DJ Ferguson, who has a hereditary heart condition that prompts his lungs and heart to fill with blood and fluid, was rejected the life-saving organ transplant by Boston Brigham and Women's Hospital, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.
The hospital said it removed Ferguson from the donor list because all transplant recipients need to get the vaccine to "create both the best chance for successful operation and also the patient's survival after transplantation."
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However, Ferguson's father, David, said getting jabbed is "kind of against his basic principles" and that his son "doesn't believe in it."
"I think my boy is fighting pretty damn courageously and he has integrity and principles he really believes in and that makes me respect him all the more... It's his body. It's his choice."
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The hospital, which has a list of protocols for transplant candidates that includes a ban on lifestyle choices like smoking and alcohol, said demanding the COVID vaccine is common at multiple medical centers throughout the country.
The mortality rate for transplant recipients who become sick with COVID is more than 20 percent, according to UCHealth.
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"It's a policy they are enforcing and so because he won't get the shot, they took him off the list of a heart transplant," David told CBS Boston.
"My son has gone to the edge of death to stick to his guns and he's been pushed to the limit."
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Ferguson's family ponders his transfer to another hospital, but his wife said he might be too weak to move.
"At this point DJ is unable to leave the hospital until he gets the heart surgery he needs. Without the surgery his lungs and heart will continue to fill up with blood and fluid (on top of everything else that's going on)," said Ferguson's wife, Heather Dawson, on Facebook.
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Dr. Arthur Caplan, the head of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told CBS Boston that vaccination is a requirement for transplants because patients' immune systems are essentially switched off after receiving a new organ.
"The flu could kill you, a cold could kill you, COVID could kill you. The organs are scarce, we are not going to distribute them to someone who has a poor chance of living when others who are vaccinated have a better chance post-surgery of surviving," he explained.
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Ferguson isn't the first patient in need of a transplant who has been refused due to their vaccination status.
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