Mercola reverses vitamin K stance after deadly refusals

Mercola reverses – Dr. Joseph Mercola, long a prominent critic of the newborn vitamin K shot, says he now supports giving it to all newborns—pointing to evidence that vitamin K saves lives. His shift comes as hospitals and studies document a rise in babies going without the shot

For more than a decade, Dr. Joseph Mercola warned parents that a potentially lifesaving injection was unnecessary.

“Vitamin K shots are completely unnecessary for your newborn,” he wrote.

Then, after his earlier warnings were repeatedly echoed by parents who declined the shot—and after babies died—Mercola changed his message.

In an April article on his website. posted two days after ProPublica contacted him while preparing an article about babies who died after their parents refused the vitamin K shot. Mercola wrote: “The data is clear: vitamin K saves lives.” He added. “Based on the totality of the published evidence. I support vitamin K prophylaxis for all newborns.”.

He directed parents to speak with their children’s pediatricians. and he used language meant to land with urgency: “Vitamin K deficiency bleeding is rare. but when it occurs. the consequences can be devastating and irreversible.” Mercola said that “A single injection at birth can prevent it. Please talk to your doctor.”.

Mercola’s reversal arrives at a moment when the medical system has been sounding alarms about declining uptake. Hospitals and research studies have documented an “alarming jump” in babies not receiving the vitamin K shot. which the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended since 1961 to help newborns’ blood clot. Without it, research shows babies are 81 times more at risk for late vitamin K deficiency bleeding, which can be fatal.

His about-face also underlines the human stakes behind the internet’s vitamin K misinformation—at a time when mistrust of medical institutions has been sharpened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mercola is a leading vaccine skeptic and an ardent supporter of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He has a large online following: a Facebook page with some 1.7 million followers, a daily newsletter, and a business selling alternative treatments for a variety of ailments.

He didn’t always carry the message he now delivers.

In 2010. Mercola posted a piece titled “The Dark Side of the Routine Newborn Vitamin K Shot.” A doctor in Tennessee recalled reluctant families citing that article. as did doctors in Oregon. In the years that followed, Mercola stood by his opposition. He reiterated his position in 2014, after four babies in Nashville, Tennessee, suffered vitamin K deficiency bleeding. In 2019. after hospital staff contacted child protective services in Illinois and took temporary custody of a newborn whose parents refused the shot. he reiterated it again.

In place of the injection, Mercola had recommended vitamin K drops—oral products promoted online as an alternative. But the drops are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and research shows they are not as effective as the shot, even though they are used in some European countries.

In his April article. Mercola acknowledged that misinformation about vitamin K had spread widely—including potentially because of his own work. “The internet contains a significant amount of misinformation about vitamin K,” he wrote. “Some of it may reference my own 2010 article. That article reflected the state of a scientific debate that has since been resolved. The science moved forward, and so have I.”.

Mercola’s shift may surprise some followers. but it lands against a backdrop that public health experts say is not new. The science around vitamin K has been settled for decades. The discovery of vitamin K and its role in blood clotting won the Nobel Prize in 1943. Newer studies have confirmed and furthered findings available in 2010, without representing what the article described as a scientific shift.

Some recent studies Mercola cited in April document rising refusal and catastrophic bleeding in the brain that can follow—but the thrust of the evidence has remained consistent: it supports giving the shot for more than 60 years.

In Mercola’s earlier posts, he framed the injection as risky and unnecessary. He wrote about “inappropriate” and “unnecessary” pain for babies. He also claimed the amount of vitamin K injected into newborns was far more than the needed dose. In addition, he wrote that the shot may contain preservatives that could be “toxic” to a baby’s immune system.

Benzyl alcohol is often used as a preservative in vitamin K shots. but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other organizations have said it is safe. In the 1980s. doctors realized that some extremely premature babies suffered benzyl alcohol toxicity—but. per the article. that was because they were on so many medications containing it. The article also noted that many hospitals now offer preservative-free options.

There is also a reason the fear can feel persuasive to people who see the warning labels. Some families have expressed concern about a “black box warning. ” which appears on a drug’s label to alert providers of serious risks. The shot does contain a boxed warning; the article said more than 400 other medications have them too. But the warning. as the article laid out. is primarily related to adults and vitamin K given through an IV. not the thigh-muscle shot used for babies. None of the dozens of doctors interviewed by ProPublica said they had ever seen an adverse reaction in an infant who received a vitamin K shot.

Mercola’s old claims also included cancer risk—something he has been forced to revisit as new debate fades. Even back in 2010. the article said he dismissed a misconception that vitamin K injections increased cancer risk. noting that the conclusion “was in error.” In April. he reinforced that message.

Yet even as Mercola now says he supports prophylaxis, the broader online ecosystem that helped drive refusals hasn’t vanished. The article described how many on social media still cling to debunked and distorted claims.

One theme: a belief that God created babies perfectly. and therefore “there must be a reason” they are born without sufficient vitamin K. In a video on TikTok. a woman who identifies herself as a nurse asked. “Did God really get it wrong?” Another commenter wrote. “Just know our creator didn’t make a mistake. Every baby is born like this for a reason.”.

Some posts also blur the difference between vitamin K and vaccines. One comment on a video about the vitamin K shot declared, “My baby isn’t getting any vaccines.” It received more than 600 likes.

Mercola is not the only doctor being cited by vitamin K shot opponents. Commenters on Instagram, TikTok and Reddit have directed people to Dr. Suzanne Humphries, who has spoken out about vaccines and the vitamin K shot for many years. In a 2014 video. Humphries said. “My opinion is that the more I read about vitamin K. the more I can’t believe that it’s injected into newborn infants.”.

Last month. Humphries appeared in a lengthy interview on the website of Children’s Health Defense. the anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by Kennedy. She cited two studies from more than 30 years ago that found an association between the shot and cancer; both studies. the article said. were called into question shortly after publication. As Mercola noted in 2010, multiple additional studies found no increased risk of cancer after the shot. Humphries added in that interview: “Those of us that believe in a divine creator. believe that maybe it is by design. or that actually it is by design. and that there’s a reason for it.”.

Humphries did not respond to requests for comment.

Children’s Health Defense is also the backdrop for another controversy involving aluminum adjuvants. During Kennedy’s time at Children’s Health Defense. the group published a post in 2020 claiming aluminum adjuvants—components that boost immune response—are “significant sources of early exposure” to aluminum. Some vitamin K shots contain a small amount of aluminum. but the article said studies have not found evidence of serious or long-lasting harm. Adjuvants, according to the CDC, have been used “safely in vaccines for decades.”.

Brian Hooker. chief scientific officer at Children’s Health Defense. said the aluminum concern and the cancer fear remain despite multiple studies finding no basis for them. He said he would like more research on the vitamin K shot and other newborn interventions like the hepatitis B vaccine. He told the article. “I do want to look at the individual components of these shots in conjunction with everything else that the infant is getting. ” and added. “and to me that body of literature is really incomplete.”.

Hooker said he worked with Kennedy for many years and that while they are no longer in direct contact, he has “full confidence in the country’s leading federal health official.” But the article described how Kennedy’s silence has deepened skepticism among experts.

Rep. Kim Schrier. a Washington Democrat who worked as a pediatrician for more than 15 years before running for Congress. put the stakes in plain terms: “Now we’re starting to see something that I never saw. which was brain bleeds and gut bleeds in infants. ” Schrier said. “And that’s so scary and heartbreaking.”.

At an April House subcommittee hearing. Schrier confronted Kennedy about vitamin K. saying that he made parents distrust doctors and shots. leading some parents to refuse the vitamin K shot and other standard care. She asked. “Right now. Secretary Kennedy. given what I just told you about vitamin K. will you just tell pregnant women out there for the record. ‘Yes. you should get your babies the vitamin K shot’?” Kennedy did not oblige; he said he has never said anything about the vitamin K shot.

An HHS spokesperson did not answer ProPublica’s questions in full. but the spokesperson said the CDC recommends that parents give newborns the vitamin K shot within 6 hours of birth to prevent vitamin K deficiency bleeding. The spokesperson acknowledged that uptake has declined during recent years. writing that it fell “as public trust in health care institutions has fallen. particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic amid heavy-handed mandates and inconsistent messaging during the Biden administration.”.

“Rebuilding that trust,” the spokesperson wrote in an email, “requires honesty, informed consent, and respect for individual choice.”

Schrier said she empathizes with parents inundated with conflicting messages. She said she recently stepped out of the Capitol building and overheard a woman say—incorrectly—that every childhood vaccine contains glyphosate. an ingredient in some forms of the weed killer Roundup. Schrier said she could feel the spiral coming: “I can just see how this is going to spiral right now. It gets out there, then it’s on social media,” she said. “Every parent just doesn’t want to do the wrong thing.”.

That spiral is now colliding with Mercola’s own new language of certainty—his April insistence that vitamin K saves lives and should be supported for all newborns. Whether that change will reach the parents who have already rejected the shot—and whether it can slow the rise in late vitamin K deficiency bleeding—will depend on something the medical system has been asking for all along: people hearing the message at the moment they need it. from the clinicians in front of them.

United States politics vitamin K shot newborn health Joseph Mercola Robert F. Kennedy Jr. HHS CDC House hearing Kim Schrier Children’s Health Defense misinformation