The Century of Evidence That Vaccines Cause Sudden Infant Deaths

STORY AT -A-GLANCE
We’re always told that vaccines were a medical marvel that safely ended the dark age of
infectious disease. However, when the actual records are examined, they often abjectly
The Century of Evidence That Vaccines Cause Sudden Infant
Deaths
Analysis by A Midwestern Doctor May 09, 2025

Multiple doctors have linked the DPT vaccine to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS),
noting that SIDS peaks coincide with vaccination schedules at 2, 4, and 6 months

Since at least 1933, the medical community has known that vaccines cause infant
deaths. To conceal this, those deaths were renamed “crib death” and then “Sudden Infant
Death Syndrome” (SIDS), eventually being attributed to infants not sleeping on their
backs

This revisionism is not supported by the existing evidence nor the historical changes in
the frequency of SIDS. Most recently, SIDS rates have had an unprecedented decrease in
tandem with the COVID-19 lockdowns reducing vaccination rates

The vaccine most strongly associated with SIDS, DPT , was protected for decades by the
government despite knowing a large body of evidence around the world showed it killed
infants — particularly when an inevitable hot lot was released. Eventually, so many injury
lawsuits were filed that in 1986, the government had to give blanket immunity to the
vaccine manufacturers

This article will review the body of evidence showing vaccines cause SIDS and reveal the
mechanism modern research has now repeatedly proven causes vaccines to trigger
infant death failed to prevent those diseases, and worse still, frequently caused outbreaks and severely injured many of the recipients.
This in part resulted from the inherent toxicity of vaccines and in part because
manufacturing challenges regularly resulted in hot lots being released. Rather than
address this, the vaccine industry chose to create a variety of strategies to conceal
those issues, such as enshrining the dogma “all vaccines are safe” and giving blanket
legal immunity to all the “safe” vaccines.

The Toxicity Bell Curve
When humans are exposed to toxins, the reactions to them are distributed such that
severe injuries are much rarer. As a result, many of the more subtle, common reactions
typically go unrecognized.
Because of this, if a product causes a significant number of deaths (e.g., the COVID
mRNA vaccines), that’s often the tip of the iceberg and far larger number of injuries lie
under the surface (e.g., polling showed that showed 34% of those vaccinated for COVID
reported minor side effects and 7% reported significant side effects).
Sudden Infant Deaths
This sadly also holds true for infant deaths, and since its creation, the diphtheria,
pertussis, and tetanus (DPT) vaccine has been associated with those deaths.
For example, in 2014, unmarked mass graves belonging to Irish orphans were
discovered which belonged to a group of 2,051 children upon whom an early diphtheria
vaccine was covertly tested in the 1930s.
Note: Early vaccine experiments (including DPT) were conducted in the 1960s to 1970s
at Irish care homes, and the test subjects included babies and handicapped children.
Likewise, as detailed by Sir Graham Wilson, in the early 1900s, there were over a dozen
cases in the medical literature (and likely far more that weren’t documented) where
groups of children received an incorrectly prepared diphtheria vaccine, and collectively,
thousands became severely ill, with hundreds suffering an agonizing death.

A wave of deaths hence followed DPT’s adoption, which like those following the COVID
vaccines, became a “mysterious syndrome, ” initially being called “crib death” and then
“Sudden Infant Death Syndrome” (SIDS). In turn, a few doctors saw this and spoke out
against it.
• James Howenstine, M.D. in 2003 stated:
“The incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome has grown from .55 per
1000 live births in 1953 to 12.8 per 1000 in 1992 in Olmstead County,
Minnesota. The peak incidence for SIDS is at age 2 to 4 months, the exact
time most vaccines are being given to children. 85% of cases of SIDS occur
in the first 6 months of infancy.
The increase in SIDS as a percentage of total infant deaths has risen from
2.5 per 1000 in 1953 to 17.9 per 1000 in 1992.
This rise in SIDS deaths has occurred during a period when nearly every
childhood disease was declining due to improved sanitation and medical
progress except SIDS. These deaths from SIDS did increase during a period
when the number of vaccines given to a child was steadily rising to 36 per
child. ”

Note: It has always astounded me that the medical profession knows SIDS peaks at
exactly 2, 4, and 6 months of age, but cannot connect that to childhood vaccines
being given at the exact same time.
• Robert Mendelsohn M.D. in his 1987 book “How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of
Your Doctor” wrote:

“My suspicion, which is shared by others in my profession, is that the nearly
10,000 SIDS deaths that occur in the United States each year are related to
one or more of the vaccines that are routinely given to children. The
pertussis vaccine is the most likely villain, but it could also be one or more
of the others. ”

Note: Although I believe pertussis (DPT) is the vaccine most strongly linked to SIDS,
other vaccines also have an association (e.g., a 2007 VAERS analysis and a 1999,
legislative testimony by Philip Incao, M.D. made compelling cases also linking SIDS
to the hepatitis B vaccine).
• In 1957, Archie Kalokerinos M.D., desiring to serve the people, requested to be
stationed in the neglected rural Aboriginal communities, as their infant mortality
rate was 10% (whereas it was 2% in the surrounding white communities). Many
diseases were rampant there (pneumonia, severe ear infections, severe infant
irritability, and a frequent inability to feed the afflicted children), but were ignored
and blamed on the uncivilized habits of the mothers.

Archie eventually realized these deaths were due to severe nutritional deficiencies
and quickly saved many lives (e.g., by injecting IV vitamin C or giving zinc).
After the infant death rate climbed to 50% following an infant vaccination campaign,
he realized that in the same way infections depleted vitamin C, vaccines did too,
and rapidly stopped the vaccination deaths with injected vitamin C. Additionally, he
also discovered that vaccinating a child who was currently ill was frequently lethal
(which, to varying degrees, has also been reported throughout the medical
literature).

Note: Kalokerinos also found early breastfeeding was critical for infant health and
preventing death, but unfortunately, colonial forces had shifted them towards formula
— mirroring a pernicious trend seen globally. Many have since found breastfeeding
counteracts many of the harms of vaccination (e.g., breastfeeding halves the rate of
SIDS) — all of which is discussed here.

Later, he used vitamin C to treat many other conditions too (e.g., otherwise fatal
measles cases) — something coincidentally also being done by another pioneering
doctor in America.

Note: Kalokerinos also showed that mothers accused of shaking their babies to death
had in fact died of scurvy. Similarly, as I show here, the diagnosis “shaken baby
syndrome” (invented in the 1970s) was frequently used to wrongfully convict parents
whose children died in their sleep after vaccination.
Many of these doctors’ experiences (especially for Kalokerinos) were summarized in a
talk by Raymond Obomsawin:

Note: Obomsawin also highlighted that when Japan moved the DPT injections from 3 to 5
months to 24 months of age, there was an 85% to 90% reduction in DPT brain damage and SIDS cases, and a 60% decrease in the overall infant mortality rate.

A Shot in the Dark
In addition to causing death, the DPT vaccine frequently caused brain injuries. As the
media had not yet been bought out by the pharmaceutical industry (due to a 1997 FTC
decision legalizing pharmaceutical television advertisements), programs critical of
vaccination would occasionally air such as a 1982 one highlighting the profound
disability being caused by the DPT vaccine.

Many parents with DPT injured children saw this program, called NBC and then were
connected by NBC, forming “Dissatisfied Parents Together” one of the original vaccine
safety groups, and in 1985, “DPT , A Shot in the Dark, ” was published. DPT , A Shot in the
Dark highlighted that:
• As early as 1933, there were published reports of infant deaths shortly after DPT
shots, including some where autopsies attributed the deaths to vaccination.
• Simultaneous identical twin deaths are an extraordinarily rare event and are hence
considered a gold standard for establishing causality, and in 1946, two twins died
(on their backs) within 24 hours of their second DPT vaccine — something also
shown in 1987, 2006, 2007, 2010, and 2013 case reports.
• Researchers like Dr. William Torch (who analyzed 72 sequential SIDS cases and
then over 200) showed that these deaths clustered shortly after vaccination —
something which could not be explained by chance.
• The FDA’s pertussis vaccine specialist, Charles Manclark had stated in 1976 that:
“Pertussis vaccine is one of the more troublesome products to produce and
assay. As an example, the pertussis vaccine has one of the highest failure
rates of all products submitted to the Bureau of Biologics for testing and
release. Approximately 15% to 20% of all lots that pass the manufacturer’s
tests fail to pass the Bureau’s tests. ”
• In 1978 to 1979, eleven infants in Tennessee died within eight days of receiving a
DPT vaccine; nine had been vaccinated with the same lot — Wyeth #64201 — and
five (four from that lot) died within 24 hours. Statistical analysis showed that such a
clustering of deaths would occur by chance only 3% of the time; later estimates put
the probability even lower — between 0.2% and 0.5%.

In June, CDC Director Dr. William Foege told the Surgeon General that while a causal
link to those deaths couldn’t be confirmed, it also couldn’t be ruled out. Three weeks
later, FDA official Harry Meyer cited Foege’s memo to reject Wyeth’s request to list
SIDS-related risk factors as contraindications for the DPT vaccine, stating there was
no medical basis or evidence that such labeling would prevent SIDS.
• Following this, in 1979 Wyeth’s senior leadership published a memo which stated
future DPT lots needed to be distributed across the country (rather than sent to one
place) so a repeat of the 1978 to 1979 incident would not occur again.
Additionally, another cluster of SIDS deaths in Fresno California led to the local
newspaper conducting an investigation that revealed widespread issues with hot DPT
lots, had doctors in the area providence evidence DPT was indeed causing SIDS, and
disclosed that a 1978 study on the safety of the DPT vaccine was buried after
researchers discovered adverse reactions within 48 hours of immunization were 5000%
higher than expected.

This damning indictment of the DPT vaccine led to national vaccine safety legislation
being passed in 1986 (which sadly subsequently got co-opted and became nothing but
a blanket liability shield for industry) and the whole cell DTwP vaccine eventually being
replaced with the safer acellular DTaP vaccine.
Note: Since the DTaP vaccine costs more to produce, industry long resisted it and still
gives DTwP to poorer regions like Africa.

Whole Cell Pertussis in Africa
Peter Aaby, a renowned vaccine scientist and promoter of vaccination, was
commissioned by the WHO to study the effects of vaccines commonly utilized in
charitable programs by the international community on infant mortality (studies which
for context are almost never conducted). To his horror, Aaby discovered:
“DPT was associated with 5-fold higher mortality than being unvaccinated
[DTwP increased deaths 3.93 times in boys and 9.98 times in girls]. No
prospective study has shown beneficial survival effects of DPT . Unfortunately,
DPT is the most widely used vaccine, and the proportion of people who receive
DPT is used globally as an indicator of a country’s vaccination program
performance.
It should be of concern that the effect of routine vaccinations on all-cause
mortality was not tested in randomized trials. All currently available evidence
suggests that the DPT vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it
saves from diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis. Although a vaccine protects
children against the target disease, it may also increase their susceptibility to
unrelated infections. ”
Aaby’s 2017 results were, not surprisingly, buried, and due to Bill Gate’s “donations”
vaccination (including with DTwP) has become a greater and greater focus of the WHO.
However, in 2019 Peter Gøtzsche, M.D., a renowned expert on research fraud (who has
been a critical reformer in evidence-based medicine), then conducted a systematic
review of the DPT program which concluded:
“Evidence tells us that it is likely that the DPT vaccine increases total mortality
in low-income countries. ”

Note: Aaby found the primary cause of these deaths was DPT inducing immune
suppression and other infections later killing the infants (something which has also been
observed with many other vaccines).

Dose-Response Relationships
A key metric for establishing causality is demonstrating a dose-response relationship
(e.g., more vaccines causing more deaths).
On a national level, this has been shown by SIDS rates going up as the number of
vaccines increased. Likewise, a 2011 study of the 34 nations with the lowest infant
mortality rate (America being No. 34) showed an unmistakable relationship between
total vaccinations and SIDS.
Giving multiple vaccinations simultaneously (e.g., hexavalent vaccines containing DTP
+ Polio + Haemophilus Influenza B + Hepatitis B) has also been repeatedly shown to
increase the risk of SIDS. For example:
• When GSK’s hexavalent vaccine hit the market, SIDS cases were observed,
eventually prompting a 2005 study of Germany’s adverse event database that
found an increase in SIDS cases was associated with the vaccine.
• A 2011 study of Italy’s adverse event database found hexavalent vaccines
increased the risk of infant death 2.2 times in the 14 days that followed.
• A judge then forced GSK to release their confidential safety data which showed 90%
of reported infant deaths occurred immediately following vaccination (again
strongly suggesting an association).
• A later confidential 2015 report GSK gave to European regulators showed almost
52.5% of vaccine-linked deaths occurred within 3 days of vaccination, 82.2% within
seven days, and 97.9% within ten days.
• A 2012 VAERS analysis of all reported infant deaths found that infants who
received twice as many vaccines at one time were roughly twice as likely to die or
be hospitalized.
Similarly, since all infants receive the same vaccine dose, premature infants (being
smaller) effectively receive a higher dose. In turn, that analysis also found the
youngest infants were the most likely to die following vaccination.
Respiratory Arrest
Infants can experience a cardiorespiratory event, such as an interruption of breathing or
a significant slowing of the heart rate, following vaccination. In many cases, these
events require CPR, and had the infant not been monitored at the hospital when it
occurred, the infant would have likely died. This has been proven by decades of hospital
studies of premature infants that all showed:
• Roughly a third of premature infants experienced a cardiorespiratory event
following vaccination (whereas virtually none did beforehand), and about a third of
those then required respiratory support.
• Those who were smaller or who had existing chronic diseases were more
susceptible to these cardiopulmonary events (mirroring Kalokerinos’s
observations).
• These events often recurred after subsequent vaccinations.
Note: I summarized 13 studies on vaccines stopping breathing here, including a recent
2025 trial.

Remarkably, despite this complication of vaccination being recognized by the medical
field, it has never been connected to SIDS and still is viewed as inconsequential relative
to “immense benefits of vaccination. ”
As such, an Australian group developed a way to monitor infants at home continuously
and, like many others, was able to demonstrate non-fatal disruptions of breathing spiked
following DPT and Polio vaccination (this is the most likely cause of SIDS) and that this
disruption continued for over six weeks post-vaccination (hence overlapping with the
typical period of death that has been observed to follow vaccination).
Most importantly, the breathing often had not fully recovered by the time the next
vaccine was given.
Note: Some package inserts for DTaP vaccines list SIDS as a possible side effect.
What Causes SIDS?
When SIDS autopsies are conducted (detailed here), they typically find unusual changes
such as acute congestion, edema and small hemorrhages in the brainstem and internal
organs along with brain tissue infiltration by different immune cells.
Note: These findings mirror what Kalokerinos observed in the many autopsies he
conducted (and attributed to bacterial LPS endotoxins). Likewise, a government
pertussis specialist shared with me that some of these effects (e.g., vascular leakage) are
also seen with pertussis toxin toxicity (which suggests the vaccine pertussis toxin may
not be fully inactivated — something which was frequently an issue with previous lethal
diphtheria hot lots ).

One of the greatest dangers with vaccines is that they cause blood cells to clump
together, creating microstrokes in smaller blood vessels. Certain parts of the brain are
more vulnerable to this, and as such, specific cranial nerves (e.g., 6 and 7) will
frequently display observable deficits after vaccination (e.g., the eyes turning inwards).
Since a key area of the brain for ensuring automatic breathing is very close to the nuclei
for the commonly affected cranial nerves, breathing is likely affected by those
microstrokes as well.
In turn, I suspect that the partial interruptions of respiration occur when there is a partial
interruption of one side’s blood supply, whereas the full respiratory arrest occurs when
both sides are affected. Similarly, the neurologist who discovered vaccination caused
pathologic microstrokes also came across cases where a cranial nerve 6 deficit on both
sides (implying both sides of the brainstem had a partial loss of blood flow) directly
preceded SIDS.
Note: Kalokerinos also believed the loss of automatic breathing came from LPS attacking
the brainstem’s respiratory center and that vitamin C rapidly neutralized it, whereas I
believe the hemorrhages, coagulation, swelling he saw were in part due to zeta potential
changes and that the rapid improvements he saw following vitamin C were due to it
restoring the physiologic zeta potential.

The Evolution of SIDS
The Back to Sleep campaign (founded on the idea SIDS was caused by sleeping
facedown and the infant then suffocating) is often heralded as one of the greatest
successes in medical history since SIDS rates declined after it began — hence leading to
that success being used to debunk the link between SIDS and vaccination.
However, if you look at the actual data, a strong case can be made that drop was due to
the TDwP to TDaP switch and then the reclassification of SIDS cases:
Note: Somewhat analogously, the decline in Polio was likely due to nerve damaging
pesticides being phased out when the vaccine was introduced, and most cases of
paralysis being reclassified as no longer being polio.
Since that time, the total infant death rate remained relatively unchanged, until in 2020
something extraordinary happened — the lockdowns led to America’s first significant
drop in vaccination as well-child (vaccination) visits were “non-essential. ” At the time,
many in the vaccine safety community predicted this would lead to an unprecedented
drop in SIDS rates. Vaccination rates indeed dropped, and in tandem, deaths did as
well:
But only in children at the ages SIDS typically affects:
Furthermore, due to the political climate in Florida in 2021, the state’s childhood
vaccination rate decreased from 93.4% in 2020 to 79.3% in 2021. At the same time, all-
cause infant mortality under one year of age in Florida also reduced by 8.93% (a reversal
of the 2020 trend, where infant mortality had increased by 0.67%).
A 14% decrease in vaccination coverage was associated with a 9% decrease in infant
mortality, suggesting roughly half of the infant deaths in Florida could potentially be
attributed to vaccinations.
Conclusion
“Something can be very obvious. I mean, what could
be more obvious than the dead kid? It can be extremely
serious and its existence not only be ignored, but
denied, and unless this is understood, it is impossible
to understand what my problem was. Now, I knew that
these other places were having infant deaths too. Yet
when I spoke to doctors, their response was almost
universally hostile. So I was left to handle the problem
by myself.” ~ Archie Kalokerinos

One of the saddest things about vaccine injuries is that children lack the ability to
communicate how vaccines have injured them or refuse further immunizations. In turn,
one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve had to witness in medicine are children, in
whatever way they can, trying to tell their parents or doctors and nurses that vaccines
are hurting them, but are ignored and have something catastrophic happen after they
are injected without their consent.
However, now that so many adults (who can communicate) have been injured by the
COVID vaccines, the veil has been removed, and an awareness is forming around the
potential consequences of vaccination. Secretary Kennedy is now at last beginning the
long overdue evaluation of the safety of the vaccines given to our children, and it is
imperative we do all that we can to support this investigation being allowed to proceed
forward.

Author’s Note: This is an abbreviated version of a full-length article that takes a deeper
look into the evidence linking SIDS to vaccination, which can be read here. Additionally, a
companion article on exactly how vaccines cause microstrokes and neurological injuries
can be read here along with a companion article which details all the evidence linking
specific chronic illnesses and how to recognize the subtle effects of vaccination (which
can be read here).
A Note from Dr. Mercola About the Author
A Midwestern Doctor (AMD) is a board-certified physician from the Midwest and a
longtime reader of Mercola.com. I appreciate AMD’s exceptional insight on a wide range
of topics and am grateful to share it. I also respect AMD’s desire to remain anonymous
since AMD is still on the front lines treating patients. To find more of AMD’s work, be
sure to check out The Forgotten Side of Medicine on Substack.
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From Dr. Mercola

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