You will be made to conform……….<\/p>\n
California Hospital Refuses Transplant Surgery for Unvaccinated Woman With End-Stage Kidney Disease.<\/a><\/p>\n SAN DIEGO, Calif.\u2014Even on a good day, Linda Garinger of Ramona, California, thinks about dying.<\/p>\n Since she went on kidney dialysis two years ago, she\u2019s had a heart attack and a cardiac episode associated with her thrice-weekly treatments.<\/p>\n Her energy is low as her other vital organs slowly fail. Her blood pressure is out of control\u2014hovering at around 200 systolic over \u201c100-something\u201ddiastolic whenever she undergoes dialysis.<\/p>\n Garinger feels it\u2019s only a matter of time before her next heart attack, which could prove fatal unless she gets a new kidney.<\/p>\n \u201cThe dialysis is very stressful on me. My vision is going. My hair is falling out. I\u2019ve got skin cancer,\u201d said Garinger, 68. \u201cThey said it\u2019s from the dialysis not filtering out all the bad stuff.<\/p>\n \u201cMy biggest fear is I\u2019ll have a heart attack during dialysis. I\u2019m just going downhill right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n In 2022, Garinger was eagerly waiting for a kidney transplant at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, having found a good organ match in her daughter, the doctors told her.<\/p>\n But, \u201cI needed [the transplant] like two years ago,\u201d Garinger said.<\/p>\n Early last May, Garinger received an unexpected letter from the hospital saying she was no longer on the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) waitlist for a kidney transplant.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason for this status change is you have not had your COVID vaccines,\u201d read the May 6, 2022, letter Garinger shared with The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce this situation is remedied, you will be evaluated for re-activation on the transplant waitlist.\u201d<\/p>\n Garinger did not appeal the hospital\u2019s decision. She knew \u201cin her gut\u201d her unvaccinated status would always be a problem.<\/p>\n Still, she put her faith in Sharp Memorial, only to be put through tests, medical procedures, and consultations at a substantial cost to Medicare.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole time, they knew I wasn\u2019t vaccinated and that [my daughter] wasn\u2019t vaccinated. They would always ask me, \u2018Why don\u2019t you want to get a vaccine?’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was pretty adamant,\u201d said Garinger. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to take anything that was still experimental.\u201d<\/p>\n She remembered her good friend who died two weeks after receiving a COVID shot. \u201cShe lived right over here, on the other side [of the street],\u201d Garinger said.<\/p>\n Garinger said she was fortunate to find another hospital nearby that would operate without her taking the vaccine.<\/p>\n Starting All Over She fears her time will run out before then.<\/p>\n One sympathetic doctor said, \u2018Linda, you could drop over dead. Your heart could stop.\u2019 So, I have to watch what I eat, and on the days I don\u2019t do dialysis, I take this powder that tastes like gritty sand\u201d to remove the excess potassium from her body.<\/p>\n Garinger finds herself among many people who need an organ transplant but are up against a medical system still adhering to vaccine protocols in many facilities.<\/p>\n In a 2021 Healio transplantation survey, 60 percent of the 141 transplant centers that responded did not require a COVID-19 injection before surgery. The survey sample represented just over 56 percent of the transplant centers in the United States.<\/p>\n Jeffrey Childers, a commercial attorney based in Gainesville, Florida, served clients facing COVID-19 mandates at hospitals and medical clinics during the pandemic.<\/p>\n He said Garinger\u2019s case reflects the \u201cCOVID mania\u201d that permeated the medical establishment beginning in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was an ugly manifestation of the COVID management regime that popped up,\u201d Childers said. \u201cAll the cases get a lot of attention because people are horrified. But the transplant people will say they have limited resources, only get so many organs each year, and we have to give them to people with the best survival chances. They\u2019ll hide behind that forever.\u201d<\/p>\n Life-and-Death Decisions \u201cTo see these kinds of life-and-death bureaucratic powers wielded by people who are not motivated by the science but\u2014something else\u2014is horrifying,\u201d Childers said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve run into it a handful of times in Florida. The law that applies is state dependent. The folks who manage those donor lists and the assignments have a lot of discretion.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s even more appalling it\u2019s happening now so late in the pandemic when the mandates are gone. You can\u2019t find a single person who says they regret not taking the vaccine. But you can find tons going the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n Childers said pro-vaccine advocates argue that an unvaccinated recipient is much more likely to die from COVID-19 following transplant surgery than a vaccinated patient.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know the official line anymore,\u201d he told The Epoch Times. \u201c[The vaccine] doesn\u2019t stop you from dying. It doesn\u2019t stop you from getting sick.\u201d<\/p>\n One study in the November 2022 MDPI, a Switzerland-based publisher of open-access scientific journals, claimed that over 60 days, the death rate among unvaccinated kidney transplant patients was 11.2 percent at the time of COVID-19 infection.<\/p>\n The study found the death rate among the vaccinated was 2.2 percent. More than two-thirds of the 144 patients in the study received a kidney transplant.<\/p>\n By contrast, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine in September 2022 found that some cornea transplant patients rejected the grafts after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n In some cases, the rejection took place 20 years after the procedure.<\/p>\n Childers believes the science generally does not support the notion that unvaccinated transplant recipients are at an increased risk of dying from COVID-19.<\/p>\n \u201cThe argument is always don\u2019t give an organ to a person who is living some kind of lifestyle that is risky or increases the risk of dying from something else,\u201d Childers told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the logic they\u2019re applying to this. They\u2019re essentially saying by not taking the vaccine, [transplant patients] are at higher risk of dying from COVID. So they don\u2019t want to give an organ to somebody at high risk voluntarily.\u201d<\/p>\n Ohio attorney Warner Mendenhall, representing clients in vaccine mandate cases, said he knows at least 60 organ transplant denial suits working through the medical freedom group Liberty Counsel.<\/p>\n Each case involves a client refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine required for transplant surgery.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing [transplant denials] at many hospitals across the country,\u201d Mendenhall said.<\/p>\n And while the medical establishment remains split on the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 injections, some \u201cmedical people are concerned about clotting and other issues that occur with the vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially if you\u2019ve got liver and kidney problems and need that type of transfer, you don\u2019t want to be vaccinated before the transplant. That\u2019s my understanding,\u201d Mendenhall said.<\/p>\n A \u2018Fiduciary Responsibility\u2019 to Patients For this reason, Mendenhall believes there is a \u201cfiduciary relationship that the hospitals engage in with a transplant patient.\u201d To break that obligation would be \u201ca real breach of that fiduciary responsibility to them.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the Chronic Disease Research Group, an estimated 37 million people in the United States have kidney disease in varying stages.<\/p>\n About 1 million Americans are in the end stages of the disease. At the same time, 550,000 undergo kidney dialysis to remove excess toxins from the blood because their kidneys cannot perform this function.<\/p>\n The average wait time for a kidney transplant in the United States is three to five years at most health facilities, but it\u2019s longer in some parts of the country, according to kidney.org.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is best to explore transplant before you need to start dialysis. This way, you might be able to get a transplant \u2018preemptively,\u2019 before you need dialysis,\u201d the organization\u2019s website states.<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes time to find the right transplant center for you, to complete the transplant evaluation, to get on the transplant waitlist for a deceased donor, or to find a living kidney donor if you can.\u201d<\/p>\n Garinger said she is in terminal Stage 5 of her kidney disease and needs dialysis almost every other day to stay alive.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m pissed off,\u201d said Garinger, who gets short of breath just walking to the kitchen.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t walk to Costco or a grocery store now. My muscles\u2014I get out of wind so easily. I can\u2019t walk down to my chickens anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Her daughter Emily Lewis, 35, is a recent medical assistant program graduate and is now her mother\u2019s live-in caretaker as she waits for a kidney transplant.<\/p>\n \u201cI put my life on hold because [of my mother],\u201d Lewis said, although she has no regrets.<\/p>\n With her career in limbo, Lewis said she is angry at the injustice of the COVID-19 mandates while doubting the shots even work.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone I know who\u2019s COVID vaccinated has had it four or five times. I\u2019ve had it zero,\u201d Lewis told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n Denied access to the kidney wait list at Sharp Memorial, Garinger found that the University of California San Diego Medical Center was willing to perform the kidney transplant surgery.<\/p>\n But the longer it takes to find a kidney donor, the more likely it is that she won\u2019t make it back to a more normal life.<\/p>\n She characterized her relationship with her doctors at Sharp Memorial as adversarial since she opposed taking the COVID-19 vaccine under any circumstances.<\/p>\n She remembered one doctor in Ramona who kept \u201cpressuring me\u201d about the vaccine.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cWhat will you do if you get COVID? What if you catch COVID and you have to go to the hospital?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d she told him. \u201cI have this protocol on my fridge\u2014vitamins C and D. I have ivermectin. Number one: I won\u2019t go to the hospital. It\u2019s a death sentence there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI guess you know more than me,’\u201d the doctor said as he stood up and left the room.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know I had an adversary\u201d or that \u201cI was an evil person. I just had a gut feeling they would deny me [a kidney] because they kept pressuring me about the shot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey did the same thing with me,\u201d Emily said.<\/p>\n \u2018Why Aren\u2019t You Vaccinated?\u2019 \u201cThere was none,\u201d she said. \u201cIt came down to the last final interview with the surgeon. All he could ask me was, \u2018Why aren\u2019t you vaccinated? Why don\u2019t you want to get vaccinated?’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have COVID,\u201d Garinger said. \u201c[Emily] doesn\u2019t have COVID. Another thing they told me was we were a [donor] match. And then I got to UCSD, and the bloodwork showed she was not a match.\u201d<\/p>\n Sharp Memorial did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times. UCSD Medical Center did not return an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n New Orleans attorney David Dalia said Garinger\u2019s case seems to be medical \u201cdiscrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey are discriminating against her based on her vaccination status,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n During the pandemic, Dalia worked on vaccine mandate cases with Frontline doctors, filing amicus briefs on behalf of 1.5 million federal employees who refused to take a COVID-19 vaccine by order of President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n \u201cThe truth is [Garinger] has a lot better chance of living than a vaccinated person. We can back that up. They\u2019re viewing it as sort of a disability.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, that\u2019s a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And federal law specifically says all experimental use authorization drugs are strictly voluntary and subject to informed consent.\u201d<\/p>\n Dalia said informed consent is \u201cnever coerced.\u201d<\/p>\n As Garinger works through the intake process at UCSD Medical Center, she has good, bad, and \u201chell\u201d days.<\/p>\n \u201cI sit in a chair all day,\u201d said Garinger, who ran a successful foreclosure business before she retired due to her illness. \u201c[Emily] helps me do cooking. She does all the chopping and stuff. I have a chair in the kitchen. I walk to the kitchen and start cooking. I don\u2019t do much. My gardening is on hold\u2014everything is on hold. My muscles are gone. I use electric carts to go to Costco. I can\u2019t do anything. I\u2019m out of breath. It sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEvery part of my body is deteriorating. So, I\u2019m on hold until I get a kidney.\u201d<\/p>\n Just as painful are the times people call her \u201cevil \u201d because she refuses to take an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to give [COVID] to everybody,\u201d they tell her. \u201cYou\u2019re evil for not getting vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s how I felt,\u201d Garinger told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n She said another fear is receiving a kidney from a vaccinated donor, with unknown health effects, since there is no way to determine which donor is vaccinated and which one is not.<\/p>\n Feeling her time is growing short, Garinger said she is still determined to keep fighting in the time she has left.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got to get this done. Every day there\u2019s something else going wrong with me because my kidneys are gone,\u201d Garinger said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You will be made to conform………. California Hospital Refuses Transplant Surgery for Unvaccinated Woman With End-Stage Kidney Disease. SAN DIEGO, Calif.\u2014Even on a good day, Linda Garinger of Ramona, California, thinks about dying. Since she went on kidney dialysis two years ago, she\u2019s had a heart attack and a cardiac episode associated with her thrice-weekly … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crap-for-brains","category-health-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91033"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91035,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91033\/revisions\/91035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe challenge now is the time it will take to complete all the required paperwork and preliminary procedures, the time it will take to get on a waitlist for a kidney donor, and the time it will take to find a donor.<\/p>\n
\nChilders said health care facilities still have tremendous discretionary power to make critical decisions concerning COVID-19 vaccines.<\/p>\n
\nOften, the unvaccinated transplant patient has maintained a longstanding medical relationship with the hospital or clinic without issue before the COVID-19 vaccine rollouts.<\/p>\n
\nAt one point, Garinger demanded data showing the vaccine\u2019s side effects.<\/p>\n