When Andrea Shaw brought her 18-month-old twins in for their wellness visit on April 23, she told the pediatrician she had concerns about the twins receiving the flu shot because her husband’s family had a history of adverse reactions to the vaccine.
The pediatrician told her the babies would be OK and had nurses give the twins the shot. The twins also received the Hepatitis A vaccine and the DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) vaccine.
Roughly one week later, on May 1, Andrea found the babies — a girl named Dallas and a boy named Tyson — dead in their bed after apparently passing away in their sleep. Her husband, Nathaniel, the twins’ father, was at work at the time.
Police in Payette, Idaho, where the twins lived with their parents, launched a homicide investigation, which they said was standard procedure when a death from an unknown cause occurs.
On May 7, the local police chief told the media the deaths hadn’t been “definitively” ruled as homicides, and that the autopsy reports would provide more information. The investigation is still ongoing.
A spokesperson for the parents today said the lead detective is still waiting on toxicology reports and has not yet ruled out the parents as suspects. The parents, who are “beyond devastated,” the spokesperson said, have filed a report with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.