Andrea Shaw, Who Blamed Vaccines for Twins' Deaths, Is Charged With Murder

On May 1, 2025, a 23-year-old mother named Andrea Shaw said she found her twin toddlers dead in their bed in a small Idaho town. The children — a boy named Tyson and a girl named Dallas — had gotten vaccines about a week before they died. Shaw told an anti-vaccine group called Children's Health Defense that the vaccines had killed them. But after nearly 14 months of investigating, a grand jury charged her with murder, saying she suffocated the children herself.

Just three days after the twins died, Shaw sat down for an interview with Children's Health Defense. That group was co-founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now the U.S. Secretary of Health. The group posted the story on its website as big breaking news, saying the toddlers had died 'FOLLOWING VACCINATIONS.' They made Shaw the lead plaintiff — meaning the main person bringing the case — in two lawsuits against the American Academy of Pediatrics, the country's top group of children's doctors.

Shaw said the twins were born early, at just 29 weeks, but had grown up healthy in their small town about 60 miles north of Boise. She said they got most of their recommended shots without any problems. On April 23, 2025, they received three vaccines, and the next day they had diarrhea and seemed very tired. She took them to an emergency room, where a doctor said they had a normal reaction to the shots and sent them home. Eight days after the vaccines, Shaw said she found the children dead in their bed.

During the interview, Shaw said police had already told her they thought she was responsible. She said officers suggested she may have suffocated the children without fully knowing what she was doing. Shaw denied hurting them and continued to deny it even after her arrest last week — just five days after she gave birth to another baby. She remains in jail because she cannot afford the $2 million needed to be released while waiting for trial.

Vaccine experts say the idea that vaccines caused the suffocations does not hold up. Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, said he was not aware of any vaccine that could cause suffocation. He also pointed out that the twins were not identical, and both died at roughly the same time more than a week after getting their shots. If a vaccine could do this, he said, doctors would expect to see many similar cases across the country.

Children's Health Defense and Shaw's lawyer said they were not giving up on the vaccine claim. Mary Holland, the group's leader, said after the indictment: 'We stand for the truth, and the truth is, that vaccines can cause death, and there's zero evidence so far that this woman killed her children, zero.' Shaw's lawyer said he would argue in court that vaccines — not Shaw — caused the children's deaths. He called Shaw 'the kindest, sweetest, gentlest person' he had ever met.

A law professor named Dorit Reiss, who studies vaccine law, said this case fits a troubling pattern. She said vaccine activist groups have sometimes backed parents who may have played a role in a child's death while blaming vaccines instead. She noted that Children's Health Defense was not stepping back even after the murder charge was announced. 'In their alternative reality, this is more evidence that vaccines are not safe, and the system is trying to cover it up,' she said.

The lawsuits that named Shaw as the lead plaintiff are still moving through the courts. In one case, Children's Health Defense accused the American Academy of Pediatrics of 'racketeering,' which means making money through illegal or dishonest schemes. The pediatricians' group called this accusation 'a profound abuse of the legal system.' A judge also rejected a separate attempt by Children's Health Defense to join another lawsuit involving Kennedy's decisions as health secretary.