Vitamin K

Vitamin K

Newborn Vitamin K administration linked to higher cancer rate for 1-6 year old children

Vitamin K: A literature review By Karin Rothville DipCBEd.

vitamin k1 (Phytonadione) injection, emulsion WARNING: This product contains Aluminium that may be toxic. Aluminum may reach toxic levels with prolonged parenteral administration if kidney function is impaired. Premature neonates are particularly at risk because their kidneys are immature, and they required large amounts of calcium and phosphate solutions, which contain aluminum.

Dear All,
A friend of mine who is an alternative health care provider sent the following
to me. Thought you all might find it helpful.
Cheryl Grenon
*****************

The following stories are rather important. Everybody who knows somebody
who is expecting a baby needs to read the Vitamin K article.

The CDC piece is important because it just illuminates one more aspect of
the inevitable state of emergency that will be declared sometime soon—the
CDC is predicting an influenza pandemic that will kill at least 400,000
Americans and that emergency response people and health professionals must
work closely with the federal government to bury dead people, take care of
sick people and "govern" the rest in our time of crisis.

The video is available by contacing your local health department and asking
to borrow it for a couple of days.

Please forward to anybody you think will need to read the following
information and reprinting is engouraged provided proper credit is given.

Both stories were published in the July edition of The Idaho Observer.

Sincerely,

Don Harkins is the editor of The Idaho Observer
www.proliberty.com/observer

***********************************

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.