(NEW YORK) — A new study has found that, amid record low infant mortality rates in 2020, rates of sudden infant death syndrome, known as SIDS, increased for the first time in five years, and there was a sharp increase in the rate of sudden unexpected infant deaths, or SUID, among Black infants between 2019 and 2020.

The study, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics with research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that the SUID rate per 100,000 live births was highest among Black infants in 2020, surpassing the SUID rate among non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaskan Native infants, which had been declining since 2015.

Black babies recorded 214 deaths per 100,000 while American Indian or Alaskan Native infants recorded 205.1 deaths per 100,000, nearly three times the rate of non-Hispanic white infants, which were recorded at 75.6 deaths per 100,000, according to the research.

The lowest SUID rates were observed among Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Asian infants with 59 deaths per 100,000 and 23.3 deaths per 100,000.

“There’s been a long-standing disparity in sudden unexpected infant death with non-Hispanic Black Americans having more than twice the rate of the general population, and then an even higher increase in the rate compared to non-Hispanic white (babies),” Rebecca Carlin, M.D., who co-authored the commentary released with the study, told ABC News. “In a lot of ways, the pandemic only increased a lot of the causes of that disparity.”

When asked if the results of the study were surprising, Carlin told ABC News that she doesn’t think so.

“I think that these authorities have been so long-standing and they’ve been so difficult to address that any event that increases disparities generally, it’s not surprising that it would also increase disparities in SUID deaths,” she added.

“Sudden unexplained infant deaths” includes deaths categorized as “sudden infant death syndrome,” “accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed,” and “unknown cause.”

“Sudden infant death syndrome” is a term coined to define sudden and unexpected deaths of infants less than 1 year old due to an unknown cause, or a cause not obvious before their death, as defined by the CDC.

This study included SUID rates and its sub-categorizations, including SIDS.

In the commentary released with the study, the authors discuss that the results of the study highlighting the SUID disparities between races reflected a current societal phenomenon.

“This rise further increases the already existing disparities in these deaths, with the rate among infants born to non-Hispanic Black families now 2.3-fold higher than the general population and 2.8-fold higher than infants born to non-Hispanic white families,” the study’s commentary authors wrote.

Researchers found the disparities while studying the increase in SIDS from 2015-2020. After four years of a steady decline in SIDS from 2015 to 2019, they saw a 15% rise during the first pandemic year, from 33.3 deaths per 100,000 in 2019 to 38.2 per 100,000 in 2020.

While there is no known cause for the spikes in SUID and SIDS cases from 2019-2020 for non-Hispanic Black infants, the commentary speculated on factors that may have contributed to the increase.

“These disparities are likely multifactorial, reflecting poverty levels, lack of access to prenatal and well-child care, and education regarding safe sleep and other practices, including the feeding of human milk, which can reduce the risk of SUID, and social norms related to these practices that vary between communities,” the commentary read.

Carrie Shapiro-Mendoza, Ph.D., one of the researchers of the study, agreed with those disparities and voiced what she thinks are contributing factors to the spike in a statement sent to ABC News.

“We know that the COVID-19 pandemic and related mitigation efforts (e.g., stay-at-home orders) disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minority communities compared to non-Hispanic white communities. It may have led to more unsafe sleep practices like bedsharing, thereby increasing the occurrence of SIDS and other sudden unexpected infant deaths,” said Shapiro-Mendoza, who holds a master’s degree in public health.

“More research is needed to address persistent racial or ethnic disparities in SUID,” she added. “By better understanding the factors that influence the trends in these rates and finding new approaches to encourage safe sleep practices, we can help reduce future infant deaths.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently sent a letter to Florida’s surgeon general debunking his claims about COVID-19 vaccines.

Last month, Dr. Joseph Ladapo had written his own letter to the federal health agencies, saying he was concerned about adverse effects from mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. He claimed there had been an increase in reports made to the CDC’s database, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

In the system, anyone — be it a healthcare professional or the average citizen — can report an event they think might have been related to a vaccine they received. It serves as an early warning system for federal health officials to sift through the unverified reports to confirm if an investigation or further action is necessary.

In response, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said their agencies are constantly monitoring data to see if there are any potential risks — but added that Ladapo focusing on a rare, minor events can cause misinformation to spread and can undermine public health efforts.

“It is the job of public health officials around the country to protect the lives of the populations they serve, particularly the vulnerable,” the FDA and CDC wrote in their letter. “Fueling vaccine hesitancy undermines this effort.”

Here is what’s in the letter and why an expert says it can be dangerous to fuel vaccine hesitancy:

“The claim that the increase of VAERS reports of life-threatening conditions reported from Florida and elsewhere represents an increase of risk caused by the COVID-19 vaccines is incorrect, misleading and could be harmful to the American public,” the letter states. “Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination do not mean that a vaccine caused the event.”

Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News the insistence that a report made to VAERS means the vaccines are not safe is a perfect example of correlation without causation.

“The reporting system is the beginning of a series of investigations that then try to assess whether there might be a causal relationship as opposed to a coincidental relationship,” he said. “And that’s one of the most misunderstood aspects. Just because there’s a report in VAERS does not mean that the vaccine caused the event that’s reported.”

Schaffner explained someone may have a medical event after receiving the vaccine, but that doesn’t mean it was triggered by the vaccine at all, rather it just happened to follow. He likened it to a rooster crowing before the sun rises.

“We all know that the rooster crows before the dawn, but we don’t think that the rooster made the sun come up,” he said. “So that was coincidence. How do we distinguish coincidence from causality? Because we know if we silence the rooster, the sun will come up anyway.”

Schaffner said that the fact VAERS exist, and people can make those reports is evidence that federal officials are being transparent, not that there is anything to hide.

He added that people can tune into meetings of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice to hear the data “presented very carefully, with the proviso that we’re going to present the various data and then show you how we have further analyzed the data and done further investigations to address various issues of vaccine safety.”

In October 2022, Ladapo recommended against men between ages 18 and 30 receiving the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines due to a “modestly increased” risk of cardiac-related deaths in an analysis posted online. The study was widely criticized by the medical and scientific community due to its poor methodology and never having to go through the rigorous standards of peer-review.

The agencies wrote in their letter that cardiovascular experts found the risk of strokes and heart attacks was lower in people who were vaccinated against COVID-19, not higher.

Last year, Ladapo also formally recommended against COVID-19 vaccinations for healthy children.

However, multiple peer-reviewed studies, listed in the letter, show that the risk of death, serious illness and hospitalization is higher for unvaccinated people in all age groups.

According to the agencies’ most recent estimates, also shared in the letter, those with the updated, bivalent booster had a 9.8-fold lower risk of dying from COVID-19 than unvaccinated people.

Additionally, they were estimated to be 2.4 times less likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are vaccinated but have not received the updated shot.

“COVID continues to be one of the 10 leading causes of death,” Schaffner said. “We can keep two thoughts in our mind at the same time. Yes, it is true that children are less seriously affected than, for example, senior citizens.”

He continued, “However, although they are less affected, it doesn’t mean they’re unaffected. Indeed, they are infected severely enough.”

Schaffner advised parents who are concerned to directly speak to their children’s pediatricians about the COVID-19 vaccines.

“Speak to the physician in whom you do have confidence and trust the person who has been there for you and your children in the past and is there for them now, and will be in the future,” he said.

In a statement to ABC News, the Florida Department of Health blasted back against the federal agencies and claimed the letter is not truthful.

“The response from the federal government is just another redundant display of the same apathetic talking point of ‘safe and effective,'” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Googling their fact sheets would have achieved the same result. While the Feds gaslight the American public, Florida pushes for the truth.”

The statement continued, “Three inquiries remain unanswered: 1. Access to raw patient-level data to allow for unbiased research. 2. Adequate attention surrounding the risks detected by numerous researchers around the world. 3. Public transparency from the CDC, FDA, and Big Pharma.”

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