Pandemrix and Narcolepsy

December, 7, 2017 | 10 Comments

Comments

  1. David

    “The answer has to be that if she and other smart people figure there is a link in their cases, there likely is. There are other factors that can be taken into account, such as whether anything else happening at the time might have played a part, but for the most part sensible people are largely right when it comes to adverse effects.”

    Perhaps it was only for people who post here that it almost goes without saying and what you mostly get with from people on the other side these days when seriously challenged is silence. Ironically, however, a friend was mad with anger today for having a comment removed from a Guardian blog for expressing just such opinion under an article about HPV vaccine.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/03/hpv-vaccine-fears-women-health-take-up-falls#comment-109143232

    Perhaps, because of its financial condition the Guardian is leading the charge with vaccine fascism in the UK.

    http://www.ageofautism.com/2017/08/an-open-letter-to-the-editor-of-the-guardian-katharine-viner.html

    http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/fake-news/written/73097.pdf

    You may however like our poster on AoA today:

    http://www.ageofautism.com/2017/12/the-misogyny-of-the-anti-vaxxer-label.html

  2. As several things have come to light this week, it might be worth a few attention seekers ..

    …sensible people are largely right when it comes to adverse effects.

    Too Wit .. Sleeping on the Job/Dobermans answer ..

    https://twitter.com/AllenFrancesMD/status/939539374051491841

    Undoing the Andrew Witty

    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-gsk-cancer/gsks-new-pharma-head-on-lookout-for-cancer-deals-to-boost-pipeline-idUKKBN1E51ZK

    https://endpts.com/can-gsks-new-rd-strategy-resuscitate-the-worst-performer-in-big-pharma/

    Updoing the MHRA

    https://twitter.com/MHRAgovuk/status/940224363814629377

    We all need to know where we are in the happen-chance .. of Time ..

  3. New Post From Bob Fiddaman Blows The Lid On The Gates Foundation And Its Dodgy Links To GSK…

    https://fiddaman.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/british-medicines-watchdog-announce-new.html#.Wi-Rz4XXKZ8

    Well worth a read..

    https://truthman30.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/new-post-from-bob-fiddaman-blows-the-lid-on-the-gates-foundation-and-its-dodgy-links-to-gsk/

    MHRA awarded £1.3m for collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mhra-awarded-13m-for-collaboration-with-the-bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-and-the-world-health-organization

    “When a new medicine or vaccine is being used it is critical that potential risks are identified early and well understood. The involvement of MHRA in this project will ensure scientific and regulatory expertise are developed within the national centres.”

  4. …should have taken its corporate foot off the gas pedal.

    Sanofi scandal in the Philippines could spread dangerous mistrust of vaccines

    https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2017/12/11/sanofi-dengue-vaccine-scandal/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=6c6f3f5162-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-6c6f3f5162-149674737

    “Where the investigation will lead is unclear, but Sanofi needs to come to grips with this episode.

    Otherwise, we run the risk that too many people will end up being inoculated with baseless mistrust of vaccines.”

  5. So Pandemrix can trigger a kind of auto-immune response in certain people whose ‘lock and key’ predisposes them to this. And this bit of research has shown why some get narcolepsy from this vaccine and others don’t? Which is very interesting.

    Isn’t this exactly the kind of research that many of us have argued for in relation to understanding adverse effects to RoAccutane-isotretinoin and to SSRIs, to discover why some people seem to have no adverse effects from these and others have terrible consequences from taking them. In other words, they have a predisposition (in their epigenetic locks and keys) to groups of brain cells being messed up, just like the sleep regulating brain cells being indirectly messed up by the ingredient in Pandemrix? But when some of us have expressed strong interest in this, it has been suggested that testing for lack of enzymes CYP 450 and others is unwise as it lets Big Pharma off the hook in those cases. And yet, when sufferers argue their case about those drugs causing their damage, the fact that others do well on them is thrown back at them to imply that it’s all in their minds or they were mentally unstable in the first place anyway. It’s so interesting to see the trail of reasoning behind the Pademrix/narcolepsy connection. Wouldn’t it be equally interesting to search and possibly find, by testing, a similar connection between lack of CYP 450 and SSRIs, or some kind of autoimmune link with RoAccutane-isotretinoin, given that numbers of prescriptions for these drugs continue to rise, no matter how many alarm bells we try to ring about what they have done to our loved ones? At least then if the connection were proven, it might save some people from damage….

    • Heather

      This is a v important point. Part of the reason to run this post and the Man Flu post on rxisk at the same time is because we have had a few patients lately who seem to have something close to an auto-immune response to their treatment – including one person taking accutane.

      There is a very real chance that in some cases of a bad drug reaction, there is an auto-immune element. We are hoping to post early in the New Year a battery of tests we would like everyone to take and feed back the results to us to explore just this option

      David

  6. David –
    I guess I am just wondering whether certain people who already have a sensitive system and have manifested even in childhood, asthma and allergies, eczema, etc, been also possibly leaning towards Aspergers, coeliac-type response to certain foods, intollerance of cow’s milk in babyhood etc etc could be more likely to suffer bad effects from RoAccutane-isotretinoin and SSRIS etc.

    Our son, when his acne began in earnest, (following hard on the heels of asthma and eczema which began at age 5 on contact with Labrador dogs, horses, and in a kitchen of a farmhouse we lived in then which had a solid fuel Aga, so coke dust in the air when filling it in the mornings) – when the acne began it seemed like yet another ‘allergy type curse’ to him and to us. Cruelty of life.

    At his Inquest, by which time we were concerned about the effects organo-phosphates could have had on him on our farm, still not at that time clued up about damage from RoAccutane-isotretinoin, the Coroner referred to a doctor’s report saying our son had always had ‘spreading sensitivities’. We had been told for 11 years by several doctors not to worry about isotretinoin as it was not likely to be a factor in his suicidal ideations, and yet we knew that despite the various physical intollerances since babyhood to the factors I’ve itemised here, he was cheerful, an entrepreneur always enthusiastic about his latest project, a happy person although a sensitive and deep thinking one. He LOVED life. He just wanted to get on with his successful businesses, see his mates, watch the Simpsons and have fun.

    Conferring with other parents whose children died after RoAccutane-isotretinoin treatment, there are so often references to their ‘sensitivity’, and their Aspergers (in several cases). This does not in any way say that isotretinoin is not a dangerous medication but I do wonder whether some people, already predisposed to auto immune problems, do not have the resilience to fight off the isotretinoin damage. So is this a chicken and egg situation? Was the auto immune ‘lock’ already there and the isotretinoin (or other medication ‘key’) go into it and trigger horrible results? Or did the RoAccutane-isotretinoin start the auto immune problem. Same for Pandremix and narcolepsy. Same for any drug and akathisia. Is this why so many can infer that as these were ok for them, the ones who suffer bad effects and report them are freaks?

    Not meaning to go off at a tangent here, but my dad’s manic depression manifested a ‘manic’ phase after severe stressful episodes, both physical and mental, some from heart surgery, some from difficult confrontations in his exacting stressful job as a design engineering consultant, but some, and I know this is right because I regularly monitored it, after eating certain foods in combination. I’m just wondering if the gut and the auto immune thing are provably linked. My son couldn’t tolerate milk of any animal kind, when a baby. He drank copious amounts as a young person. He loved it, cold from the fridge. I swear it made his skin problem worse. He was checked out for coeliac problems aged 7 and found to have a ‘leaky gut’ – whatever that means. And as I’ve stated here before, the one thing that seemed to help him overcome ‘low mood’ arthritic fingers etc from RoAccutane was swallowing the balanced vitamin/mineral/enzyme drink each morning before eating, which is designed to give gastro-intestinal support, ie it lines the gut and hopefully prevents allergens getting through into the blood and thence into the liver and also across the blood/brain barrier. He took it for its anti allergenic properties for his skin. None of us twigged that it could have been countering RoAccutane damage until after he died because we and he had been assured by doctors that this medication could not be harmful, so it was removed from our radar.

    In the year before he died, when he again resorted to RoAccutane-isotretinoin to counter his returning acne (triggered by SSSRIs and later, in particular Olanzapine) he got psoriasis in addition, something entirely new to him. Could this have been another example of his ‘spreading sensitivities’ following RoAccutane long term use, on and off over 11 years?
    This whole subject of epigenetic locks and keys is fascinating and shows that one size definitely does not fit all, unlike what Big Pharma would like us to believe.

  7. Just to add there were in fact three 2009 swine flu vaccines. As well the two mentioned above there was Baxter’s Celvapan. It was the Baxter product rather than the Novartis which was used alongside GSK’s Pandemrix in the UK.

    http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/POST-PN-331

    Baxter also got into trouble for trying to defraud Medicaid:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/11/swine-flu-vaccine-baxter

    And they were also involved in other alarming activities that year:

    http://www.ageofautism.com/2017/09/revisiting-the-swine-flu-fiasco-of-2009.html

  8. My son and I both had the pandemic vaccine, as I was given it in pregnancy and he had it as a baby. He is now 8 and has developed narcolepsy and cataplexy.

    Is there any medical way that the auto immune attack could take this long for him? All I .see when I research is these symptoms showing up quite quickly.

    Thanks
    Julia

    • Julia

      There is no fixed window in which auto-immune reactions happen. They get triggered but we are not sure exactly how. So no-one can say to you that they can’t be delayed and in the circumstances while narcolepsy can occur independently of pandemrix it seems like a rather large coincidence

      David

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