Child taken into custody by health officials over anti-vax blood case

• A New Zealand court has told health officials to temporarily take care of a child who is at the center of a case about blood transfusions from donors who were vaccinated against Covid-19.
• The boy, who is only 4 months old, is in an Auckland hospital because he needs urgent care for a heart problem.
• His parents had stopped the surgery from happening and asked the court to let him get blood from people who had not been vaccinated.

The four-month-old child is in an Auckland hospital receiving emergency treatment for a cardiac condition.

His parents had opposed the procedure and had asked a judge to order that he get blood from unvaccinated donors instead.

The High Court, however, decided that the procedure was in the child’s “best interest.”

The boy, known as Baby W in court documents, was put under the court’s guardianship “from the date of the order until completion of his operation and post-operative rehabilitation,” Justice Ian Gault said.

He agreed with health officials that the boy’s “life [was] truly contingent on the application being granted,” and he rejected the parents’ request for unvaccinated blood, calling it superfluous and unworkable.

However, he emphasised that the boy’s parents remained his primary caregivers and insisted that doctors must always keep them updated on the boy’s status and course of treatment.

Sue Grey, the attorney for the parents, also asked Justice Gault to deny the establishment of a customised donor programme using only blood from unvaccinated donors.

Ms. Grey said that the vaccine’s long-term effects were “untested” and charged physicians of refusing to offer an alternative donor service due to their ideological beliefs.

The development of any direct donor service, however, would have been a “slippery slope,” according to the state blood service’s attorney, and would “destroy a good blood service.”

Justice Gault decided that there was “no scientific proof there is any Covid-19 vaccine-related risk from blood supplied” by vaccinated donors, citing testimony from New Zealand’s chief medical officer.

The case has drawn the attention of anti-vaccine activists in New Zealand, with protesters amassing outside the court before the decision was made on Wednesday and many of them carrying placards.

The parents had been accompanied by a “support person” who commandeered the conference at a meeting with physicians at the Starship hospital in Auckland, it also came to light throughout the case.

They claimed the individual provided a number of unsubstantiated conspiracy ideas before going on to assert that children were passing away at the hospital from blood transfusions.

Liz Gunn, a former TV anchor and prominent opponent of vaccinations, addressed the crowd outside the courthouse after the judgement and declared that it was “wrong on every level.”

Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) acknowledged that the situation was “difficult for everybody involved” but emphasised that the “health and wellbeing” of all the children in its custody remained its top priority.

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