15-Month-Old Girl Dies Two Days After ‘Well-Baby Visit’ Vaccinations

A 15-month-old girl died in Warwick, New York on Oct. 19, 2023, two days after receiving three shots of five vaccines during a routine well-baby visit with a pediatrician at the Herbert Kania Pediatric Group. Melody Rain Palombi-Malmgren was a “perfectly healthy child,” according to her mother, Katherine Palombi. She was administered the varicella (chickenpox), DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetanus and acellular Pertussis) and Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b bacteria) on Oct. 17, and two days later suffered a heart attack and stopped breathing.^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8}

Hospital records show that the child also suffered liver and kidney failure.^{1 2 5}

Melody was being cared for by her grandmother when her symptoms began. The grandmother called Palombi and told her that Melody was having trouble breathing. “I just kept saying, she just had vaccines, she just had vaccines,” Palombi recalls.^{1 2 3 4 5 8}

The grandmother then called 911 and was instructed to perform CPR until the paramedics could arrive. Melody was subsequently transported by ambulance to St. Anthony’s Community Hospital where EMTs and medical staff tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate her.^{3 4 5 8}

“By the time I got to the hospital, they put me in a room,” Palombi said, “and they just kept saying, ‘We’re working on her.’”^{3 5}

“They were going over everything from that morning because she’d gotten into something,” she said, and “I just kept saying, ‘She had vaccines. A couple of days before this, she had vaccines.’”^{3 5}

Child Had Previously Been Hospitalized Soon After Vaccinations

Palombi said that her daughter had been hospitalized before with a fever of 104° and a body rash all over her body that she developed within 24 hours after being vaccinated when she was two months old. Palombi said that the doctors had told her they did not think the symptoms were an allergic reaction to the vaccines but rather were caused by a virus. But she believes that, in both cases, the vaccines were too much for her daughter’s body.^{1 3 4 5}

Palombi said she believed the five vaccines her daughter got were too much for her daughter’s body to handle. In an interview with News 12 Westchester, Palombi advised other parents, “Trust your gut and don’t let them push anything on to your children that you don’t want to do.”^{1 3 4 5}

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends a total of 10 shots of 16 vaccines for a 15-month-old child. In addition to the ones Melody received, the CDC recommends  the following shots: the HepA (Hepatitis A), Influenza, MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella), PCV (Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine), IPV (Inactivated Polio Vaccine) RV (Rotavirus Vaccine) and COVID-19.⁹

“I just want to spread awareness in Melody’s name,” Palombi said. “Maybe she can save other children.”^{1 3 4 5}

In an interview with The Defender, Palombi recounted how a mother had recently reached out to her when her two-month-old child suffered a reaction to a vaccine…

The baby was passing blood in the stool and everything else. So I told her, ‘You need to get the baby back to the emergency room immediately.’ And she did. The pediatrician admitted to this mom, ‘If you didn’t bring the baby in, the baby would have been dead by Monday.’³

Palombi also recalled how another woman had reached out to her to share how her grandson had died at six months old following a well-baby visit. “They told her it was SIDS” she said. “That’s not what it is. It’s so sad to keep hearing that I’m not the only one.”³

“I just want to keep educating parents on the dangers of vaccines, encourage them to spread them out, give them when the child is older, or get tested for the [methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase] gene,” Palombi said. Some physicians believe that the “MTHFR” gene places certain children at higher risk for serious reactions to vaccines.³

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