patient experienced an adverse reaction common or unique to the mRNA vaccines but not to blood transfusions prior to 2020
Are Autologous Donations Being Suppressed?
Dr. Drew commented, “I have been hearing stranger rumors about people not getting autologous blood for surgeries and deliveries and things when they want it. Is something going on that way? . . . Autologous blood was always the superior approach.”
This is a great question.
First, we are grateful that the American Red Cross allows expectant mothers to bank their own blood ahead of delivery should they need it, and mothers opting for home birth can also do so through the hospital they have designated for their transfer in an emergency.
Returning to Dr. Drew’s questions, we do believe that this is the case.
A Texas woman recently reported that her husband preparing for heart surgery was denied not only her blood as a universal donor, and friends that were matches, but when asked if he could use his own blood, they received the same response, no, because it was not “medically necessary.”
The hospital’s language is identical to that of the 2023 FDA statement. No other reason was given (for example, a possible lack of time prior to the surgery to both harvest sufficient blood and have time to replenish sufficiently). Therefore, it appears that the autologous donation was suppressed for sake of the “safe and effective” mRNA vaccine narrative.
All the state bills put forward to protect the right to directed donation also include language to protect the right to autologous donation. When I testified in Wyoming in 2025, opponents of the bill did not single out directed donation to oppose and favor autologous donation. They opposed the bill en toto.
One of the events that catalyzed SafeBlood’s start was our founder, George Della Pietra, learning that a friend in Europe had been denied doing an autologous donation.
Fortunately, the Texas man was able, at our recommendation, to request and receive the Cell Saver system and needed no transfusion during his surgery, which we are glad to report was a success.
The takeaway here is that we have anecdotal reports of denial of autologous donations, but not concrete data on that. Autologous is a small part of the off-the-shelf transfusion alternatives, compared with directed donations.
If anyone has experience this, please comment, as that will help increase our understanding.
How patients can protect themselves.
We recommend that patients seeking alternatives to stored blood due to concerns about mRNA vaccine components do not openly state this as a reason, in order to avoid unproductive conflict with their care providers. Rather, personal preference is a sufficient explanation.
Just to review, the options available are:
Directed donation
A patient requests a known compatible donor (family, friend, community member).Autologous donation
A patient donates their own blood in advance of a planned procedure, when medically appropriate.Autotransfusion (cell salvage, “cell saver”)
A system that collects and returns the patient’s own blood during surgery.
Why SafeBlood exists and what we do
SafeBlood does not operate as a blood bank. We do not store or distribute blood products. Our work focuses on facilitating directed donor matching by location, so individuals can build a donor network before an emergency arises.
In other words, we aim to restore a form of preparedness that historically existed in transfusion medicine: community-based donor planning, aligned with patient choice.
This is relevant for:
People with scheduled procedures who want to reduce uncertainty.
People who previously experienced adverse reactions and want to avoid additional exposure.
People who are vaccinated but do not want further exposures, because risk tolerance varies and informed consent must respect that diversity.
We also educate and promote legislation to protect patients’ rights to designate their donors as well as national policies to restore access to mRNA-free donor blood for emergency medicine.
If you are planning surgery, managing a complex pregnancy, supporting an elderly family member, or anticipating any scenario where transfusion is likely, consider preparing now rather than in crisis.
You can learn more and build a directed donor plan at safeblood.com, and follow our ongoing research and policy updates at safeblood.substack.com.
* Joint Statement: Blood Community Reiterates the Safety of America’s Blood Supply for Patients, https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/press-release/2023/blood-community-reiterates-the-safety-of-america-s-blood-supply.html , cited by the FDA statement, Important Information About Directed Blood Donations that are Not Medically Indicated, October 23, 2023.
Dr. R. Clinton Ohlers, PhD is Vice President and Director of Media Relations for SafeBlood Donation. He holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and taught and conducted research at the University of Hong Kong, returning to the US during the early COVID outbreak. His work focuses on blood safety, medical ethics, and informed consent, with an emphasis on restoring transparency and patient choice in transfusion medicine.
About SafeBlood
SafeBlood Donation is a global initiative dedicated to protecting informed consent in blood transfusions.
Our core principle is simple:
If you cannot choose your donor, you do not have informed consent.
A Note to Readers
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Science advances through inquiry. Medicine advances through informed choice.
