46 children have contracted narcolepsy after flu vaccine

Vaccine

So far 46 children and young people have contracted narcolepsy following Pandemrix vaccine

So far this year the Norwegian Patient Indemnity board (Norwegian acronym:  NPE), an indenpendent board within the Norwegian national health department, has received 363 applications for compensation due to disorders resulting from vaccines given against the swine flu.

60 of these applicants have been granted compensation, with 46 representing children and young people that have contracted the serious sleep disorder known as narcolepsy.  Two of these children are from Vestfold, the province of my hometown.

According to Øydis Ulrikke Castberg, the head of communication for NPE, they have received 16 claims from Vestfold.  Eight claims have been rejected, two have been approved, while six claims are still being examined.

In the nation as a whole 14 adults have gotten their claims approved.  Five of those cases involve narcolepsy., three are related to the injection by itself,  one person has developed a fatigue condition  one has developed Guillain-Barre symptoms, while one has been diagnosed as having ME.  

The NPE claim processing is without cost to the claimants.  In the case of claims that disorderws have resulted from a flu vaccine it is enough to demonstrate that there was no other probable cause involved.  It is not necessary to prove that there was something wrong with the vaccine.  The board decisions can be pursued in court.

Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological disorder caused by the brain's inability to regulate sleep-wake cycles normally.  It is not caused by mental illness or psychological problems. People with narcolepsy often experience disturbed nocturnal sleep and an abnormal daytime sleep pattern, which often is confused with insomnia. Narcoleptics, when falling asleep, generally experience the REM stage of sleep within 5 minutes, while most people do not experience REM sleep until an hour or so later.

One of the many problems that some narcoleptics experience is cataplexy, a sudden muscular weakness brought on by strong emotions (though many people experience cataplexy without having an emotional trigger).  You can read more about the disorder and its treatment in this Wikipedia article:  Narcolepsy.

This Wikipedia article reveals that:  "Currently a weak link between GlaxoSmithKline's flu vaccine Pandemrix and childhood narcolepsy is being investigated due to increased prevalence of narcolepsy in Irish, Finnish and Swedish children after vaccinations. Finland's National Institute of Health and Welfare is recommending that Pandemrix vaccinations be suspended pending further investigation into 15 reported cases of children developing narcolepsy. In Finland in mid-November 2010, 37 cases of children's narcolepsy had been reported by doctors. This can be compared to the normal average of 3 cases of children's narcolepsy per year. In Sweden, Läkemedelsverket (Medical Products Agency of Sweden) conducted a case inventory study during 2009‐2010. They found that "the incidence of narcolepsy with cataplexy in children/adolescents in the Swedish population increased during the pandemic and vaccination period, with a rapid decline in incidence during the post pandemic period." Their conclusion is that these results "provide strengthened evidence that vaccination with Pandemrix during the pandemic period could be associated with an increase in the risk for narcolepsy with cataplexy in predisposed children/adolescents 19 years and younger." More recently, studies done in China and published in Nature Reviews: Neurology have indicated that the influenza infection itself, and H1N1 in particular, can trigger narcolepsy onset."