Researchers are sounding the alarm after a study found that America’s infant mortality rate has surged to shocking highs in recent years.
Scientists from Virginia Commonwealth University discovered that American children and teenagers are dying at higher rates than their peers in 16 other high-income countries.
The team raised the alarm in a research letter published in the renowned journal JAMA Pediatrics.
The researchers calculated the median mortality rates among children ages 0-19 with rates in Canada, Australia, Japan, and several European countries, from 1999 to 2019.
They compared those rates to median mortality rates among the same age groups in the U.S. to identify excess deaths in the U.S.
Excess deaths are the number above and beyond those median rates.
They found that in the U.S., there were 413,948 excess deaths among young people during that time.
“Each year, nearly 20,000 deaths among youths ages 0 to 19 years would not have occurred had US youths experienced the median mortality rates of 16 comparison countries,” the authors wrote.
“More than half of these deaths involved infants, reflecting disproportionately high US infant mortality rates.”
As young people in the U.S. died at higher rates, the median mortality rates in other countries dropped, widening the gap.
“The chances of a child surviving to age 20 are now decreasing,” Dr. Steven Woolf, the study’s co-author told NBC News.
Where the data was available, researchers also examined trends through 2022.
However, when comparing the data, the researchers identified a massive increase in deaths among children ages 10 and up starting in 2020.
This surge in excess deaths among children continues through 2022.
Beginning in 2010, youths ages 10-19 accounted for an increasing proportion of the deaths, according to the authors.
Suicide rates among that age group started rising in 2007, homicides began rising in 2013, and fatal drug overdoses in 2014.
As of 2022, infant mortality rates in the U.S. are 5.6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to a National Center for Health Statistics report, the rate rose 3% in 2022.
This was the first increase since 2001.
The trend represents a sharp reversal, as between 2000 and 2020, infant deaths had decreased by 21%.
Overall, the U.S. infant death rate has consistently exceeded those of other high-income countries.
NBC News attributed the high infant mortality rate in the U.S. in part to its relatively high rate of sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS.
The report defined SIDS as “the unforeseen and unexplained death of an infant younger than 1.”
The CDC views SIDS, along with “accidental suffocation in a sleeping environment” and “other deaths from unknown causes” as manifestations of the broader phenomenon of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID).
The agency attributes three-fourths (75%) of the approximately 3,400 annual SUID deaths to SIDS and “unknown causes.”
Dr. Paul Thomas, pediatrician and author of the forthcoming book, “Vax Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life,” warns that those “unknown causes” are likely also SIDS and that extensive evidence links SIDS to vaccination.
In a statement responding to the study, Thomas said:
“Nearly 20,000 infants died in the USA in 2021, for an overall infant mortality rate of 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births.
“The CDC lists SIDS as the number three cause of death, following birth defects and preterm birth, with 1,389 cases.
“But deaths that used to be classified as SIDS are often classified as suffocation or simply ‘unknown’ these days.
“There were 1,062 deaths attributed to unknown causes, and 905 attributed to accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed for a total of 3,356.
“When an infant dies, no matter how soon after vaccination, coroners and pathologists do not have any codes for vaccine-related death available as options, so these deaths are generally coded as SIDS, unknown, or suffocation.”
Thomas said pediatricians are not educated about the link so even when it clearly occurs, they don’t recognize it.
“I was taught that SIDS was due to parents smoking in the room, the room being too hot, babies co-sleeping or sleeping on surfaces that were too soft, or moms smothering their babies while nursing,” he wrote, sharing insights from his forthcoming book.
“While all these factors may plausibly contribute, the primary cause has been right under our nose for decades. The vaccines!”
An analysis of sudden infant deaths in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) shows a direct correlation between SIDS and vaccines.
VAERS data shows that nearly 80% of those deaths reported to the system between 1990 and 2019 happened within seven days of vaccination.
Most recently, during the COVID-19 lockdowns, vaccination rates dropped because routine medical visits were canceled.
During that period, the number of deaths from SIDS dropped significantly.
A recent peer-reviewed study found a positive statistical correlation between infant mortality rates (IMRs) and the number of vaccine doses received by babies — confirming findings made by the same researchers a decade ago.
The 2018 Health Affairs study reported the bifurcation of the U.S. mortality rates from that of other wealthy countries began in the 1980s — the same time the country saw a major uptick in childhood vaccination.
Child mortality researchers have also noted that sudden unexplained childhood deaths in children over 1 year old are often underestimated and many such child deaths remain unexplained due to failure to understand or investigate causes.
Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., an all-cause mortality researcher, warns that the JAMA article “spins” the research findings to make it seem as if the spike in all-cause mortality for children is part of a larger trend linked to broad societal dynamics affecting youth, rather than to the draconian lockdown policies and vaccine mandates across U.S. society.
“The piece is what I would call spin, right up there with the best spin that a politician could make, but it’s by three M.D. scientists,” Rancourt said.
He said the article did not try to analyze the fact that there was a large, stepwise increase in mortality rates in 2020 and 2021.
The study authors did not explain that the increase happened alongside a much greater rise in all-cause mortality among other age groups.
They did not address the fact that the vaccine rollout occurred halfway through the study period and had no positive impact on all-cause mortality.
Woolf’s new research letter in JAMA Pediatrics also showed that same stepwise increase in mortality rates in 2020 through 2022, but again provided no accounting for it.
