Swine Flu Vaccine found to cause Narcolepsy in children

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Swine Flu Vaccine found to cause Narcolepsy in children

February 1, 2011

Children injected with the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine were nine times more

likely to contract narcolepsy than those who were not vaccinated, a preliminary

study by Finland's National Institute for Health and Welfare, THL, showed

Tuesday.

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" Currently, the most likely explanation is that the increase in narcolepsy is by

joint effect of the vaccine and some other factor(s), " THL said.

The institute stressed in its preliminary study that more investigation was

needed, but said young people aged four to 19 had a " manifold increased risk of

falling ill with narcolepsy " if they had been inoculated against swine flu with

Pandemrix.

Finland launched an aggressive inoculation programme against the H1N1 virus in

2009, but last August THL recommended discontinuing the use of Pandemrix until

it could study whether it was connected to a sharp rise in the instance of

narcolepsy cases in the country, especially among children.

The European Medicines Agency also launched a probe into the suspected

connection.

Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder which causes extreme fatigue and often results in

the patient falling soundly asleep without warning, even in the middle of an

activity.

Doctors in Finland reported a more than trippling of narcolepsy cases during the

swine flue pandemic, and THL said " the risk of falling ill with narcolepsy among

those vaccinated in the 4-19 years age group was nine-fold in comparison to

those unvaccinated in the same age group. "

Hospital data shows that new child narcolepsy cases in Finland jumped from seven

in 2007 to 16 in 2008 to 60 during the swine flu pandemic in 2009-2010.

Fifty-two of the latest cases, or 90 percent, occured in youths who had received

the Pandemrix vaccine, THL said, adding most of the patients developed

narcolepsy symptoms between two and 10 weeks after being vaccinated.

No changes in the number of cases were observed in children under four or youth

over 19 years of age.

" The observed association (with the vaccine) is so evident that it is unlikely

that other so-called confounding factors could fully explain the phenomenon, "

THL said, adding its next step was to evaluate if other factors had created

" joint effects " with Pandemrix.

So far, an unusual spike in narcolepsy patients has only been observed in

Finland and Sweden despite the fact that the vaccine Pandemrix has been used on

more than 90 million people in 19 countries.

In Iceland, narcolepsy cases among youth also increased markedly, but this was

not restricted to those who were inoculated against swine flu , said THL. The

final report from Finland's national narcolepsy task force will be released by

31st August 2011.