Amanda Marcotte explains:

It’s hard to believe it was possible, but anti-vaccination fanaticism has taken a darker turn, as Chris Mooney reports for Mother Jones: Now, it’s not just vaccines that parents are foolishly rejecting for their children, but also a simple injection of vitamin K that has been a standard part of newborn care since the 1960s. Some parents now find themselves rushing to the emergency room with babies sick with vitamin K deficiency bleeding. “This rare disorder occurs because human infants do not have enough vitamin K, a blood coagulant, in their systems,” Mooney writes. “Infants who develop VKDB can bleed in various parts of their bodies, including bleeding into the brain.” Bleeding in the brain can cause brain damage and, in some cases, death.

Mooney examines the overlap between the anti-vaccine and anti-vitamin crowds:

A quick Google search returns a number of dire warnings about vitamin K shots circulating on the Internet. One of the top results is an article at TheHealthyHomeEconomist.com, which urges readers to “Skip that Newborn Vitamin K Shot,” before going on to list an array of “dangerous ingredients in the injection cocktail.” (The site also calls vaccines “scientific fraud.”) And then there’s physician Joseph Mercola (whose popular website calls vaccinations “very neurotoxic” and suggests they are associated with a list of conditions, including autism). In another article on his site, Mercola suggests there is a “Potential Dark Side” to the vitamin K shot. “A needle stick can be a terrible assault to a baby’s suddenly overloaded sensory system, which is trying to adjust to the outside world,” it reads.

He adds, “evidence presented by the CDC suggests that refusal of vitamin K shots may be a major phenomenon to contend with”:

In Tennessee, the CDC found that at the hospital with the highest rate of missed vitamin K injections, 3.4 percent of infants were discharged without receiving one. At birthing centers in the state (a hospital alternative, often run by nurse-midwives), the number was much higher: 28 percent.

Previous Dish on anti-vaxxers here.