Remember back in early 2010 when the swine flu (H1N1) vaccine was the hottest ticket in town? People were calling in favors just to get their children vaccinated against what promised to be a deadly flu outbreak, though fortunately it never really lived up to the hype.
The masks may look silly, but at least they are free from harmful side effects.
Now new research (conducted in Finland) offers hard evidence of a 3-5 fold increase in the incidence of narcolepsy for children and adults in Europe during the eight months following injection with the Pandemrix swine flu shot manufactured by Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK.) The Pandemrix vaccine was not administered in the U.S. according to the CDC.
Narcolepsy is often confused with insomnia, but it's more serious. A chronic neurological disorder, narcolepsy is characterized by the brain's inability to regulate sleep-wake cycles normally, and can lead to debilitating fatigue and daytime cognitive dysfunction.
Evidence linking the European swine flue vaccine to heightened risk of narcolepsy emerged piecemeal over the past few years. It began in 2011 linking the vaccine to narcolepsy in kids and has since expanded to suggest adults are at risk too. The FDA recently called for a re-review of a proposed GSK flu vaccine in the U.S. that was to use the same adjuvant (used to boost the vaccine's potency) as Pandemrix.
Read more about the research at fiercevaccines.com.
Here is the CDC's take on the study.