Babies are dying because of narcissistic activists. It must stop

BABIES are dying because narcissistic activists are relentlessly spreading stupid, deadly and irresponsible misinformation, writes Jane Hansen.

Breastmilk is low in vitamin K and babies take some months to produce enough to ensure the blood clots. A simple injection of the vitamin has saved thousands of lives. (Pic: iStock)

SITTING by the bedside of your baby in intensive care knowing that nothing more can be done and your precious child is going to die is the most hideous experience a parent can ever face.

I know, I have been there.

The devastating helplessness and abject failure you feel as a parent, whose most basic task is to keep your child alive, is excruciating, like a living death, and so my heart breaks for a family I know that has been living that very hell this past week.

Just over a week ago, their tiny month-old baby suffered a massive and irreversible brain haemorrhage due to what is known as vitamin K deficiency bleeding or newborn haemorr­hagic disease.

Newborn haemorrhagic disease is caused by a deficiency in vitamin K and it used to kill about 15 newborn babies a year in NSW in the late 1960s and early 1970s ­before routine vitamin K injections given at birth reduced the incidence to near zero.

Vitamin K deficiency can kill babies. It’s just not worth the risk. (Pic: iStock)

Breastmilk is low in vitamin K and babies take some months to produce enough to ensure the blood clots. This simple injection has saved thousands of lives.

Just two weeks ago we wrote about the anti-vaccine movement driving a rise in ­vitamin K deficiency bleeding in babies because, even though it is only a vitamin supplement, the anti-vaccine and wellness industry has lumped it in with lifesaving vaccines as somehow not natural, and therefore dangerous, scaring vulnerable new parents away from a harmless but possibly lifesaving treatment.

This baby and the parents, who reside in the anti-vaccine heartland of northern NSW, are victims of the anti-vaccine movement’s stupid, deadly and irresponsible misinformation.

The child is not expected to survive. No doubt they thought they were doing the right thing by their child but whoever gave them misinformation on vitamin K should be culpable. It is another example of a devastating disease making a re-emergence because of narcissistic activists who ­imagine their twisted agenda is superior to hundreds of years of scientific research.

They use the internet to spread their mischief, fake news and junk science — dressed up with scary anecdotes — and unchecked by the rigour that binds both the scientific and legitimate media professions.

Some are even midwives and doulas working in homebirth circles.

There have been six deaths from the disease in babies whose parents refused consent in the past two decades, including one in 2013 and another in 2012. A NSW Health study also showed thousands of ­babies were being denied the shot because their parents ­refused consent.

The Sunday Telegraph revealed six babies were admitted to hospital for the condition in 2013. The parents refused consent in five of them.

Meryl Dorey, founder of the anti-vaccine movement in northern NSW, has sold “information packs” on the harms of vitamin K for $10.

“Breastmilk is low in vitamin K, but this is not a deficiency, nor is it a hazard for newborn,” she writes, before dredging up outdated, superseded and withdrawn studies.

Anti Vaccination Campaigner Meryl Dorey speaking at Sunshine Coast Life style Show. (Pic: Glenn Barnes)

This woman has no qualifications, medical or otherwise, although I am not suggesting Dorey had any involvement in the cases outlined above.

This has got to stop.

What are our health authorities doing to counter this endemic rubbish proliferating online, in mothers’ groups and homebirth circles?

Why isn’t the information given to mothers at the 19-week scan or even earlier?

Every week Lismore paediatrician Dr Chris Ingall is faced with parents refusing the vitamin K shot.

They are also refusing the hepatitis B shot.

He has previously cared for babies who have faced an ­unnecessary and cruel death from this.

We are calling on both federal and state politicians to step up and save lives by ­investing in a targeted information campaign to where it is needed.

They need to listen to the pleas of the doctors and vaccine campaigners, who are begging for more help in areas such as northern NSW.

They must think of the plight of the tiny bub who never had a chance because a noisy minority has been hard at work spreading lies in an ­information vacuum.

Originally published as Babies are dying because of narcissistic activists. It must stop