Baby Dies After Receiving 6 Shots for 12 Vaccines — Doctors Say ‘Catching Up’ Kids on Vaccines is Common, and Dangerous

The nurse who gave the shots said the 1-year-old needed them all at once to catch up on the vaccinations she missed at her 6-month appointment.

This article originally appeared on The Defender and was republished with permission.

Guest post by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

The nurse who administered the shots said 1-year-old Sa’Niya needed them to catch her up on vaccinations she missed at her 6-month appointment — a common but potentially dangerous recommendation, according to pediatricians interviewed by The Defender.

Roughly 12 hours after 1-year-old Sa’Niya was given six shots for 12 vaccines during a wellness visit, the little girl died. Sa’Niya — who had just turned 1 year old on March 11 — received the shots on March 26 at about 4 p.m., at Golisano Children’s Hospital Pediatric Practice in Rochester, New York, according to the baby’s mother, Shanticia Nelson.

The nurse who administered the shots said Sa’Niya needed them to catch her up on vaccinations she missed at her 6-month appointment — a common but potentially dangerous recommendation, according to several pediatricians interviewed by The Defender.

Nelson, her husband Kayon Carter and Sa’Niya’s grandmother Latricia Hanley shared the story of Sa’Niya’s death in an interview with CHD.TV Program Director Polly Tommey.

“Sa’Niya was a happy baby,” Nelson said. “She was happy and she loved her dad. Everything was ‘dada.’”

According to the visit notes, Sa’Niya was given six shots containing 12 vaccines, including: “DTap/Hep B/IPV (Pediarix), HiB/Acthib/Hiberix, Pneumococcal 20-valent Conj vaccine, Varicella (known commonly as Chickenpox), MMR, and Hepatitis A.”

She also received sodium fluoride as a teeth treatment.

Nelson said she told the nurse she was uncomfortable having Sa’Niya receive so many shots at once. According to Hanley, the nurse became angry and told Nelson, “She needs these shots. You got to give her these shots.”

The nurse never explained the 12 different vaccines and never mentioned the vaccines’ possible side effects, such as seizures and death.

Sa’Niya was a generally healthy baby. However, on the day she received the shots, she had a “little cough and runny nose,” Nelson said. According to the medical notes from the visit, Sa’Niya also had some eczema, diaper dermatitis and constipation.

‘I just want my baby back’

Within hours after receiving the shots, Sa’Niya’s eyes rolled back and she began foaming at the mouth. The police “ended up coming,” Nelson said. They told her it looked as if Sa’Niya had had a small seizure but that she was breathing OK.

Nelson recalled the police saying, “You guys don’t have to take her to the hospital, but if you want to take her to the hospital to make sure she’s OK, they you could do that.”

Nelson knew something was seriously wrong with Sa’Niya. “I looked at my baby and I said, ‘No, my baby is not right … this is not my daughter. My daughter is active. As soon she gets picked up, she’s active.’”

But when Nelson picked her up in that moment, Sa’Niya “just laid there … her eyes just wandered. She wasn’t responding to me calling her name how she used to.”

An ambulance took Sa’Niya to Saint Vincent Hospital in Lake Erie, Pennsylvania, where doctors started running tests on her. They told Nelson it appeared Sa’Niya had had four seizures by the time she arrived at the hospital.

Nelson left the hospital room to bring in her husband and two older children.

The parents and older children hadn’t been in the waiting room for more than two minutes when a nurse told Nelson, “I’m sorry but your daughter — she’s very sick … right now she’s in cardiac arrest.”

Nelson was told that Sa’Niya’s heart wasn’t responding to CPR and that her blood sugar level was over 700.

Hospital staff continued CPR for roughly 40 minutes. They said, “We’re going to check for a pulse one more time, and if we don’t have a pulse anymore, she’s gone.”

Nelson said, “They checked and she didn’t have that pulse.”

That happened around 4 a.m. on March 27, Nelson told The Defender. “I just want my baby back,” Nelson said. “No amount of money in this world can replace my baby … I want justice for my baby.”

Nelson, Carter and Hanley said in their CHD.TV interview that they hope what happened to Sa’Niya will never happen to another child.

They encouraged parents to do their own research rather than trusting medical staff to give informed consent for the risks of vaccination.

“Don’t let your kids take the vaccination shots,” Nelson said. “Ask questions. Before they give you anything, ask questions because I promise you they’re not going to tell you everything.”

Multiple shots at 1-year wellness visit not rare

Dr. Liz Mumper, a pediatrician, said it’s “tragic that a healthy baby died soon after receiving multiple vaccines.” But unfortunately, it’s not as rare as people might think.

Historically, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has “encouraged clinicians to take every opportunity to catch babies up on vaccines,” Mumper said.

She disagreed with claims that all babies can handle lots of vaccines given at the same time. She said:

“Specifically, some babies do not have the liver function or detoxification capacity to handle a cumulative aluminum load. Vaccines stress mitochondria — the powerhouses of the cell. Some babies do not have enough mitochondrial reserve to tolerate the oxidative stress of multiple vaccines on the same day.”

As The Defender previously reported, pediatric clinics can receive multiple financial incentives for administering vaccines. For example, insurance companies may offer pediatricians bonus payments for meeting certain benchmarks, such as having around 80% of patients fully vaccinated by age 2.

The AAP did not immediately respond when The Defender asked how common it is for pediatricians to do catch-up vaccinations — such as giving a 1-year-old additional shots because the baby missed its 6-month vaccinations — and whether the AAP continues to encourage the practice.

1-year visit ‘most dangerous visit of all’

Three other pediatricians — Drs. Renata Moon, Paul Thomas and Lawrence Palevsky — also told The Defender that administering multiple vaccines to babies and children to “catch them up” isn’t all that rare.

“The death of any child is an absolute tragedy,” said Moon. She told The Defender:

“Catch-up vaccines are regularly given in most offices. Parents need to clearly understand the risks and benefits of each individual shot and the risks of giving them in different combinations all at one time.

“We need a public health system that we can trust to act only in the best interests of our nation’s children, and not in the best interests of the pocketbooks of big pharmaceutical companies.”

Dr. Paul Thomas, a Dartmouth-trained pediatrician, said that it’s “very common” for pediatricians to attempt to catch babies and children up on vaccines. “This is routinely done at all well visits.”

Most babies are potentially given around nine vaccines at their 1-year wellness visit if the provider is following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule.

Thomas said, “The one-year well visit has become the most dangerous visit of all — especially if pediatricians are giving the COVID jab.”

The CDC schedule recommends 12-month-olds receive: a third dose of the hepatitis B vaccine, a third or fourth dose of the haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) vaccine, a fourth dose of the pneumococcal vaccine, the third dose of the polio vaccine, one or more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, one or two doses of the influenza vaccine, one dose of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, one dose of the varicella vaccine, and one dose of the hepatitis A vaccine.

Doctors may also choose to give a dose of the RSV vaccine.

Thomas, author of “Vax Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life,” said that in the chapter on sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, infant deaths are happening right after vaccines with 78.3% (combined data from six studies) dying in the first week after vaccines.

“Vaccines are killing our children,” Thomas continued. “There is data showing that for every vaccine on the childhood schedule, your child is more likely to die from the vaccine than from the disease the vaccine covers.”

He added:

“When you understand that vaccines have never been tested with a proper saline placebo, the safety data is only collected for a few days, weeks or months and they never look at all health outcomes, you begin to understand that parents should think carefully about what they are about to put in their child’s body.

“When injured, you cannot sue anyone or any company. All involved are protected by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.”

‘Few, if any, pediatricians understand that vaccines can cause harm or injury’

Dr. Lawrence Palevsky also said it’s “very common” for pediatricians to do as many catch-up vaccines in one pediatric visit as what Sa’Niya received.

“Few, if any, pediatricians understand that vaccines can cause harm or injury,” he said. “They also don’t know that the safety and efficacy of the administration of multiple vaccines at the same time have, for the most part, never been studied.”

Angela Wulbrecht, a nurse who serves on the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation’s board of directors, pointed out the same thing. “I feel like parents are not given true informed consent that these things can happen.”

Wulbrecht is assisting Sa’Niya’s family in completing a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) report for her death. VAERS is co-managed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the CDC.

Wulbrecht is also working with the family to be sure an independent autopsy of Sa’Niya is completed so her family will have thorough, accurate information about the biological mechanisms that caused her death.

Dr. Jacob Puliyel, head of pediatrics at St. Stephens Hospital Delhi, India, called giving 12 vaccines during one appointment “clearly excessive.”

Puliyel said, “This child was given 12 vaccines, where even five vaccines are associated with sudden deaths.”

In 2018, Puliyel and his colleagues published a peer-reviewed article that suggested a link between SIDS and a pentavalent vaccine. According to the World Health Organization, the pentavalent vaccine protects against five diseases: diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and Hib.

In 2017, Puliyel and his colleagues also published findings on a link between SIDS and a hexavalent vaccine that targets diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, hepatitis B, inactivated poliomyelitis and Haemophilus influenza type B vaccine.

Puliyel said, “Parents must be made aware of these risks and one hopes the U.S. FDA will investigate these reports and inform the public. Doctors need clear guidance about the dangers.”

Watch the CHD.TV interview here:

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