Doctors across the nation are alarmed that skepticism fueled by rising anti-science sentiment and medical mistrust is increasingly reaching beyond vaccines to other proven, routine, preventive care for babies.
A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which analyzed more than 5 million births nationwide, found that refusals of vitamin K shots nearly doubled between 2017 and 2024, from 2.9% to 5.2%. Other research suggests that parents who decline vitamin K shots are much more likely to refuse getting their newborns the hepatitis B vaccine and an eye ointment to prevent potentially blinding infections. Rates for that vaccination at birth dropped in recent years, and doctors confirm that more parents are refusing the eye medication.
“I do think these families care deeply about their infants,” said Dr. Kelly Wade, a Philadelphia neonatologist. “But I hear from families that it’s hard to make decisions right now because they’re hearing conflicting information.”
The fourth factor is probably actually how poorly women are treated by doctors/ western medicine. Once all that is exposed and validated, these families are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Easy to convince someone that doctors don’t care what’s best for them after several doctors mistreat them.
Thank you for bringing this up. I’m liking both this comment and the one above.
I think sometimes in an effort to mock MAGA, we may over-legitimize doctors. They’re just people, just like us, and there is a looooong history of medical malpractice and systemic abuse—much by the same forces MAGA is allied with.