Amid a rise in broader anti-vaccine sentiment, some influencers and media figures have cast doubt on the routine vitamin K shot given to newborn infants – and new reporting from ProPublica suggests such rhetoric may have had deadly consequences.
Though the shot is not a vaccine, it has “been swept up in the same post-pandemic tide that has led to a drop in key childhood vaccines” and other medical interventions, with ProPublica writing that “more than 5% of newborns in the U.S. did not receive vitamin K shots in 2024” — a 77% increase since 2017. The publication further warns that “hundreds of children die each year from spontaneous bleeding in the brain, a common result of vitamin K deficiency.”
For years, some influencers and media figures have described the warnings of potential health consequences of not getting a vitamin K shot as “emotional blackmail” and claimed those that refuse the shot are “more responsible” parents.