SIDS – Informed Health

Let’s talk about SIDS for a minute.

The CDC defines it as follows: “Sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) is a term used to describe the sudden and unexpected death of a baby less than 1 year old in which the cause was not obvious before investigation. These deaths often happen during sleep or in the baby’s sleep area.” [1]

The Mayo Clinic says the cause of SIDS is unknown but may have something to do with problems in the area of the brain that controls breathing and waking up from sleep and they go on to note among risk factors that many of the babies who died had recently had a cold. [2]

The CDC breaks down the categories as follows:

Source (also for below):
https://www.cdc.gov/sids/data.htm

Here are the trends since the “back to sleep” campaigns

This is a graph that zooms out and doesn’t do that thing the CDC is famous for which is zooming in on an issue after their intervention and then claiming the efficacy of that intervention.

We’ll get more into the DTP vaccine later but it was phased out in the US beginning in 1991 which is right when we start seeing a drop in cases. It’s interesting that the downward trend started a few years before the back to sleep campaign was implemented.

There was a study that came out about a year ago that had the media in an absolute frenzy declaring up and down that the cause of SIDS had been nailed down once and for all. Turns out, it’s biological. A deficiency in an enzyme called butyrylcholinesterase. This study was hailed by media as “groundbreaking , a breakthrough,” and the celebration of “pinpointing the cause of SIDS” was quite widespread. I can’t tell you how often since then I’ve seen comments with people confidently claiming that we know the cause of SIDS now and it’s genetic or biological.

I read the study in detail at the time and couldn’t believe how small the sample size was. It may be true that this enzyme plays a role, but the study itself is too poorly powered to be conclusive. I went over it on my IG at the time and was subsequently sent this article which does a better job of breaking it down than I did. You can read all about it here.

Y’all already know where this is going, so let me just admit it up front. Yes, I do think vaccines play a role in some SIDS deaths (if not most of them) and let me show you how I’ve come to that conclusion.

First, let’s do that thing where we go over the evidence used to prove that vaccines are not playing a role.

I came across this study this morning which is sparking the need to write all of this out. Since I’ve collected so much info on this topic, this study just tipped me over the edge in acknowledging I have too much to try and condense it into an IG post and it deserves a thorough discussion here.

This is a meta analysis type study and they openly admit it’s a problematic design because the studies included are so dissimilar with different methods, vaccine schedules, and countries. [3]

Be that as it may, they have concluded that immunizations halved the risk of SIDS. My first question is “how?” and they do give some reasons.

Reason number 1: “There are a number of possible explanations for this finding. The seasonal distribution in the occurrence of SIDS and the high prevalence of respiratory tract symptoms suggests infection is a factor in SIDS. A number of different viruses and bacteria have been implicated.

Bordetella pertussis may be especially important as an association between epidemic pertussis and sudden unexpected death in infants has been observed and B. pertussis infection in infants frequently causes apnoea. If apnoea leads to the death of the infant the cause of death may inappropriately be labelled as SIDS. The immunisation schedules in the studies reported here all included immunisation with B. pertussis. Immunisation may reduce the incidence of reported SIDS by reducing unrecognised B. pertussis infection.”

If respiratory infections play a role in SIDS, the fact that the flu shot makes you 4 times more likely to get one, [4] should be concerning.

The rationale for pertussis causing SIDS deaths is extremely weak. If the pertussis is symptomatic enough to cause apnea (cessation of breathing), it’s symptomatic enough to be tested for on autopsy or preferably diagnosed while the infant is still alive. But we know doctors have a hard time diagnosing it.

And that last sentence seems to be the opposite of true. If anything, the vaccine increases the rates of unrecognized pertussis infection. By decreasing symptoms, the infection goes unrecognized.

Reason number 2: “Staphylococcus aureus strains producing enterotoxins have been implicated in SIDS. Immunisation may induce antibodies that cross react with pyrogenic staphylococcal toxins, thus protecting the infant from such infections. Immunisation may also cause non-specific enhancement of immunological activity and reduce infection from other viruses and bacteria not directly covered by the vaccines given.”

This seems very far fetched to me. That vaccines would just happen to create antibodies against something they’re not even targeting and that end up being a convenient bacteria that might play a role in SIDS? Like I said. Far fetched.

Those are the only two reasons they give outside of trying to refute the issues people have pointed out with vaccines being a possible culprit.

They also mention in this section, “Immunisations may be indirectly associated with a reduction in SIDS. Vaccination may be avoided during illness and infections, the so-called healthy vaccinee effect. Thus the reduction in SIDS with immunisations may be a marker of the well being of the infant, and not directly related to the immunisation.”

“Healthy vaccinee effect” was a new term for me and it seems to be a renaming of the term healthy user bias. I don’t understand why this paragraph is in the section explaining how vaccines decrease SIDS deaths. Healthy vaccinee effect weakens their arguments instead of bolstering them.

My friend @circleofmamas on IG described it this way, “Those studies are case controls, so it means they compare the immunization uptake of SIDS infants to healthy living controls who are effectively not at risk of SIDS because they are alive. Because the healthy living infants can Tolerate and survive vaccination, whereas the premature, sick, not well cared for infants in the SIDS column invariably have fewer vaccines (overall because any infant that died prior to being offered the first shots would be considered non immunized) then this reduces the overall vaccination rate of the SIDS group.

Back in the 1990s the first doses began at 2 month, so any death before that was considered non immunized. The vaccines in every explanation or theory cannot retroactively reduce or affect the risk of a SIDS event (death) that already occurred. So the interpretation should never be, or cannot be, that vaccines reduce an individuals own SIDS risk: it can only be… that vaccines are given to healthy, well developed infants most often, and are given less to infants who are premature, sickly, neglected, and those factors also increase the risk of death.”

Which brings us to this reanalysis that looks at 3 of the studies used in the meta analysis above and found, “There is no increased or reduced risk of sudden infant death during the period after the vaccination. The previously reported protective effect seen in case control studies is based on the inclusion of unvaccinated cases.” [5]

I am wholly unconvinced. My own biases aside, if vaccines lowered SIDS rates I think the evidence would be a lot stronger than this.

Also it feels like a claim completely devoid of common sense, birthed in the realms of fervent vaccine religion. Vaccines claim to save lives by decreasing disease rates. That’s where they are studied and efficacy is said to occur. Trying to attribute good health to them is a stretch. The absence of some diseases? Okay. Maybe. Beyond that the evidence is extremely slim.

I mean, who can look through this ingredient list and jump to the conclusion that the tincture of all good health can be found here?

Let’s look at what the CDC provides as evidence that vaccines don’t cause SIDS. [6] Under the heading “The CDC and FDA Closely Monitor the Safety of All Vaccines” we have all of the links to “multiple research studies and safety reviews,” proving vaccines have nothing to do with SIDS. I’m not going to go over each one. The fact that there are only 7 should be revealing in itself, but I want to address several of them here because it truly is very eye opening.

Studies (in the order listed) 1, 3, and 6 are all done on VAERS.

Study number 3 stood out to me because it found that almost 80% of the SIDS deaths reported to VAERS occurred on the same day as the the child receiving one or more vaccines. [7]

The main problem I see with studies like this are that you can take a finding this extreme and the conclusion can still say, “No concerning pattern was noted among death reports submitted to VAERS during 1997-2013. The main causes of death were consistent with the most common causes of death in the US population.”

Because they compare it to the US population. So, essentially, the population is the control group. We’re measuring the effect of vaccines but both groups are vaccinated. As a population, children at this time were 98.6% vaccinated. [8]

Let us keep in mind this study is listed as proof vaccines do not cause sudden unexplained infant death.

Study number 2 is general sleep guidelines and recommendations and doesn’t even mention vaccines in the abstract.

Study number 4 is done on the VSD (vaccine safety datalink), a database not open to the public even by FOIA since the government moved it into private ownership so that no one could get to the data without their approval. [9]

Study number 5 is the IOM (institute of medicine) review from 2003 which I love because their conclusions are always the same. After combing the scientific literature as only they can, they say “Thus, based on only one methodologically strong study, the committee concludes that the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between exposure to multiple vaccines and sudden unexpected death in infancy.” [10]

Apparently, like Stanley Plotkin, the CDC believes a lack of evidence is perfectly acceptable to use as proof vaccines are innocent.

The 7th study on the list is one from 1988 on the DTP vaccine which we don’t use here in the US anymore because of the outcry against it from parents along with the lawsuits crippling pharmaceutical companies at the time because they kept getting sued for brain damage, SIDS, autism, paralysis, etc. It’s ironic the CDC is still relying on outdated studies like that on vaccines we don’t even use here anymore.

And that’s how vaccines are “closely monitored for safety”. 7 “studies”. I feel second hand embarrassment, I really do. Also a hint of disgust. My face is the cringe emoji right now.

So now let’s cover some of the evidence that leads me to believe SIDS is VIDS.

I think what has been most impactful is simply listening to parents who have walked through this. It’s heart wrenching and painful but they deserve to be listened to, and their stories are so powerful. Two that stand out can be watched here and here.

If you want a bigger list and also a more detailed history of SIDS, start here.

But let’s look at the scientific evidence, starting with admissions from the pharmaceutical companies themselves. Did you know some vaccines list SIDS as an adverse event in the post marketing section of their package inserts?

Here is a screenshot from one of the DTaP (replaced the DTP in the early 90s and is said to be much safer and “less reactogenic”) vaccine inserts:

(Please note apnea is a listed side effect here. If apnea through respiratory infection can lead to SIDS, so can apnea through vaccination.)

“But don’t they have to list everything in that section? Like there’s no proof it’s actually causing anything. They just have to list it because it got reported to them and the FDA makes them list all of it.”

No. That’s actually false. Here are the FDA regulations for drugs and “biological products” (vaccines):

“…only those adverse events for which there is some basis to believe there is a causal relationship between the drug and the occurrence of the adverse event.”

So there.

The DTP vaccine is a huge topic but before I forget, I want to just make a little exhibit A if you will, of what happened when 11 infants in TN died in 1979 after receiving the DTP vaccine, all receiving the same lot number. It was a small enough area that the parents knew each other and there was a public outcry.

Wyeth Laboratories (now Pfizer), decided to fix the problem by spreading out lot numbers. So that if there was a “bad batch” in the future, at least the parents wouldn’t know each other and hopefully wouldn’t connect the dots of their babies dying right after a well visit.

This is one of the internal correspondence documents now made public:

Just makes you feel all safe and cozy, doesn’t it?(Read more details of this story here.)

Most people would be willing to say disease rates have declined and death rates have dropped as a result of vaccines. Most of the time when vaccine proponents talk about vaccines saving lives it’s within this scope. We look at disease rates and disease deaths and count up the lives saved. What more could anyone ask for? Well, we could ask for a drop in all cause mortality.

Here’s the thing. Vaccines are so poorly studied in clinical trials that any unintended consequences are mostly hidden or glossed over. The religious fervor above believing vaccines have unintended consequences that save lives runs smack into so many studies showing the exact opposite. I will share only a few here.

Turns out, the decline in disease deaths all dropped around the same time, mostly without the help of vaccines. [13]

Here’s a photo of what that looked like:

This study looking at developed nations found that the more vaccines a baby receives, the higher the infant mortality rates. [14]

Did you know that during 2020 there was a drop in well visits that corresponded with a huge drop in children deaths as a whole and SIDS deaths reported to VAERS? [15, 16]

This study on the DTP specifically found, “DTP was associated with 5-fold higher mortality than being unvaccinated. No prospective study has shown beneficial survival effects of DTP. Unfortunately, DTP is the most widely used vaccine, and the proportion who receives DTP3 is used globally as an indicator of the performance of national vaccination programs.

It should be of concern that the effect of routine vaccinations on all-cause mortality was not tested in randomized trials. All currently available evidence suggests that DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis. Though a vaccine protects children against the target disease it may simultaneously increase susceptibility to unrelated infections.” [17]

Another study on the DTP had this to say, “It is found that mortality with SIDS in the period zero to three days following DTP to be 6.9 times that in the period beginning 30 days after immunization (95 per cent confidence interval, 1.4 to 28)” [18]

I won’t get into what is happening with all cause mortality since the Covid vaccines have been deployed, but suffice to say, it’s horrifying.

In conclusion, vaccines may have a small impact on disease rates and death rates from those specific diseases, but to attribute extra benefits is not supported by the evidence or by common sense or by looking at the ingredients in vaccines, many of which are extremely problematic and toxic. Here in the US, we target 16 different infections (17 if you want to count Covid). It’s a drop in the bucket. A very small drop in a very large bucket. When we focus on that little drop, we can end up crediting vaccines for more than they’ve truly accomplished. It’s when we see the big picture that things are not as simple. Not as black and white.

It is dishonest (or possibly just extremely biased) that the big picture doesn’t get any discussion time in mainstream thought processes. I hope that will change in the future but for now I content myself with writing out my thoughts with as much evidence as I can gather (without being overwhelming, hopefully) to present my conclusions with a sound basis and common sense. I hope I have accomplished that today. God bless. ♥️

Share this:

Related

Leave a comment Cancel reply