A conversation with SIDS researcher, Dr Paul Goldwater
1 September 2025
Last month, I interviewed Dr Ted Steele and Dr Paul Goldwater on their recently-published paper on the link between vaccination and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
In this follow-up interview, Dr Paul Goldwater returned to discuss his latest paper, on twins, respiratory infections, vaccination and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS): ‘Insights from twin Sudden Infant Death Syndrome studies could reveal an aetiopathogenetic pathway to sudden infant death through immunopathology’.
The conventional view is that the increased susceptibility to SIDS seen in twins, is largely or entirely due to the fact that twins are born relatively prematurely (typically at 37 weeks, in contrast to the gestational length of 40 weeks for singleton pregnancies). But Paul is convinced, on the basis of a large body of research, that there’s more to this story than is usually acknowledged.
In this interview, Paul and I discuss the following:
- Why respiratory infections increase the risk of SIDS, and why SIDS research has not been focused on this well-established link;
- The impact of ‘space weather’ on respiratory infection rates – pretty wild stuff!
- Contributing factors to the higher rate of SIDS seen in twins, including
- Reduced time in the womb, to receive transplacental antibodies from the mother;
- Reduced rates of breastfeeding in twins, compared to singletons; and
- Altered immune system development in twins
- Common features in reports of death in twins following vaccination;
- Risk factors for higher twin pregnancy rates;
- The relationship between the numbers of vaccine antigens included on different countries’ infant vaccination schedule, and the rates of infant mortality in those countries;
- What the term ‘hyperimmunisation’ means, and how it is induced by the current vaccination schedule;
- How hyperimmunisation can backfire, resulting in increased susceptibility to infection, as well as to autoimmune disease;
- Why injecting vaccines that induce antibodies in the blood, just doesn’t make sense for respiratory infections that don’t lead to viraemia (viruses entering the bloodstream)… and what vaccine manufacturers should be doing instead;
- Paul’s advice to parents who are trying to decide which vaccines to administer to their child, and when;
- Circumstances in which babies and children should not be vaccinated;
- Sex-linked differences in responses to particular vaccines, and the increased death rates seen in female babies after certain vaccines;
- The link between aluminium adjuvants and autoimmune conditions;
- The enormous damage done to both the public conversation and the research on vaccines, by the weaponised use of the term ‘antivaxxer’;
- The difference between public health and medical practice, and why they are fundamentally incompatible fields;
- The types of research that urgently need to be done to fill in the gaps in our understanding of the impact of the current vaccination schedule, especially on twins (and other higher order multiples, such as triplets and quadruplets), and why this research has not been done; and
- Alternative models for funding, peer-reviewing and publishing vital research on health.
We also discussed the editorial written by associate editor of the BMJ, Peter Doshi, ‘Medical response to Trump requires truth seeking and respect for patients’.
See also my previous Substack on public health vs the practice of medicine, ‘Your doctor is not your doctor’.
See Paul’s researcher profile and previous publications here.
