Ilana - vit k part 1 (long)

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Vitamin K - part 1

 

 

National standard mandates newborn vitamin K injection Ignorance

becomes tacit

consent for the questionable neonatal procedure

by Don Harkins

 

In cooperation with a " national standard, " most, if not all states

have

mandated that U.S. hospitals routinely administer to all newborns a

synthetic,

fat-soluble vitamin K injection (generic name phytonadione) that

exceeds an

infant's recommended daily dietary intake of the vitamin by 100 times.

 

Peer reviewed journals have linked large doses of vitamin K to

childhood

cancers and leukemia. Animal studies have linked large doses of

vitamin K to a

variety of conditions that include anemia, liver damage, kidney

damage and

death.

 

" Little is known about the metabolic fate of vitamin K. Almost no

unmetabolized

vitamin K appears in bile or urine, " states both the 1988 and 1998

Physician's

Desk Reference (PDR). " This is especially important due to the fact

that it is

a fat-soluble vitamin and therefore can accumulate in the body, "

wrote Vitamin

K Resources (VKR) in the extremely well-documented and footnoted 1999

article,

Intramuscular Vitamin K Injection: Is K OK? In the 1988 PDR Merck's

literature

states that, " A single intramuscular dose of AquaMEPHYTON (Merck

brand vitamin

K injection) 0.5 to 1 mg within one hour of birth is recommended. "

Merck's 1998

PDR entry for AquaMEPHYTON has removed adverse reaction liability

from the

pharmaceutical giant by stating, " The American Academy of Pediatrics

(AAP)

recommends that Vitamin K1 be given to the newborn. " Vitamin K

injections are

ostensibly administered to newborns to prevent vitamin K deficiency

bleeding

(such as hemophilia) that may occur in approximately 1 in 10,000 live

births.

" This figure would probably be much lower if high risk newborns were

excluded

[from this figure], " wrote VKR. Parents who wish to refuse the shot

must do so

in writing prior to the birth of their baby. Parental ignorance of the

state-mandated injection is considered by hospitals as tacit consent

authorizing them to administer the potentially damaging synthetic

vitamin dose

to newborns. Five post partem nurses from hospitals in Idaho,

Washington and

Oregon stated that they " routinely administer vitamin K injections to

newborns, " as if all of them were reading from the same script.

According to a

seasoned Sacred Heart Medical Center (Spokane, WA), Birthplace nurse

named

Terri, " Routine vitamin K injections are in cooperation with the

federal

standard. " She also said that Washington hospitals are mandated by

state code

to provide the injections to all newborns. Terri acknowledged that

parents who

wish to refuse the shot must present the refusal to the hospital in

writing

before the baby is born.

 

Scientists question intelligence of universal IM vitamin K injections

Dr.

Louise Parker was quoted in the British Medical Journal in 1998 as

stating, " It

is not possible, on the basis of currently published evidence, to

refute the

suggestion that neonatal IM vitamin K administration increases the

risk of

early childhood leukemia. " The British Journal of Cancer

published " Factors

associated with childhood cancer " by J. Golding, et al, in 1990. The

report

indicated that universally administered IM vitamin K injections

significantly

increase our children's chances of developing childhood cancer. A

follow-up

study published two years later in the British Medical Journal

reinforced the

findings of the previous study. The authors' comments, in keeping with

scientific style, are conservatively stated, but parents who are

concerned

about the health of their babies will read " danger " between the

following

lines: " The only two studies so far to have examined the relation

between

childhood cancer and intramuscular vitamin K have shown similar

results and the

relation is biologically plausible. The prophylactic benefits against

haemorrhagic disease are unlikely to exceed the potential adverse

effects from

intramuscular vitamin K... " Both studies recommend that policies

should be

adopted to administer IM vitamin K injections only to high risk

babies. Babies

who have been identified as being at risk for vitamin K deficiency

include

those born to mothers who took drugs or antibiotics during pregnancy,

premature

babies and babies who are born cesarean. Mothers who had maternity

diets low in

high vitamin K foods or had diets that were low in fat have also been

identified as being more likely to bear vitamin K deficient babies.

Naturopathic physicians and others who successfully adhere to a more

natural

approach to healthcare advocate that high-risk mothers should

increase the

amount of vitamin K available to the fetus during pregnancy by eating

adequate

amounts of green leafy vegetables. It is also recommended that

mothers continue

to eat vitamin K rich foods after giving birth so that their infants

will

receive the natural form of the vital vitamin through their breast

milk.

 

As early as April 17, 1977, an article in one of the world's most

esteemed

medical journals, the Lancet, discredited the policy of routine

vitamin K

injections. " We conclude that healthy babies, contrary to current

beliefs, are

not likely to have a vitamin K deficiency....the administration of

vitamin K is

not supported by our findings... " Van Doorm, et al stated in the

Lancet

article. VKR cited 21 peer-reviewed reports that had been published in

prominent medical journals. All of them concur that policies which

mandate the

universal injection of newborn babies are not based in sound science.

There has

been much peer-reviewed evidence generated which questions the

efficacy of

routine vitamin K injections as sound public health policy. Why,

then, since

publication of the July, 1987 article in Pediatrics " Health codes for

newborns "

when it was stated that only five states required hospitals to

administer

neonatal vitamin K injections, are they now mandated by most, if not

all

states? Commonsensically, VKR poses the question, " ...how could God

(or nature)

have erred so badly as to give all newborn babies only an

infinitesimal

fraction of their required vitamin K? Surely the human race could not

have

survived to this point if all newborns were born with this deficiency

and none

being administered at birth until very recently. " Although there

seems to be no

evidence to support universal IM vitamin K injections among the

newborn from a

public health standpoint, the medical establishment, as informed by

the Food

and Drug Administration, the AAP and as supplied by the pharmaceutical

companies such as Merck, Roche Laboratories and Abbott Laboratories,

continues

to endorse state mandated, routine IM vitamin K injections. Eye of

newt, spleen

of bat? The body most readily utilizes vitamins and minerals that are

found in

plants. The body less readily utilizes synthetic vitamins and

minerals. The

vitamin K administered by hospitals to newborns is the synthetic

phytonadione.

The natural forms of vitamin K that are found in many foods,

particularly in

vegetables such as collard greens, spinach, broccoli, asparagus,

brussels

sprouts and salad greens, are called phylloquinone or menaquinone.

Certain

bacteria in the intestinal tract also produce menaquinones. The

vitamin K

injections administered by hospitals and manufactured by Merck and

Roche and

Abbott are not only synthetic but, according to the packet inserts

and the PDR,

contain benzyl alcohol as a preservative. The 1989 PDR states

that, " there is

no evidence to suggest that the small amount of benzyl alcohol

contained in

AquaMEPHYTON (Merck's vitamin K injection product), when used as

recommended,

is associated with toxicity. " Interestingly, in November, 1988, the

French

medical journal Dev Pharmacol Ther published a paper regarding benzyl

alcohol

metabolism and elimination in babies. The report stated that " ...we

cannot

directly answer the issue of safety of 'low doses' of benzyl alcohol

as found

in some medications administered to neonates. This study confirms the

immaturity of the benzoic acid detoxification process in premature

newborns. "

The 1998 PDR still states, contrary to the published findings of

French

scientists in 1988, " there is no evidence to suggest that... " There

has been

little reason to study the toxicological effects of benzyl alcohol

over the

last decade since state legislators have provided synthetic vitamin K

manufacturers with the guaranteed marketplace of nearly every child

born in a

U.S. hospital. Vitamin K injections manufactured as recently as 1995

contain

hydrochloric acid " for pH adjustment. " Roche's vitamin K product

KONAKION

contains ingredients such as phenol (carbolic acid-a poisonous

substance

distilled from coal tar), propylene glycol (derived from petroleum

and used as

an antifreeze and in hydraulic brake fluid) and acetic acid (an

astringent

antimicrobial agent that may drastically reduce the amount of natural

vitamin K

that would have otherwise been produced in the digestive tract). As

reported in

the PDR and as published in the IM vitamin K packet inserts for

Merck, Roche

and Abbott, " Studies of carcinogenicity, mutagenesis or impairment of

fertility

have not been conducted with Vitamin K1 Injection (Phytonadione

Injection,

USP). " The purpose of this article is to alert expectant parents that

their

ignorance of federally-suggested, state mandated hospital policy is

enough

assent to authorize health care professionals to administer what may

be a

lethal or damaging overdose of a synthetic substance that comes with

the

following warning from the manufacturers: " Severe reactions, including

fatalities, have occurred during and immediately after INTRAVENOUS

injection of

phytonadione even when precautions have been taken to dilute the

vitamin and

avoid rapid infusion... " Please pass the preceeding information onto

anybody

you know who is expecting a baby. Afterall, we have the right to know

what

substances are being injected into our babies within the first hour

of their

lives. If we feel that a substance may be injurious to our baby, we

have the

right to refuse it. Don Harkins is the editor of The Idaho Observer

www.proliberty.com/observer --------------------------------

 

Vit K

 

http://www.fensende.com/Users/swnymph/Midwife/vitktop.html#Controversy

 

 

British Medical Journal volume 305 August 8, 1992 and BMJ volume 310

March

11,1995 are studies that connect vitamin K to childhood cancers such

as

leukemia. " Many doctors routinely give vitamin K to newborn babies

because they

have been taught that infants are born with a deficiency of this

vitamin, which

influences how rapidly the baby's blood will clot. That's nonsense,

unless the

mother is severely malnourished; but most doctors do it anyway.

Administration

of vitamin K to the newborn may produce jauncice, which prompts the

pediatrician to treat it with bilirubin lights (phototherapy). These

lights

expose the baby to a dozen documented hazards that may requeire still

further

treatement and possibly affect him for the rest of his life. "

 

http://www.birthpsychology.com/messages/vitamink/vitamink.html

 

Vitamin K injections: This practice was instituted in hospitals

during the era

of routine mother- infant separation. According to Williams, " although

controversial in other coutries, " injection of the newborn with

Vitamin K right

after birth is almost universal in the United States (Cunningham et

al.

1989:611). The rationale for this is that newborns are born with

a " deficiency "

of Vitamin K, which they also do not receive in breast milk. This

leads to a

decrease in Vitamin K-dependent blood coagulation factors, making

newborns more

susceptible to hemorrhage in the first several days of life until

Vitamin K is

manufactured in their systems (Cunningham et al. 1989:611). The risk

is

small--about 1 in 200--but real.

 

Physiological Effects Injection of newborns with Vitamin K in large

doses has

been implicated as a cause of neonatal jaundice (Allison 1955;

Cunningham et

al. 1989:611). A small dose of 1 mg seems to have no ill effects on

the baby

beyond the pain caused by the injection itself. If newborns are

allowed to

suckle soon after birth, the injection of Vitamin K is less

necessary, since

the colostrum that comes immediately from the mother's breast before

her milk

lets down is usually rich in Vitamin K (Trevathan 1987:213). In about

1 out of

200 babies, even in those that area breastfed, however, there is

significant

danger of hemorrhage. For this reason, even midwives attending home

births

sometimes give injections of Vitamin K. One Anycity midwife, for

example, feels

that the risk of cerebral hemorrhage is heightened in very fast or

very long

labors, when the baby has a strongly cone-shaped head, or when the

baby

demonstrates significant heart-rate decelerations during late labor.

Because

she believes in their value, she gives Vitamin K injections to around

40% of

the babies she catches. But she feels strongly that breastfed babies

born with

" easy births " do not need Vitamin K, and that it should not be

administered

routinely to all babies.

 

Ritual Purposes If the pain that the individual newborn feels from a

shot with

a needle were up for consideration under the technocratic model, then

the

decision as to whether or not to inflict that pain on a newborn would

be made

on an individual basis according to specific need. But instead, the

medical

response to the danger of hemorrhage, as to the danger of blindness

from VD,

has been to standardize the Vitamin K injection for all newborns. In

The

Technological Society, Jacques Ellul has written:

 

Standardization means resolving in advance all the problems that

might possibly

impede the functioning of an organization. It is not a matter of

leaving it to

inspiration, ingenuity, or even intelligence to find a solution [to a

problem];

it is rather in some way to anticipate both the difficulty and the

resolution.

From then on, standardization creates impersonality, in the sense

that the

organization relies more on methods and techniques than on

individuals. We thus

have all the marks of a technique. Organization is thus a technique. -

Ellul

1965:11-12

 

Symbolically speaking, the standardization of the Vitamin K injection

and

indeed all the routine procedures performed on the newborn baby

reinforce the

messages to both baby and mother that nature is inadequate, that they

are now

dependent on organizations--that is, on techniques--for their lives

and health.

This message seems a fair and accurate reflection of the realities of

technocratic life. In effect, these postpartum procedures form the

modern

structural equivalent of baptism: they symbolically enculturate the

newborn,

removing her step-by-step from the natural realm through

restructuring her very

physiology in accordance with technocratic standardization.