Vitamin K is okay

While the vitamin K shot is not a vaccine, it often comes up in vaccine conversations because it’s injected, much like other vaccines are. Vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB) occurs when newborns can’t form clots due to limited amounts of vitamin K in their bodies, which can lead to brain damage and death. A single vitamin K shot can almost entirely reduce the risk of VKDB. The vitamin K shot is estimated to prevent 160 infant deaths for every 100,000 live births.

Vitamin K is a crucial ingredient in forming clotting factors, vital for infants who don’t have any of their own. In adults, however, who are at risk for a stroke or may or may not be on various anti-clotting medications, adding a clotting factor could be disastrous. As such, a black box warning warns of this last situation, where the risks must be considered.

The claim that vitamin K is associated with childhood cancers and leukemia is unfounded. While one study did raise concerns about an intramuscular injection of vitamin K, most subsequent research has not found a link between vitamin K and cancers.

While the dose of vitamin K is high compared to the daily requirement of vitamin K, newborns have little vitamin K until they are close to six months old, so the dose will sustain them until they can start producing it themselves. No known toxicity is associated with high doses of vitamin K. It contains mostly vitamin K. Other ingredients help stabilize and preserve it. Those ingredients are in the injection in very small doses and do not cause harm at those doses.