Narcolepsy From Flu Shots? Insane right? Not So Fast.

vaccine.istock.com

Reuters reported on Tuesday that 800 children in Sweden and around Europe have developed narcolepsy, an incurable sleep disorder, after they had the H1N1 Swine Flue vaccine. The vaccine was manufactured by British drug-maker GlaxoSmithKline in 2009.

Elsewhere in Europe Finland, Ireland, and France have all seen a rise in narcolepsy in their countries, and Britain is set to release a new report that will indicate a rise in cases of children diagnosed with the disorder.

The news comes while Sweden is in the midst of it's national vaccination campaign and an official told Reuters that it's a "medical tragedy."

Drug regulators in Europe have advised that the drug Pandremix not be used in people under 20 years old. GSK's chief financial officer has released a statement saying that while they certainly take the recent outbreak seriously there has been no report yet linking the drug.

However Emmanuel Mignot, a specialist in Sleep Disorder at Stanford University, who's research into the outbreak is being funded by GSK has stated that while no link has as of yet been determined it is clearly headed in one direction.

"There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Pandemrix increased the occurrence of narcolepsy onset in children in some countries - and probably in most countries," says Mignot. 

GSK has said that around 795 people have been diagnosed with narcolepsy they've also been vaccinated with Pandremix since the drug's use began in 2009. That's roughly 22 cases a month on average. Pandremix contains a booster of sorts that barred it from being used in the United States.

 Scientists are scrambling to find what links there are, if any, between the drug and narcolepsy but experts also are remaining cautious. In 1998 a former medical researcher, and now discredited one, Andrew Wakefield, produced a fraudulent research paper in support of a now discredited claim that there was a link between the appearance of autism and the MMR vaccine. Doctors and hospitals are just now starting to overcome the long held fears of said vaccine because of the fiasco and it's feared by scientists that they could start another "Wakefield scare." The latest findings though are coming from multiple independent scientific organizations and thus far no link has been made back to one single researcher as with Wakefield.

Reuters did interview one doctor who commented on the circumstances. They report:

In his glass-topped office building overlooking the Maria Magdalena church in Stockholm, Goran Stiernstedt, a doctor turned public health official, has spent many difficult hours going over what happened in his country during the swine flu pandemic, wondering if things should have been different.

"The big question is was it worth it? And retrospectively I have to say it was not," 

Because of Sweden's wealth they were at the top of the list for the vaccine for the H1N1 virus when it was released. Partnered with the national vaccination campaign roughly 59% of the country received the shot according to Stiernstedt.