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Reuters
GlaxoSmithKline's Pandemrix swine flu vaccine has been linked to cases of the rare sleep disorder narcolepsy in children in a scientific study in England that confirms similar findings elsewhere in Europe.
The vaccine, more than 30 million doses of which were given during the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009-2010, contains a booster, or adjuvant, and may have triggered an adverse immune reaction in some children at higher genetic risk of narcolepsy, scientists said in new research published on Wednesday.
Researchers at Britain's Health Protection Agency (HPA) who published the study in the British Medical Journal said the at least 14-fold increased risk they found had "implications for the future licensing and use of adjuvanted pandemic vaccines".
Narcolepsy is a life-long disorder and thought to be an autoimmune disease in which patient's immune system attacks the body's own cells. Its symptoms include frequent bouts of daytime sleepiness and in its severe forms it also causes night terrors, hallucinations and cataplexies - when strong emotions trigger a sudden loss of muscle strength.
Studies in Finland, Sweden and Ireland have also found a Pandemrix link to narcolepsy, and GSK says more than 800 cases linked to the shot have been reported in Europe.
A spokesman for the British drugmaker told Reuters on Wednesday: "We really want to get to the bottom of this and understand more about the potential role of Pandemrix in the development of narcolepsy."
He added, however, that GSK believes "the available data are insufficient to assess the likelihood of a causal association between Pandemrix and narcolepsy."
As Reuters reported earlier this month, scientists investigating the link further are homing in on the vaccine's adjuvant, a booster called AS03, and analysing whether its super-charging effect may have played a role.
According to the UK results, vaccination with Pandemrix at any time was associated with a 14-fold increased risk of narcolepsy, whereas vaccination within six months before onset of the disease was associated with a 16-fold increased risk.
"The increased risk of narcolepsy indicates a causal association," said the research team led by Liz Miller, a consultant epidemiologist with the HPA. They added, however, that because of variable delay in diagnosis, the risk may be overestimated because vaccinated children may have been referred to specialist sleep clinics more rapidly.
Scientists said the risk translated into around one in 50,000, lower than studies have found in other countries such as Finland and Sweden where Pandemrix was used more widely and the risk was around one in 16,000 to 17,000 children vaccinated.
In total, more than 30 million doses of the GSK shot were given in 47 mainly European countries during the H1N1 flu pandemic. It was not used in the United States.
The UK study looked at 75 children aged between four and 18 who were diagnosed with narcolepsy from January 2008 and who attended sleep centres across England. Eleven of the children had been vaccinated with Pandemrix before their symptoms began.
Finn stressed that Pandemrix is the only vaccine linked to this problem: "There is nothing to suggest that it occurs after other flu vaccines or vaccines against other diseases."
Narcolepsy is thought to be due to loss of function in cells called hypocretin cells in one of the brain's sleep centres.
John Shneerson, a consultant physician from the Respiratory Support and Sleep Centre at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge who co-led the UK study, said Pandemrix may have triggered an immune reaction against those cells, causing narcolepsy in some children who were genetically vulnerable.
Experts say around 25 percent of Europeans have a genetic profile making them more susceptible. Narcolepsy has no known cure, but specialist doctors say symptoms can be treated with drug combinations aimed at re-regulating the sleep-wake cycle.
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Even if it killed 1 in 1,000,000 it would still be right to immunize everybody if it would save 99.99% of the population. I hope the "No-VAX" crowd read the numbers and understand this. But they won't, and their actions will put everyone at risk. We need at least 90% immunized to cover the other 10% that either can't take it (as is the case in this article) or it just happens to be naturally ineffective in. When normal healthy people decide to not get immunized is raises everyone's risk by reducing that buffer.
The article should be changed to read: "Getting tested for a genetic marker related to Narcolepsy before getting the swine flu shot is recommended to avoid potentially activating the condition."
You can be that "one" then. Since the flu shots have been available I've never had one. I've also never had the flu so I'll just continue to take my chances, thanks anyway.
Save 99.99% of the population?? You are overlooking two factors: (1) Flu annually FAILS to kill 99.99% of the population, and in fact the dreaded "swine flu" was more mild than other seasonal flu. Therefore, it is virtually certain that more children who used Pandemrix were left with serious neurological disabilities than were "saved." Flu isn't smallpox; it rarely kills healthy children. It's one thing to say that young healthy people should feel morally obliged to put up with an annual shot and a bit of fever and muscle aches to prevent flu deaths in the frail elderly; it's far more debatable to say that we should render even a few children permanently brain-damaged to keep any number of nursing home residents alive a little longer. (2) The adjuvant that was used in Pandemrix is NOT necessary to produce an effective flu vaccine. The American vaccine did not use this stuff; it was just as effective, and there have been no reports of skyrocketing rates of narcolepsy in American children. Good for the American regulators! While it is true that some people make a pointless fuss over optional vaccine ingredients that have little proven potential for harm (e.g., thimerosal), this case demonstrates that the public will not always benefit from adopting a position of "Shut up and let the corporation inject whatever it wants into your body."
You must be out of your mind, macgyver. as they say, hindsight is 20/20. How in the world would these parents know to have their children tested for a genetic marker for narcolepy prior to their swine flu jab? Pandemrix is a vaccine that has SQUALENE in it, an adjuvant that is already linked to 1 autoimmune disease, Gulf War sydrome, from the mandatory anthrax vaccination. Now it is associated with 2, Gulf War Syndrome AND narcolepy. But guess what...800 cases of narcolepsy isn't enough: this vaccine is still being used!!! Those children's lives are RUINED...all in the name of preventing a 4 day illness and protecting the herd? Unacceptable. Since when is a single life LESS important than the health of the herd? Which btw, flu shots generally speaking don't even do what they are supposed to do in protecting the 2 groups of people who are at higher risk of dying of the flu, under age 2 and the elderly. A healthy person's risk of dying of the flu is 0.001%. I'll take my chances thank you! And btw, do some research on herd immunity please...it does not apply to immunity which is attempted to be achieved through vaccination...it applies to natually acquired immunity. The term has been around since the 1920's.
Right... Especially when youve had semi extensive training in the areas of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare-and have decidely waited around after the lectures to speak more personnally to the instructors. Their never was any way or means to Pre- vaccinate a body against specific chemical and biological vehicles of delivery--NONE! It would be like forcing people to drink gasoline in order to defend against gasloine poisoning. Anthrax is a comepletely conjured toxin- and you cannot build up a resistantance to it. Healthy people w/ no immune deficiencies can survive attacks- if the treatments are regimentally adhered to in a closed ward. Gulf war vets were ordered to receive so called "Anti biotics" To a synthsized agent which is impossible to pre know what other combination of chemicals or super virus strains are embeded into it before the fact. The weaponized varieties were developed to "PiggyBack" hidden killers into their chemical chains- so the casualty rates would necessarily climb and peak before the affected could be quarantined and identified-then the reversal step down cures could be found and administered. This may take weeks to produce- and weeks to administer--therfore using thse weapons has been ruled universally as "WMD WARCRIMES"- The affected zones could easily be in MILLIONS and take 4to 6 months to contain! Nobody is supposed to be doing it-yet there are STOCKPILES around the world, ready for mass delivery...And yes they know who has developed it-and where it all is--because they FUNDED IT--Just ask the ex-officio dept of defense head cheese--he delivered all the ingredients equipment and technical assistance to Iraq in the 80's, Saddam Hussein held classes for anyone who could pay to get the technology- and prolifferation was underway. That was only one of many outlets named as the US didnt want people to know the real magnitude of the size, scope and prolonged scale of the US Taxpayer funded "Secret Programs"--Central America, South America, Middle East, Asia--THEY ALL GOT ON BOARD!!
"Since when is a single life LESS important than the health of the herd?"
Really? I think common morality would dictate that a single life is most definitely less important than that of a large population. Not to say you should put your child at risk or do something you don't want to do, but just sayin'... The needs of the Many outweigh the needs of the One, as Spock said.
Oh course you shouldn't let anyone off the street come along and give you a shot. Duh. But also, if you think the government is involved in shadowy plots to inject the population with "Agent-X" or whatever, then maybe it's time to replace your tin-foil hat with a nice long-sleeved jacket.
The first comment was from a "I ain't ever gonna get no vax shot, no matters whats it is." If people felt the same way in the past we never could have gotten rid of Polio. Too many younger people (40 and younger) don't remember any REAL diseases and now think they are smarter than the doctors and immunologists and are willing to put the rest of us at risk. You want to not vaccinate your kids from the measles or mumps, fine, but keep them away from the rest of civilized society. Also don't act surprised when they catch it later in life and almost die or become sterile, you can tell them all about how you "protected" them from the government mind control projects.
We have government agencies in place to keep us safe when it pertains to vaccines, but along comes a bunch of home-schooling moms and they decide not to trust an entire group of decades long educated professionals, instead they get their medical advice from the rantings of a has-been model and her has-been actor husband, simply because that couple had medical complications with their children and attribute it to vaccines and not because they decided too late in life to have kids. Yet I bet every one of them is more than willing to get on an airplane that was signed off as safe by just one guy (that they never will meet). Educate yourselves about how vaccines work and maybe you won't be so afraid of them, or at least you wouldn't think you know better than the experts.
We are simply animals, when you put too many of us together we spread disease. Vaccines help control that spread. Don't attempt to de-fund the agencies that are put in place to keep us safe (FDA, EPA) simply because you don't understand what it is that they do or you think they are doing a bad job. What we need is more rigorous testing of our vaccines, not less, everything can and should be improved, but nothing will ever 100% safe, and no matter what anyone does we all will die eventually.
Why would you listen to Jim Carey over the thousands of world-wide professionals?
Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm .. the real terrorist are arriving .... and they don't give a rats ass if your on the right or the left when they strike
You gonna trust "Homeland Security" with saving you? lol
Are you ok?
Are you ok?
Google -Bill Gates vaccine population control. Watch him speak at the TED conference. Google -Ted Turner population control. Listen to his interview.
Years of over dosing w/ antibiotics and germ fighting soaps and wipes--then incrementally developing strains of virus' in labs around the world resistantant to treatments + genetically blending them w/ variant strains and incubating them in test subjects as well as beef, horse, and kangaroo farms---only to unleash them around the world so that everyone runs to to dr.'s office for "THE CURE". It;s biological warfare aimed at the human race by people who truly believe it is their divine right to "arrange global populations onto "Feeder Lots" so they can fatten up their bnk accounts and buy Empirical Influence for them selves and rule the "ANIMAL LoWER CLASSES" from their 100,000 acre Estates. The meds involved are becoming "Mandatory" in greater regions in the UN Occupied territories...
Typical for the producer of anything that is later found to be toxic to deny any causal linkage despite the statistical evidence provided to them. I guess people will be forced to file lawsuits before receiving any remuneration from the pharmaceutical company even though they have obscenely high profits. It's sick that the rich corporation does this to people. Hope a class-action suit is forthcoming to help the 99%ers. It's one thing when there are people who imagine links between vaccines and physical problems, but quite another when scientists are providing clear evidence in the form of statistical probability. They would not be risking their scientific credentials for imaginary cause and effect.
I think that study is full of....of...
zzzzzzzzzzz
I have had narcolepsy-cataplexy for over 25 years. It is in many ways a life-ruining disorder. Myself and many other narcoleptics can't afford the stimulant drugs prescribed to us at $600 a month for life. My blue cross blue shield won't pay for it. The average time between onset of narcolepsy and correct diagnosis is 15 years. Why? Doctors don't know anything about it. My first symptoms were at age 10. I was diagnosed at age 30. I am not against vaccinations. I do think if we are going to ask a small percentage to "take one life long brain damaging paralyzing neurological disorder for the team" then we should be willing to take care of those people. Most narcoleptics including myself get no SSDI. Many have no health insurance. Because of the symptoms work and education are lost causes. Narcolepsy is not merely a sleep disorder. It disorders everything the hypothalamus controls. I am thankful and blessed that my symptoms came so slowly, unlike these kids in the news, that I was at least able to complete my high school education so now I can work a limited part time job and earn $7000 a year. But I'd sure rather have the flu. I challenge anyone to spend a little time to go a little deeper and learn a little more about narcolepsy and cataplexy. It's very debilitating. Then I challenge you to see if your doctor even knows what it is. If they don't, PLEASE TELL THEM!