Newborns at risk of severe bleeds from skipping Vitamin K shots, study says

Just a lot of things are happening at this hour. One of the things that you guys continue to look up is this measles outbreak. Believe it or not, it's now in Bucks County. As we look at that live camera of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, we know that an adult there in Bucks County has tested positive. for measles. Remember, specifically, it had been happening mostly in the center part of the state, Chester County. We're over 1,500 cases at this point, and I believe 70 new cases in the state of Pennsylvania just this week. It is a story that is really concerning. Many physicians want you to go and get your level of immunity tested. One of the guys we rely on all the time to talk to us about what we need to know is Dr. Mike Sirigliano. We call him Dr. Mike. Good afternoon. Hello there, Jen. How are you? I'm terrific. All right, let's start with this measles outbreak. It's been happening for quite some time. When you hear that an adult in Bucks County has tested positive, what are your thoughts? Well, I'm not surprised. I mean, we have more cases now than we have in 35 years, Jen. So the report, published report, states this adult went to central Pennsylvania. Don't know where he went. Don't know the details. But that's kind of the epicenter, if you will, of the outbreak in Pennsylvania. A lot of people not vaccinated. And he may have. Been vaccinated, but didn't have active immunity. Maybe he was never vaccinated. Who knows? Bottom line is he got it, came back, and now he's not contagious anymore. But once this virus, Jen, is so contagious that if he went to a doctor's office because he had a cold or a rash or something, then everyone around him needed to be tested. So, look. If you were born after 1957, best thing to do, go to your health care provider, get immunity testing, measles, mumps, rubella. If you have the antibodies, if you're protected. Done. If not, you get a booster. And I'm seeing more and more people getting tested. And I've had a bunch of people need boosters. I even did it myself, Jen. I even still have a little mark here on my arm from last week because I was born in 1960. And so there was a bad vaccine. Not bad, But it wasn't the best one from 1963 to 1968, so I wanted to get tested. You know, one of our camera guys asked his physician about it, especially because, you know, like you, he's out in the world, he's exposed to so many people, and it was interesting because his physician said, you know what, we think about measles with a rash, sort of like chicken pox or something like that, but some of the earliest symptoms are flu-like, they're cold-like, so you might not think that you have been exposed or gotten the measles, so you could be out there in the world spreading it, even though you don't intend to do that. Oh, absolutely. And like I said, Jen, it's extremely contagious, extremely. So bottom line is you got to make sure you have immunity. And by the way, the vaccine is given in two doses, This is 97% effective. People not getting the vaccine are, one, at risk, and they're putting their kids at risk for getting something that could potentially be deadly. And we already had a number of deaths in this country from measles, and we may be losing our measles-free status. We had that, and now with so many cases, we may not. So, Dr. Mike, you've got your HUP shirt on, and I gave birth to two people inside that hospital. At that time, they were asking if we wanted our kids to get a vitamin K shot. And I know now a lot of people are saying no to that. It's a story that's basically trending. One of the things we do here on Philadelphia Live, we look at what people are looking up, and we try to ask questions about that. There's a lot of questions about babies having problems because they have not received their vitamin K shot. What do you know about that? So 5% of babies born in the United States now are not getting vitamin K. Why is vitamin K important? Well, you're born and you're deficient. It's not in breast milk. And so what doctors and health care providers do, they give you a shot. It's not a vaccine. But because, Jen, there's such a mistrust and all this misinformation out there that people are saying, I'm not getting anything those people are doing because it's bad. It's bad. Well, guess what? But you have an 81 time's chance of bleeding catastrophically into your brain if you don't have vitamin K. And so these kids can die. They can bleed into their heads. They can have bleeding in other parts of their body. It's unnecessary. It's ridiculous. And it's horrible. If you have a child that's just born, get the vitamin K. It's not even a vaccine. So get over it. All right, Dr. Mike Cerullano, thank you. We know you're busy. There's probably some patients waiting to see you now, so we're going to let you go, but we appreciate you checking in.