courtesy: abovetopsecret.com
Scandinavian studies on the possible link between flu vaccines and narcolepsy in young adults and children have been published recently in the UK.
According to the study a specific vaccine called PandemRix increased the incidence of a sleep disorder, narcolepsy, in people under the age of eighteen.
The disease is a rare form of sleep disorder usually found in 25-50 in every 100,000 people.
The vaccine in question, was introduced to fight the influenza outbreak in the winter of 2009 of swine flu.
However the swine flu epidemic behaved in the end, very much like other less threatening strains of influenza. Of one fifth of the total global population, deaths were tallied at a total of 18,500, which is very close to an ordinary mortality rate for the yearly flu season.
The ECDC, the European watchdog for disease prevention and control, said that according to the results of vaccination in the two scandinavian nations of Finland and Sweden, the vaccination program resulted in a higher risk of developing narcolepsy. The figure is one in 20,000 people inoculated.
The reason for this find is attributed by some to an additive in the vaccine that acts as a booster, called AS03, which is supposed to elicit a stronger response by the immune system in those people who have receive the vaccine.
Since the pandemic pretty much fizzled out and hopes are that its mutations will be equally mild, the vaccine producers are not going to produce the specific vaccine with the booster compound in the future.
However, the booster could be used in vaccine preparations for other strains, raising questions as to the validity of the use of the booster if indeed it proves to be the cause of the higher incidence of narcolepsy.
However, others have contended that newer vaccines had a different composition than PandemRix, making the concern unecessary.
Source: France 24/ 2.27.13
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