A 12-year-old Indiana girl, who is related to Vice President JD Vance by marriage, has been denied a place on a heart transplant list at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital because she is not vaccinated against COVID-19 and the flu, her parents say.
Adaline Deal, who was adopted from China at the age of four, has been treated at the hospital for nearly a decade for two rare heart conditions—Ebstein’s anomaly and Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome—both of which doctors warned would eventually require a transplant. Her family had hoped she would receive the procedure at the Cincinnati facility, but hospital officials have reportedly refused to grant her an exemption to their vaccination requirements despite religious objections raised by her parents.
“I thought, wow. So, it’s not about the kid. It’s not about saving her life,” Janeen Deal, Adaline’s mother, told The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital denied a child, 12 year old Adaline Deal, a heart transplant, because she isn’t vaccinated for covid due to religious beliefs!
I never come out and directly ask for reposts, ladies and gentlemen, but this is an entirely different matter!
Everyone… pic.twitter.com/ZWvGE72iTu
— Shawn Hawkins (@ArmedPatriot45) February 12, 2025
Janeen Deal, who has 11 other children, says she and her husband chose not to vaccinate Adaline after what she described as a religious conviction. “The Holy Spirit put it on our hearts,” she told the newspaper, adding that she believes vaccines are unsafe.
Hospitals across the country typically require transplant candidates to be vaccinated against preventable diseases, citing the significantly increased risk of infection and complications following a major organ transplant. Dr. Camille Kotton, the clinical director of transplant and immunocompromised host infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, explained that patients in Adaline’s condition face a higher risk of death from COVID-19, especially in the first year after a transplant.
“The first year after transplant is when they’re at highest risk for infection, but they do have a lifelong risk of severe disease, and transplant patients are still dying because of COVID-19,” Kotton said.
Janeen Deal remains firm in her position that Adaline should receive the transplant without being vaccinated. “We’ll take it as we can if it happens,” she said. “But I know I cannot put this [vaccine] in her body knowing what we know and how we feel about it.”
🇺🇸 12-YEAR-OLD RELATIVE OF JD VANCE DENIED HEART TRANSPLANT OVER VACCINE STATUS
A 12-year-old Indiana girl, Adaline Deal, has been denied a heart transplant by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital because she is unvaccinated against COVID and flu.
Adaline, a distant relative of VP JD… pic.twitter.com/cD82FsuG3Q
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) February 13, 2025
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital declined to confirm whether Adaline had been kept off the transplant list, but a spokesperson for the hospital emphasized that medical decisions are based on scientific research and best practices.
“We tailor care plans to each patient in collaboration with their family to ensure the safest, most effective treatment,” said hospital spokesperson Bo McMillan.
Now, Adaline’s family is searching for another transplant center that will accept her without the required vaccinations. A GoFundMe campaign launched to support the effort has already raised more than $50,000 as of Wednesday morning.
