A speculated link between vaccines and

SIDS Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usual ...

(Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) has been denied by the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...

, but remains a common

anti-vaccine Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain abou ...

claim. The claim, attributed to Robert Mendelsohn in 1991 and promoted by anti-vaccination activists such as

Viera Scheibner Viera Scheibner ( Slovak: ''Viera Scheibnerová''; born 27 March 1935, Bratislava) is a Slovak-Australian anti-vaccination activist and retired geologist. From 1958 until 1968 she was assistant professor in the department of geology at Comen ...

in the early 1990s, is that

vaccine A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified.

s, especially the DTP vaccine that protects against

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...

tetanus Tetanus, also known as lockjaw, is a bacterial infection caused by ''Clostridium tetani'', and is characterized by muscle spasms. In the most common type, the spasms begin in the jaw and then progress to the rest of the body. Each spasm usually ...

and

pertussis Whooping cough, also known as pertussis or the 100-day cough, is a highly contagious bacterial disease. Initial symptoms are usually similar to those of the common cold with a runny nose, fever, and mild cough, but these are followed by two or t ...

, sometimes causes

sudden infant death syndrome Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usuall ...

. The

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...

has classified this as a "common misconception". Some also claim that a

vaccine court The Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, popularly known as "vaccine court", administers a no-fault system for litigating vaccine injury claims. These claims against vaccine manufacturers cannot normally be filed in s ...

case, ''Boatmon v. Secretary of Health and Human Services'', 13-611 (Fed. Cl. 2017), proves this link. While compensation was awarded to Boatmon, this did not prove any link, and the award was in any case vacated in July 2018 as the Special master had applied too low a standard of proof. Multiple studies and

meta-analyses A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analyses can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting m ...

have shown that vaccinated children are less likely to die of SIDS.

References

{{Vaccine safety

Infant mortality Pseudoscience