Lawmakers Call for CDC to Track Vitamin K Shot Refusals, Cite ProPublica Report

Cengiz Yar/ProPublica. Source images: Documents obtained by ProPublica and Getty Images.

Two members of Congress have called on federal officials to address what they described as “a growing and preventable public health crisis” of families refusing the long-standard vitamin K shot for their newborns, which has led to some of those babies suffering uncontrollable bleeding and even dying.

“We write to urge the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to take immediate action,” two Democrats, Rep. Kim Schrier, from Washington, and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, from Maryland, wrote in a letter last week to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who is acting as director of the CDC.

The letter followed a ProPublica investigation that found babies were dying after families refused the vitamin K shot, a critical and inexpensive injection given at birth to help the blood clot, and that federal and state agencies were not tracking vital data.

“Recent reporting from ProPublica has highlighted a major problem: the federal government does not currently track vitamin K shot refusal, vitamin K deficiency bleeding, or the preventable deaths related to vitamin K deficiency,” Schrier and Alsobrooks wrote in the letter.

The vitamin K shot has been routine in the U.S. since the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended it for all newborns in 1961, but some families in recent years have declined the shot — which is not a vaccine — amid a rising mistrust of medical institutions and false information online.

No federal or state agencies track refusal rates or subsequent bleeding.

“It was ProPublica’s reporting that gave us this additional information and led to us writing this important letter, and asking, of course, that CDC take action,” Alsobrooks said in an interview.

She called on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to publicly voice his support for the shot. He has previously refused to do so and instead stated that he has never said anything about the injection.…