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Science
Health


BRAIN-DAMAGED UK VICTIMS OF SWINE FLU VACCINE TO GET £60 MILLION COMPENSATION

 * 
   By Tom Porter
   March 2, 2014 14:40 GMT
 * 




Patients who suffered brain damage as a result of taking a swine flu vaccine are
to receive multi-million-pound payouts from the UK government.

The government is expected to receive a bill of approximately £60 million, with
each of the 60 victims expected to receive about £1 million each.

Peter Todd, a lawyer who represented many of the claimants, told the Sunday
Times: "There has never been a case like this before. The victims of this
vaccine have an incurable and lifelong condition and will require extensive
medication."



Following the swine flu outbreak of 2009, about 60 million people, most of them
children, received the vaccine.

It was subsequently revealed that the vaccine, Pandemrix, can cause narcolepsy
and cataplexy in about one in 16,000 people, and many more are expected to come
forward with the symptoms.



Across Europe, more than 800 children are so far known to have been made ill by
the vaccine.

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Narcolepsy affects a person's sleeping cycle, leaving them unable to sleep for
more than 90 minutes at a time, and causing them to fall unconscious during the
day. The condition damages mental function and memory, and can lead to
hallucinations and mental illness.



Cataplexy causes a person to lose consciousness when they are experiencing
heightened emotion, including when they are laughing.

The Pandemrix vaccine was manufactured by pharmaceuticals giant Glaxo Smith
Kline, which refused to supply governments unless it was indemnified against any
claim for damage caused. The company will pay the bill, and claim the money back
from the government.



"There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Pandemrix increased the occurrence
of narcolepsy onset in children in some countries - and probably in most
countries," Emmanuelle Mignot, a specialist in sleep disorder at Stanford
University in the United States told Reuters.

Mignot has been paid by GSK to research the effects of the drug.



Among those affected are NHS medical staff, many of whom are now unable to do
their jobs because of the symptoms brought on by the vaccine. They will be suing
the government for millions in lost earnings.

However, the vast majority of patients affected - around 80% - are children.

Among them is Josh Hadfield, 8, from Somerset, who is on anti-narcolepsy drugs
costing £15,000 a year to help him stay awake during the school day.

"If you make him laugh, he collapses. His memory is shot. There is no cure. He
says he wishes he hadn't been born. I feel incredibly guilty about letting him
have the vaccine," said his mother Caroline Hadfield, 43.

Despite a 2011 warning from the European Medicines Agency against using the
vaccine on those under 20 and a study indicating a 13-fold heightened risk of
narcolepsy in vaccinated children, GSK has refused to acknowledge a link.

"Further research is needed to confirm what role the vaccine may have played in
the development of narcolepsy in those affected," the company said in a
statement.

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