Tag Archives: environmental factors

Narcolepsy link to flu vaccine

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A flu vaccine given to millions of Britons as recently as a few months ago will no longer be used after watchdogs found it increased the risk of children developing a serious sleeping disorder.

Pandemrix has been deemed unsuitable for anyone under the age of 20 after studies showed it could trigger narcolepsy – a rare disorder which causes a person to fall asleep suddenly and unexpectedly, with potentially dangerous consequences.

The European Medicines Agency advised that the jab should be given to children and teenagers only if other vaccines are unavailable and they still need protecting against the H1N1 swine flu strain.

More than six million doses of Pandemrix have been given, several million of them to children, and many during the height of the swine flu panic of 2009/10.

The jab, made by GlaxoSmithKline, was still being given to children last winter during the seasonal vaccination campaign.

At least ten cases of narcolepsy linked to the vaccine have been reported to the UK regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority.

Flu vaccine

Flu vaccine

Last night the UK medicines watchdog said its stocks of the vaccine will run out in October – meaning they will not be used for the seasonal flu vaccinations this winter. It follows an investigation into reports from Finland and Sweden of children and adolescents suffering narcolepsy.

Studies found a six- to 13-fold increased risk of narcolepsy in children and adolescents who had been given Pandemrix compared with unvaccinated children. But the EMA said the overall risk-benefit balance of the drug remains positive.

No increased risk was found in adults over the age of 20. It added the vaccine ‘is likely to have interacted with genetic or environmental factors which might raise the risk of narcolepsy, and other factors may have contributed’.

The vaccine has been given to more than 31million people worldwide.


In April the Mail reported British mother Caroline Hadfield’s claim that the vaccine had given her son Joshua narcolepsy.

Within days of being given the jab in January last year, the five-year-old began sleeping for 18 hours a day and falling over when he felt a strong surge of emotion. His teachers were forced to put a bed in the canteen, and his parents had to bring him home in a pushchair because he could not manage the two-minute walk.

An MHRA spokesman said: ‘The regulatory action for Pandemrix vaccines recognises the potential seriousness of H1N1 infection and ensures the vaccine remains a licensed alternative to protect children.

‘However, as the shelf-life of remaining UK stocks of Pandemrix expires in October this year, the vaccine will not be used in the 2011/12 flu vaccine campaign.’

A statement by GSK said 335 cases of narcolepsy in people vaccinated with Pandemrix have been reported to it as of this month and it is ‘committed’ to conducting further research.

It added: ‘GSK is committed to patient safety and will continue to work closely with the EMA and other national regulatory organisations in the best interest of patients.’

Vitamin D cuts cancer risk

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Taking vitamin D tablets could substantially reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer, research suggests.

US scientists found taking the tablets cut the risk of a disease, which has a poor prognosis in almost half of cases.

There are more than 3,600 new cases of pancreatic cancer in women and more than 3,500 in men in the UK each year. Surgery is not often effective.

Vitamin D was examined as it previously showed promise in cutting the risk of prostate, breast and colon cancer.

Except for smoking, no environmental factors or dietary factors have been linked to the pancreatic cancer.

But previous studies have suggested that vitamin D might help to block the proliferation of cancer cells.

And pancreas tissue – both normal and cancerous – has been found to contain high levels of an enzyme that converts vitamin D into its active form.

For the new study, which was led by Northwestern University in Illinois and features in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers examined data on more than 120,000 people from two large, long-term health surveys.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D

Taking the US Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of vitamin D (400 IU/day) was found to reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer by 43%.

They said further work was necessary to determine if consuming vitamin D in the diet, or through sun exposure might have even more of an effect than taking supplements.

Vitamin D helps the body to form and maintain strong bones by encouraging the body to absorb calcium.

However, the researchers found no evidence of a link between risk of the cancer and calcium, or retinol, a vitamin which affects vitamin D’s impact on calcium absorption.

Multi-vitamin supplements, often contain retinol.


Lead researcher Dr Hal Skinner said: “There is a growing body of information indicating that achieving higher levels of vitamin D through supplements, diet or prudent sun exposure may provide a range health benefits by preventing common chronic diseases.”

He said certain groups could be defined as being at higher risk for pancreatic cancer – for example cigarette smokers or those with a family history of the disease.

However, he said: “I would make no specific recommendation for vitamin D supplementation to prevent pancreatic cancer until we can carry out a trial to determine definitively who might benefit from such an intervention.”

Henry Scowcroft, science information officer at the charity Cancer Research UK, said: “The results of this study don’t mean that people should take vitamin D supplements to ward off pancreatic cancer, especially as vitamin D can be harmful in large quantities.

“As the authors themselves point out, this is the very first study to find any association between the disease and vitamin D intake.

“So this result needs to be repeated in other large studies, and scientists need to show exactly how vitamin D might prevent pancreatic cancer before we could issue any specific lifestyle advice.”