An illustration photo shows Phytonadione, a synthetic version of vitamin K, at a pediatrics clinic in Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S., August 6, 2026. REUTERS/Emily Elconin
The share of U.S. newborns going without a standard, life-saving vitamin K shot has spiked this year, and critics are sounding the alarm over the anti-vaccine climate they blame for it.
A Reuters analysis of more than 1 million births by the data firm Truveta found refusals of the newborn vitamin K shot rose more than 57% from January through June 2026. Babies are born with very low levels of vitamin K, which the body needs to clot blood, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that without the injection, infants are 81 times more likely to suffer life-threatening bleeding in the brain or gut during their first six months.
Vitamin K is not a vaccine, but Reuters reports the surge tracks a wider wave of vaccine mistrust and aligns with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s January move dropping the recommended birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine and five other childhood shots. Kennedy, who has spent years sowing doubt about vaccines, denied any role when asked directly. Those cuts are tied up in court, though Trump revived them in an Aug. 10 executive order. HHS says it is evaluating the data.
The grave numbers drew a wave of despair online.
GOP pollster Frank Luntz laid bare the consequences.
"Refusals of vitamin K shots for U.S. newborns rose 57% from January to June," he wrote. "Without the injection, they are 81x more likely in their first 6 months to have life-threatening bleeding in the brain or gut."
"The View" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House official turned critic, shared her personal experience and urged parents to disregard anti-vaccine advice.
"This makes me sad and angry for parents who've been duped by the Anti-Vax Industrial Complex," she wrote, recounting that her son needed surgery at 3 months old that couldn't have been performed without the vitamin K shot.
Journalist Brad Polumbo called it "the kind of extremely dangerous, life-threatening mistake people are increasingly making that is fueled by the carelessness of the anti-vax movement."
A despondent physician, Pradheep Shanker, chimed in: "They simply don't understand."
Melissa Braunstein, an independent writer who describes herself as a red fish in a blue sea, put it plainly.
"Nobody wants to be in the NICU with an infant who has something life threatening," she wrote. "Get the shot."
Pediatricians shared in the dread, with Dr. Nia Heard-Garris, a Chicago pediatric physician-scientist, telling Reuters the trend is "terrifying." "It's like we're going backwards," she said, describing the frontline of a vaccine policy upheaval that has alarmed doctors and public health experts nationwide.