This story was originally published by ProPublica.
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 (Wash.) and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (Md.), wrote in a letter last week to Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, 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.
