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lostincalifornia

(5,210 posts)
Tue Feb 17, 2026, 09:41 AM Feb 17

A Life-Saving Vitamin for Babies Is Getting Swept Up in Vaccine Backlash



The 2-month-old baby arrived at the hospital with the type of bleeding in and around his brain that was so unusual Miami neurosurgeon Heather McCrea had only read about it in textbooks.

The pooling blood indicated that the baby had a severe vitamin K deficiency — something usually prevented by a shot at birth. But his parents, like a growing number of Americans skeptical of injections, had declined to get the shot for their baby.

..........

For nearly 65 years, babies in the US have received a dose of vitamin K within hours of their birth. The injections aren’t a vaccine, but a supplemental dose of a vitamin found in leafy green vegetables that allows blood to clot. Newborns can’t produce much on their own. The injection helps prevent them from developing severe vitamin K deficiency bleeding. The chances they will do so are slim — less than 1 in 14,000 — but it’s fatal for about 20% of babies.

...........

Doctors now say that’s changing as more parents refuse the shot. A December study found that 5.2% of US families turned down the shot in 2024, up from 2.9% in 2017. Researchers have long linked the refusal of the shots to bleeding-related deaths in infants. And there have been instances of children becoming permanently impaired in Tennessee and Pennsylvania.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-17/vitamin-k-shot-safety-more-parents-skip-injection-that-s-not-vaccine

There is a growing resistance seen that people are rejecting anything injected into their system, vaccine or not. The anti-Science, anti-vaccine cult is absolutely insane.
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bucolic_frolic

(54,743 posts)
2. Better to live on soda and popcorn than to have injections
Tue Feb 17, 2026, 09:47 AM
Feb 17

You get to believe in your own thinking that way. You are the expert.

Ilsa

(64,146 posts)
3. Hey, 'I'll do my own research' reading social media posts
Tue Feb 17, 2026, 09:48 AM
Feb 17

and responses to "experts" I've never heard of on a bot-infested discussion board. Then you'll see!!

mainer

(12,532 posts)
4. My friend's infant had a brain bleed and spent his life in an institution
Tue Feb 17, 2026, 10:06 AM
Feb 17

This was in the UK, in the years before Vit K was routinely given. Her son bled soon after birth and was permanently disabled. His case was one of the key reasons the UK began routine injections of Vit K after birth.

It's insane that parents will stupidly risk their babies' lives and futures because of RFK.

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