A court in New Zealand has ruled that a gravely ill six month old baby can be temporarily taken from its parents after they refused to let the child have a blood transfusion from any donors who may have had a Covid-19 vaccine.
The potentially precedent-setting decision is expected to have wide ramifications and draw a strong reaction in the anti-vaccine movement, where the case became a cause-celebre for those opposed to the vaccine. reported the New Zealand Herald.
In New Zealand, 84 per cent of people have had at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Justice Ian Gault delivered his ruling on the contentious case after a lengthy hearing on Tuesday, where Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand (the country’s health service provider), and Sue Grey, representing the parents, locked horns in the High Court at Auckland as anti-vax protesters gathered outside.
The baby, who cannot be named, has a heart valve disorder requiring urgent surgery. Medical experts have said he would normally have been treated long ago.
“His survival is actually dependent on the application being granted,” lawyer for Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand Paul White said.
Justice Gault also declined an order sought by Ms Grey for the NZ Blood Service to establish a tailored donor service for the six-month-old boy to receive blood exclusively from unvaccinated donors.
A lawyer for the blood service, Adam Ross KC, on Wednesday described the request for that order as exceptional and without precedent. Mr Ross said it would jeopardise the integrity of the donor service and open the door to ethically and clinically bankrupt requests regarding donor blood.
“It is a concern that an order like this can damage and will damage an excellent blood service,” he said.
“There’s also a slippery slope element to it.”
Mr White said specialists believed the child’s heart is suffering damage because of the delay in surgery due to the build-up of blood resulting from pulmonary valve stenosis.
The parents and the baby, who was born two months premature, were in the packed public gallery for a short time on Tuesday morning.
The scope of Justice Gault’s order enables medical professionals to make an assessment as to whether it is safe for the baby to leave the hospital ward before and after surgery. The baby was taken to court on Tuesday by his parents against the advice of medical professionals.
In his judgment, Justice Gault said he accepted the parents of the baby had genuine concerns about the risk of using blood from vaccinated donors.
“However, the issue here is what is in the baby’s best interests,” Justice Gault said.
The parent’s alternative proposal was not viable, the judge said.
“For these reasons, and given that the baby needs urgent surgery, an order enabling the surgery to proceed using [NZ Blood Service blood products without further delay is in the baby’s best interests.”
The judgment also traverses the fact, revealed in court on Tuesday, that the baby boy has already had a blood transfusion of the type opposed by his parents, in October this year.
“After the procedure, the baby’s parents were distressed to hear that clinicians had needed to give the baby ‘a top up’ of blood.
“Although they had consented,[the baby’s] parents told the team that if any further procedures were to be done going forward, they would have to find an alternative as the parents’ wish was not to have any blood other than blood that did not contain the Pfizer vaccine, mRNA, the spike protein or any other associated contaminants that may cause myocarditis or clotting.”
Justice Gault’s judgment repeatedly said the parents are loving and want what is best for their child.
Conspiracy theories
However, it also describes a meeting with a doctor at Auckland’s Starship Childrens Hospital where a “support person” hijacked a meeting with the parents. The person pressured the specialists with theories about conspiracies in New Zealand and went as far as to claim infants were dying from transfusions at Starship Hospital, the judgment said.
The ruling is already drawing a furious reaction from the anti-vaccine movement.
Former TV host Liz Gunn, now an anti-vaccine activist, appeared in court beside the parents when they took their baby to the hearing against medical advice.
She later addressed the crowd of supporters outside. In an audio message posted to social media shortly after the decision, she sounded near to tears and also revealed she had been trespassed from Starship Hospital for 48 hours on Wednesday morning on what she claimed were spurious grounds.
“New Zealand I have absolutely devastating news,” she said.
“Little [baby] is going to be handed to Starship Hospital. This is wrong on every level.”
The NZ Freedom and Outdoors Party, of which Ms Grey is co-leader, said on social media in response to the ruling it was “a bad day in NZ law and medicine and human rights and logical sense.”
Ms White had earlier argued applications for court guardianship for ill children whose parents refused blood transfusions most commonly occurred with Jehovah’s Witnesses, who believe it is God’s will not to receive blood.
About a decade ago, there were two cases where the courts granted temporary guardianship of Kiwi Jehovah’s Witness children so they could receive critical medical care.
“What we have is loving parents … with beliefs that contrast with the medical profession’s views based on science,” Ms White said.
However Justice Gault said blood from people who were vaccinated should was extremely unlikely to cause heart problems.
“There is no evidence that trace amounts of vaccine in blood or blood products could cause myocarditis. If there is any spike protein at all in blood, it will be in the picogramrange (one trillionth of a gram).”
This story appeared in the New Zealand Herald and is reproduced with permission.
