Story by The West Australian.
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THE BABY came into the hospital bleeding from the mouth and nose. He was only four weeks old, but he showed all the hallmarks of a Vitamin K deficiency.
Lismore paediatrician Dr Chris Ingall ran tests on the baby. The child was indeed deficient in Vitamin K but it was too late to save the boy.
“One of the hardest things a paediatrician ever has to do is tell a patient their baby is going to die and in this case, the mother had refused the Vitamin K injection for her newborn just a few weeks prior,” Dr Ingall says.
“She said it can’t be Vitamin K deficiency, and I said I’m sorry but the tests show the baby is deficient,” Dr Ingall says. It was later confirmed by the coroner.
What devastated both the doctor and mother, is that the mother had been advised against the Vitamin K shot by community health nurses in Byron Bay.
Dr Ingall wanted a coronial inquiry because he thought the medical staff who had given the advice should have be charged with manslaughter.
“There should have been a coronial inquiry, that baby died of a Vitamin K deficiency,” he said.
What made the case worse was that the antenatal group was funded by NSW Health and it had been taken over by anti-vaccination zealots who included Vitamin K in their fertile conspiracies about Big Pharma out to harm children in pursuit of a buck.
That was seven years ago, and authorities removed the rogue midwives who no longer live in the area, but the anti-vaccination movement in the Byron Shire has become embedded in the community. Peer pressure, especially among young mothers, not to vaccinate has led to some mothers pretending they didn’t vaccinate their kids just to fit in.
It’s the birthplace of the anti-vaccine movement. The Australian Vaccination Network was set up there in Bangalow in the 1990s.
The shire now has the lowest immunisation rates in Australia. According to the latest figures, only half of all five-year-olds are vaccinated in Mullumbimby and only 60 per cent are in nearby Byron Bay.
How many deaths though?
Only one?
Vitamin K doesn’t sound like something one would include in a vac regime.