“In order to avoid admitting that the sudden stoppage of breathing by a baby within hours to weeks of these vaccines was due to the vaccines, the vaccine defender merely created a new disease and gave it the incredible name of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), which is like naming it the “Baby Mysteriously Dies of Anything but a Vaccine Injury Syndrome (BMDAVIS).”
From the Preface of the Vaccine Safety Manual (2008 Edition) by Neil Z. Miller
The first edition of Neil Z. Miller’s comprehensive Vaccine Safety Manual For Concerned Families and Health Practitioners was published in 2008. A second edition came out in 2011 and an updated version came out in 2015.
Now, ten years later, an original investigation of the subject “Apnea After 2-Month Vaccination in Hospitalized Preterm Infants” has been published in JAMA Pediatrics. Dated January 6, 2025, this recent study has reanimated discussion of the possible connection between vaccines and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
In this new study, the clinical trials were conducted at three US neonatal intensive care units between August 2018 and October 2021. The results of the study revealed that hospitalized preterm infants had significantly higher rates of apnea—a temporary cessation of breathing—within 48 hours of getting their recommended 2-month vaccinations than the unvaccinated babies did.
Ever since the 1990s, studies (here and here, for example) have spoken to the various risks associated with vaccinating preterm babies.
The first of these surveillance studies, published in 1997 and titled “Apnea after immunization of preterm infants,” looked at the occurrence of apnea in 97 preterm infants following immunization with DTP and HibC. That study was initiated after apnea was discovered in two preterm infants following immunization with both those vaccines.
The 1997 study noted that 12% of the 97 preterm infants experienced a recurrence of apnea and 11% had at least a 50% increase in the number of apneic and bradycardic episodes in the 72 hours after immunization.
The second of the above-cited surveillance studies, published in 1998 and titled “Interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, and abnormal cardiorespiratory responses to immunization in premature infants,” studied 89 premature infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. This study was done after it was discovered that a substantial number of preterm infants developed abnormal clinical signs after routine immunization—namely, elevated interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations in all but one of those infants who received the diphtheria, tetanus, and whole-cell pertussis (DTwP) vaccine.
Then there was the 2007 observational study that looked at 239 preterm infants at ≥2 months of age. Published in the Journal of Pediatrics, this study examined cardiorespiratory complications associated with administration of separate single and multiple vaccines.
According to the 2007 study’s authors, “Abnormal elevation of CRP level occurred in 85% of infants administered multiple vaccines and up to 70% of those given a single vaccine. Overall, 16% of infants had vaccine-associated cardiorespiratory events within 48 hours postimmunization.”
They wrote:
“Our study revealed that some vaccines, including DTaP, even if administered alone[,] were associated with cardiorespiratory adverse events and abnormal CRP (C-reactive protein) values in premature infants in the NICU. However, the incidence of these events was higher following simultaneous administration of multiple vaccines compared with administration of a single vaccine.”
In the same paper, the authors pointed to additional studies that highlighted potential risks associated with immunization of preterm babies:
“Other investigators also have reported on cardiorespiratory events following immunization with DTaP-based multivalent vaccines or when DTaP was given simultaneously with other vaccines.”
Their conclusion:
“These associated complications are more likely to occur with current practice of simultaneous administration of multiple vaccines. Also, contrary to previous reports[,] cardiorespiratory events can be observed even if DTaP is given as a single vaccine. Administration of other vaccines given individually[,] such as PVC7 and Hib[,] also can be associated with cardiorespiratory events. A normal CRP before immunization suggests that cardiorespiratory events and abnormal CRP values following immunization are likely vaccination-associated.” [Emphasis added.]
This month’s JAMA Pediatrics paper on premature infants and vaccination brings to light the broader decades-long controversy around routine vaccination and the sudden death of infants.
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is one of the leading causes of post-neonatal infant mortality in the US. As its name makes clear, SIDS describes death that occurs in a “seemingly normal, healthy infant under one year of age” that is both unexpected and unexplainable.
A 2021 analysis of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database from 1990 to 2019 in tandem with a review of the medical literature on SIDS shows that, of all reported post-vaccination SIDS cases, 75% occurred within seven days.
This analysis, authored by Neil Z. Miller and published in Science Direct, noted:
“Several theories regarding the pathogenic mechanism behind these fatal events have been proposed, including the role of vaccine-induced inflammatory cytokines as neuromodulators in the infant medulla preceding an abnormal response to the accumulation of carbon dioxide; fatal disorganization of respiratory control induced by adjuvants that cross the blood-brain barrier; and biochemical or synergistic toxicity due to multiple vaccines administered concurrently.”
In his VAERS analysis, Miller concluded:
“There are 130 official ways for an infant to die, as categorized in the ICD [International Classification of Diseases], and one unofficial way for an infant to expire from a fatal reaction to vaccines. When vaccine-related deaths are hidden within the death tables, it is difficult to monitor and prevent these deaths. In addition, parents are denied the ability to ascertain honest vaccine risk-to-benefit ratios and true informed consent to vaccination is not possible.”
The possibility that SIDS may be “medically induced” through vaccination, with risks increasing as the number of doses increases, was examined in a 2011 study, “Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?”
The authors of the 2011 study noted:
“The US childhood immunization schedule specifies 26 vaccine doses for infants aged less than 1 year—the most in the world—yet 33 nations have lower infant mortality rates (IMRs).”
A 50-year time-trend analysis published by the NIH in January 2018 showed that the US ranks last in child health outcomes compared to 19 other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations despite the US spending more per capita on health care for children. A child born in the US is 76% more likely to die before their first birthday than infants born in other wealthy countries.
This study asked the question, “Is there evidence linking SIDS to vaccines?” An answer came in the form of this observation: “[T]wo-thirds of babies who had died from SIDS had been vaccinated against DPT (diphtheria–pertussis–tetanus toxoid) prior to death.”
Of these infants, 6.5% died within 12 hours of vaccination; 13% within 24 hours; 26% within 3 days; and 37%, 61%, and 70% within 1, 2, and 3 weeks, respectively.
The Summer 2016 edition of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JAPS) published another article by Neil Miller—this one titled “Combining Childhood Vaccines at One Visit Is Not Safe.” The piece was particularly noteworthy for both its conclusions and its background information. The latter provided insights into how we have arrived today at the place where vaccines are widely and routinely administered, even though proper clinical studies have never been done on them.
Miller began with a historical summation:
“In the 1980s vaccine manufacturers were frequently sued by the parents of children who were permanently disabled or died following vaccination. After paying out millions of dollars in these lawsuits, vaccine manufacturers were prepared to stop producing vaccines unless the federal government provided them with immunity from jury verdicts. [Emphasis added.]
“In response to pharmaceutical manufacturers’ threat to close their own vaccine factories, in 1986 Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA), protecting vaccine manufacturers from most financial liability associated with their products.” [Emphasis added.]
Summing up the results, Miller observed:
“Our study showed that infants who receive several vaccines concurrently, as recommended by CDC, are significantly more likely to be hospitalized or die when compared with infants who receive fewer vaccines simultaneously. It also showed that reported adverse effects were more likely to lead to hospitalization or death in younger infants.”
Interestingly, he touched on the lack of media response to such studies that question the safety of vaccines:
“These findings are so troubling that we expected major media outlets in America to sound an alarm, calling for an immediate reevaluation of current preventive health care practices. But 4 years after publication of our study, this has not happened. Could it be because, according to Robert Kennedy, Jr., about 70% of advertising revenue on network news comes from drug companies? In fact, the president of a network news division admitted that he would fire a host who brought on a guest that led to loss of a pharmaceutical account. That may be why the mainstream media won’t give equal time to stories about problems with vaccine safety.” [Emphasis added.]
Miller concluded his 2016 article in JAPS with the observation:
“The safety of CDC’s childhood vaccination schedule was never affirmed in clinical studies. Vaccines are administered to millions of infants every year, yet health authorities have no scientific data from synergistic toxicity studies on all combinations of vaccines that infants are likely to receive.” [Emphasis added.]
In a study dated July 20, 2023, and titled “Neonatal, Infant, and Under Age Five Vaccine Doses Routinely Given in Developed Nations and Their Association With Mortality Rates,” Miller and co-author Gary S. Goldman reexamined their original study from 2011, which had demonstrated that the most highly developed nations requiring the most vaccine doses for their infants tended to have the least favorable infant mortality rates. A decade later, their 2023 reexamination expanded upon the original study by looking at the effect of vaccines on neonatal and under age five mortality rates.
The authors discovered that their reappraisal corroborated the 2011 findings:
“There are statistically significant positive correlations between neonatal, infant, and under age five mortality rates of developed nations and the number of early childhood vaccine doses that are routinely given. When developed nations require two versus zero neonatal vaccine doses, or many versus fewer infant vaccine doses, our study suggests there may be unintended consequences that increase all-cause mortality.”
Five months earlier, in February 2023, the same co-authors had published yet another study harking back to their original 2011 study. This one was titled “Reaffirming a Positive Correlation Between Number of Vaccine Doses and Infant Mortality Rates: A Response to Critics.” In it, Goldman and Miller addressed some of the previous ten years’ criticisms of their 2011 findings.
Needless to say, they found these criticisms lacked merit. Indeed, a closer look at the erroneous methodologies utilized by various authors who have critiqued Goldman and Miller’s original analysis is worthy of its own article! It would serve as a case study for how defenders of the “scientific” and pharmaceutical vaccine dogma conveniently and cleverly manipulate epidemiological evidence to reinforce their preordained conclusions.
In their February 2023 piece, Goldman and Miller provide a point-by-point deconstruction of the flawed scientific methodologies that were used in the so-called “Bailey reanalysis,” in which ten authors had critiqued and published (originally in September 2021) Miller’s 2011 findings:
“Bailey and her coauthors erroneously claim that the main finding in our study is due to “inappropriate data exclusion,” i.e., failure to analyze the “full dataset” of all 185 nations. It is essential to understand the biases in their “reanalysis,” which is in fact a new analysis using completely different selection criteria.”
“We conclude that Bailey’s reanalysis of the “full dataset” of 185 nations generated spurious results due to flawed selection criteria and confounded data. Despite confounding, Bailey’s reanalysis of the “full dataset” corroborated the positive trend of the correlation we reported.”
Goldman and Miller then added to their conclusion:
“There is a positive correlation between infant vaccines and infant mortality rates. This relationship is most pronounced in analyses of the most highly developed homogeneous nations but is attenuated in background noise in analyses of nations with heterogeneous socioeconomic variables.”
Returning now to the issue of sudden infant death syndrome: Another SIDS study, conducted in 1987 by Alexander Walker, MD, et al., found “the SIDS mortality rate in the period zero to three days following DPT to be 7.3 times higher that in the period beginning 30 days after immunization.”
Yet another SIDS study, this one published in 1992 in the American Journal of Epidemiology, focused on methodological problems that confront studies of adverse reactions to vaccinations. It concluded that babies died at a rate nearly eight times greater than normal within three days of getting a DPT vaccination.
A May 2024 Substack article by Dr. Peter McCullough observed a “strikingly consistent” temporal association of vaccination and SIDS. Citing the CDC’s Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule By Age, McCullough points out that seven vaccines are given at age 2 months and 16 vaccines between 12 and 15 months. He highlights the potential dangers of combination vaccines and warns against this potential hazard:
“Combination vaccination could be associated with significant unmonitored apneas, febrile seizures, or both resulting in sudden infant death syndrome at home.”
The possible dangers of formulations that bundle multiple antigens for multiple diseases into one injection have been known for decades.
For instance, following the October 2000 authorization of GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) and Sanofi Pasteur’s hexavalent vaccines in the European Union, there were several spontaneous reports of sudden unexpected deaths soon after the administration of these very vaccines.
Two of them, Sanofi Pasteur’s Hexavac and GSK’s Infanrix, originally combined the diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, hepatitis B, inactivated poliomyelitis and Haemophilus influenza type B vaccines. At the request of the marketing authorization holder, Hexavac, was withdrawn in 2005. Meanwhile, Infanrix was slightly revamped and continues to be marketed in Europe and in the United States.
Confidential case files that pertained to GSK’s Infanrix led to allegations that the vaccine manufacturing giant had attempted to conceal vaccine-related premature deaths among infants.
An Italian court made available to the public GSK’s confidential periodic safety update reports (PSURs 15 and 16), which were conducted from 23 October 2009 to 22 October 2011.
The report, submitted to the European Medicines Agency by Jacob Puliyel and C. Sathyamala in September 2017, noted:
“[A]mong the infants, there was a clustering of deaths immediately following vaccination, with 42 deaths taking place in the first three days after vaccination, and only 8 in the next 3 days. Among those below one year of age, 54 deaths (93%) occurred in the first 10 days, and 3 (7%) in the next 10 days.
“Similarly, among children older than one year, 5 deaths (83.3%) occurred in the first 10 days and 1 death (17%) occurred in the next 10 days. The clustering of deaths reported in the PSUR 15 was noticed in the PSUR 16 as well, and this has been commented upon previously.”
GlaxoSmithKline Chief Executive Officer Sir Andrew Witty responded to the report:
“Dr Norman Begg, suggested in a letter that reporters are much more likely to think about a potential causal association and thus, report an event to GSK if it occurs shortly after vaccination rather than if it occurs weeks later. In light of the above, we remain confident in the conclusions previously reached by GSK and shared with regulatory agencies and public health authorities worldwide that the currently available data do not suggest an increased risk of sudden infant death following vaccination with Infanrix hexa.” [Emphasis added.]
Co-author Pulyiel rebutted Witty’s defense of GSK:
“This response contains a tacit admission that there was no active surveillance during the post-vaccination period and only deaths spontaneously reported to GSK was likely to result in an underestimation of the deaths following vaccination.”
Pulyiel concluded:
“In its periodic safety update reports, GSK, the company manufacturing Infanrix hexa, evaluates whether the number of sudden deaths reported after vaccination with their product exceeded the number that could be expected by chance. The clustering of deaths soon after immunisation suggests that the deaths could have been caused by the vaccine.
“Furthermore, our analysis shows that the deaths acknowledged in the PSUR 16 have been deleted from the (later report) PSUR 19. The observed deaths are spontaneously reported to GSK and are likely to be underestimated. Adding in the deaths deleted from the PSUR 16, there is a statistically significant increased risk of death in the first four days after vaccination, compared to the expected deaths. The manufacturers will need to explain why these deaths were not included in the PSUR 19. The increased risk of death was not communicated to the regulatory authorities or to the health personnel administering this vaccine.” [Emphasis added.]
As we put all these epidemiologic and neuropathologic puzzle pieces together, a forensic analysis that suggests vaccines could be causal factors in sudden infant deaths is certainly a reasonable line of inquiry.
Speaking recently to Children’s Health Defense magazine The Defender, biologist Christina Parks, PhD, noted that the latest study (published January 6, 2025 and referenced at the top of this article) confirms what “previous studies on premature infants have shown — that vaccination induces cardiorespiratory stress that manifests as the slowing of heart rate (bradycardia) and respiration as well as the cessation of breathing (apnea) for brief periods of time.”
“Taken together,” Parks added, “all of these studies show that vaccination causes extreme, and possibly life-threatening, stress to the infant body and the tinier the body, the less resources it has to withstand that stress.”
