Woman who won't get vaccine denied transplant

When a Colorado woman found out her hospital wouldn't approve her kidney transplant surgery until she got the COVID-19 vaccine, she was left with a difficult decision pitting her health needs against her religious beliefs.

Leilani Lutali, a born-again Christian, went with her faith.

Even though she has stage 5 kidney disease that puts her at risk of dying without a new kidney, Lutali, 56, said she could not agree to be vaccinated because of the role that fetal cell lines have played in the development of vaccines.

Several types of cell lines created decades ago using fetal tissue are widely used in medical manufacturing but the cells in them today are clones of the early cells, not the original tissue.

UCHealth requires transplant recipients to be vaccinated because recipients are at significant risk of contracting COVID-19 as well as being hospitalized and dying from the virus.

Doctors say unvaccinated donors could also pass COVID-19 to the recipient even if they initially test negative for the disease.

The best time to get a COVID-19 vaccine is before an organ transplant.

If time allows, patients should get their second dose of the available vaccines at least a couple of weeks prior to transplant "so that your body has a good immune response to the vaccine," said Dr. Deepali Kumar, the American Society of Transplantation's president-elect and an infectious disease physician.

Many major religious denominations have no objections to the COVID-19 vaccines.

But the rollout has prompted heated debates because of the longtime role that cell lines derived from fetal tissue have played a role, directly or indirectly, in the research and development of various vaccines and medicines.

To Lutali, a recruiter for tech companies, it seems like her hospital was so insistent on saving her from COVID-19 that is is willing to let her possibly die by blocking her transplant surgery.

Lutali, who does not belong to a denomination, said she does not live in fear of dying because of her belief in the afterlife.

She is searching for another hospital, possibly in Texas or Florida, where she could get a transplant without being vaccinated.