Blood Transfusion Doesn’t Transfer COVID-19 Vaccine

A blood transfusion from a vaccinated person doesn’t transfer the inoculation to an unvaccinated person. But high-profile purveyors of misinformation have been promoting the long-standing false claim that it does.

How do we know vaccines are safe?

Most people in the U.S. — about 80% — have gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and they’ve been able to donate blood since the vaccines first became available, according to guidance from the Food and Drug Administration.

So it’s been almost two full years that blood from vaccinated donors has been used for transfusions, Dr. Roy Silverstein, chair of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Division of Hematology and Oncology, told us in a phone interview. “We’ve seen no evidence of any kind of safety concern,” he said.

But anti-vaccine campaigners have recently focused on a claim that’s been lingering since the vaccines first became available — the unfounded idea that those who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 have “clean blood” or “pure blood” and that it’s dangerous for them to receive a transfusion from someone who is vaccinated. The term “pure blood” has been embraced by at least one member of Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has a history of spreading vaccine misinformation.