“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.”
Babies who skip the shot are 81 times more likely to bleed into their brains, and one in five who do will die. National refusal rates passed 5 percent in 2024 and some hospitals have seen theirs double. The CDC counts none of it. Two lawmakers had to write a letter asking the federal government to start keeping a number it should have been keeping all along.