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Dr. K's avatar

I am a long-time blood bank director. Directed donations are discouraged primarily for reason three in your list...they do not want a long list of people coming in and saying "I only want blood from these people". It is already hard enough to make this all work.

According to Roguski, they have recruited a large pool of potential donors. An infant surgery does not take all that much replacement blood, so it is entirely possible that there will be a match in their pool. Or not. The blood bank will be thrilled (I expect) to have that many donations because blood is always in short supply and only one or two units from the volunteers will likely be useful.

Matching is pretty arbitrary: Units are ABO/Rh typed and then pretty randomly selected (usually by expiration date) to be crossmatched. A major side crossmatch is all generally done which makes sure that there are no antibodies in the baby's blood that will clot the incoming transfusion. (A minor side crossmatch, seldom done but considered when volumes are equally small, checks the reverse.) Most matches get through first time. If not, one moves on. So if there are one or two good matches from the group they have assembled, that would be a win for the community and for them.

There is a further layer to put on this. Red cells (which is all they really need to transfuse) are just sacks of hemoglobin with a membrane. They do not contain organelles (like a nucleus) and I expect would not contain spike protein either...no place to attach since the red cell has just a simple unit membrane. So they could give packed, washed RBCs and accomplish all they wish from almost everyone's perspective. Why this is not discussed anywhere I find elusive. And this, of course, beggars the question as to whether someone vaccinated, let us say one year ago, would have any spike protein floating around in any case. Most would think not.

This seems like much ado that does not need to be there just to make a point. As I said, most blood banks will refuse directed donations not only because they likely do not match but also because they establish donation and use predicates that will cause most units to be wasted. If desired, they surely could use this as a major blood drive and "just happen" to use a unit from the drive if it happens to be compatible. Or they could just use washed, packed RBCs from the regular pool...likely will not be any more dangerous for Baby Will.

Happy to answer more questions if some folks have them.

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Sweettea71's avatar

We need to create an alternate healthcare system around the world that focuses on the patient and freedom. We will need them staffed with naturopathic physicians who aren’t pill pushers.

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