An Idaho lady who said her toddler twins died final yr after being vaccinated faces murder expenses linked to their deaths, authorities said.
A grand jury indicted Andrea Shaw, who is accused of suffocating her 18-month-old twins in May 2025, on two counts of first-degree murder on June 29, in keeping with court docket information and a press release from the Payette Police Department.
While showing final yr on an web present produced by Children’s Health Defense — an anti-vaccine group based by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — Shaw said her twins died after getting vaccinated. Kennedy has not been affiliated with the group since December 2024, when he formally resigned as chairman to affix President Donald Trump’s administration.
Shaw, 23, was arrested by Boise cops Tuesday and arraigned Thursday. She is being held on a $2 million bond and will face life in jail or the dying penalty if convicted or if she pleads responsible to first-degree murder. Her subsequent court docket look is July 14.
Joe Filicetti, an legal professional representing Shaw, wrote in a textual content message that she “denies anything and everything” and that the state “cannot prove” the legal expenses.
“We will defend her with wholeheartedness,” Filicetti added.
The Payette Police Department and the Payette County prosecutor’s workplace declined to remark Monday.
During her May 2025 look on the Children’s Health Defense present, Shaw said she discovered her twins lifeless of their room days after they bought vaccinated for the flu and different ailments.
“They had got their shots at the same time by two nurses at the same time,” Shaw said. “And they got sick.”
Medical specialists level out that the childhood vaccines at concern — hepatitis A, influenza and DTaP — are secure and efficient for youths and really useful by numerous medical teams.
Shaw can be a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit introduced by Children’s Health Defense and others towards the American Academy of Pediatrics. The lawsuit, which was filed in January in federal court docket in Washington, accuses the American Academy of Pediatrics of racketeering for its “central role in an enterprise that has defrauded American families about the safety of the childhood vaccine schedule for several decades.” In the lawsuit, Shaw is described as a mother “whose children died following routine vaccinations administered according to AAP guidelines.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics has requested the court docket to dismiss the swimsuit, asserting in an April court docket submitting that it’s the “latest missive in a campaign targeting” the academy and its “use of science-backed evidence in vaccine policy.”
In January, pediatricians and different specialists became alarmed when US well being officers made broad modifications to childhood vaccine steering, dropping a number of common suggestions. Kennedy, who helped lead the anti-vaccine motion for years, said the modifications higher align the US with peer nations “while strengthening transparency and informed consent.”
In March, a federal decide blocked the modifications and said Kennedy seemingly violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee. But the decide’s order shouldn’t be the ultimate phrase; the blocks are momentary, pending both a trial or a choice for abstract judgment.