swine flu and 18 month old

katemc

anyone know if the hse have given any advice re swine flu jab for 18 month old? have looked at their web site but doesnt mention under 5s

Nevyn

Best thing to do is to ring your gps office and ask.

Grawns

If he had it last year he's still covered. If not your gp will do it.

fiona stephanie

My husband has swine flu at the moment. We have 3 children, 2 of whom were vaccinated last winter. The 13 month old was not vaccinated as I was still pregnant with him. I rang my doctor yesterday to see shound I be getting him vaccinated seen as his Dad has Swine flu. She said the HSE sent out a new draft to doctors saying they are not vaccinating anyone unless they are over 65 or unless they have underlining health problems!

katemc

thanks all, surgery said they not recommending it so will just have to keep praying that we avoid it

cynder

I got my 3 done yesterday ages 11, 5 and 4. I could have had it too but i declined. The 3 of them had it last year ages then were 10, 4 and 3.

Underlying health problems 1 diabetic and the other 2 have a mild asthmatic cough.

trevorku

Im sorry but there is no way id let an infant get the swine flu jab, ive never even gotten it myself, it hasnt been tested enough in my opinion. You see those stories in the newspaper about people who got the H1N1 jab and no they have narcolepsia or whatever its called where people fall asleep without warning.

liliq

This link with the swine flu vaccine and nacrcolepsy has only been reported in Finland and Sweden. Even in those reports it is stated that the trigger for narcolepsy remains unclear, so it cannot be definitively linked with the swine flu vaccine.
The same vaccine manufactued by the same company (Glaxo Smith Kline) had also been used in far more countries than just Finland and Sweden without any reports of an increase in the number of cases of narcolepsy.

It would definitely be best to ask your GP about the vaccine, OP, especially as he/ she will know your childs medical history and will be able to give advice based on that!

Brown Bomber

liliq wrote: »

This link with the swine flu vaccine and nacrcolepsy has only been reported in Finland and Sweden.

Well no actually.

At least 12 countries have reported a possible link between a swine flu jab and a rare sleeping disorder, the World Health Organization has confirmed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12390540

liliq

[Sorry about this going off- topic!
I won't fill the thread with any more off- topic replies after this! :rolleyes:]

Apologies, I should have worded my reply more carefully.

When I agreed that a "link" had been established, I meant it in the sense that a properly designed study had been carried out and found correlation in results, as opposed to suspected links being reported.

http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/news_and_events/news/2011/02/news_detail_001211.jsp&murl=menus/news_and_events/news_and_events.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac058004d5c1

Of course, this isn't to say that studies won't be carried out in the other countires that have suspected links between the swine flu vaccine and narcolepsy, and these results may show a correlation.
A correlation doens't mean that the swine flu vaccine is causative of any increase in narcolepsy though, either.

That BBC report also states that "The MHRA said it had received four unconfirmed reports of narcolepsy following vaccination.

It said the reports so far in the UK "are no more than we would expect to see by coincidence after vaccination".

clever_name

A more interesting quote from the BBC report that should be considered,

Finland and other Scandinavian countries have reported a general rise in cases of narcolepsy - in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people - but the cause has not been established.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12390540

Brown Bomber

clever_name wrote: »

A more interesting quote from the BBC report that should be considered,

Finland and other Scandinavian countries have reported a general rise in cases of narcolepsy - in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people - but the cause has not been established.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12390540

Hardly more interesting.

This is the facts on Finland.

In Finland during years 2009–10, 60 children and adolescents aged 4-19 years fell ill with narcolepsy. These figures base on data from hospitals and primary care, and the review of individual patient records by a panel of neurologists and sleep researchers. Of those fallen ill, 52 (almost 90 percent) had received Pandemrix® vaccine, while the vaccine coverage in the entire age group was 70 percent. Based on the preliminary analyses, the risk of falling ill with narcolepsy among those vaccinated in the 4-19 years age group was 9-fold in comparison to those unvaccinated in the same age group.

http://www.thl.fi/en_US/web/en/pressrelease?id=24103

clever_name

It is more interesting as the BBC link that you posted shows that an increase in the cases of nympholepsy has not been connected to a vaccine and the the cause has not been established.

Then this link was posted, http://www.thl.fi/en_US/web/en/pressrelease?id=24103

Currently, the most likely explanation is that the increase in narcolepsy is by joint effect of the vaccine . At the moment, there is no evidence that the increase in narcolepsy observed in Finland could be attributed to the vaccine lots used.



Some other quotes worth noting,

The association between narcolepsy and PandemrixR vaccine requires more investigations.

In 2009, among countries using similar pandemic vaccine as was used in Finland, an increase in cases of narcolepsy has been observed only in Finland, Sweden and Iceland.

Contrary to the observations in Finland, narcolepsy has occurred in greater numbers than expected also among unvaccinated children and teenagers in Iceland.

So based on the links provided the vaccine is safe and the cause of the problems in Scandinavian countries is unknown.

Brown Bomber

clever_name wrote: »

It is more interesting as the BBC link that you posted shows that an increase in the cases of nympholepsy has not been connected to a vaccine and the the cause has not been established.

Then this link was posted, http://www.thl.fi/en_US/web/en/pressrelease?id=24103

So you know there is a question mark over THL who are linked above due to:

The choice of the GSK vaccine was dictated by statements and expertise from the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).

There have later been claims that THL would have had a conflict of interest, as it had received financing worth EUR 6 million from GSK for its pneumococcus research. Two complaints were filed on the matter to the Chancellor of Justice in late 2009.
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Ministry+official+defends+decision+to+order+swine+flu+vaccine/1135259622342

clever_name wrote: »

Currently, the most likely explanation is that the increase in narcolepsy is by joint effect of the vaccine . At the moment, there is no evidence that the increase in narcolepsy observed in Finland could be attributed to the vaccine lots used.

I'm afraid you've grossly misunderstood the above section you've quoted and bolded. "Vaccine lots" simply means vaccine batches. Therefore the rise in narcolepsy rates in Finland cannot be attributed to the specific batch of vaccines recieved by Finland.

clever_name wrote: »

So based on the links provided the vaccine is safe and the cause of the problems in Scandinavian countries is unknown.

Not true.

What has been established is that in Finland children who recieved the H1N1 vaccine were over 9 times more likely to be diagnosed with narcolepsy.

Do you deny this? Or put it down to coincidence?

There is a temporal link which is and needs to be investigated. Until then I personally have no intention of using my own children as guinea pigs.

clever_name

Brown Bomber wrote: »

I'm afraid you've grossly misunderstood the above section you've quoted and bolded. "Vaccine lots" simply means vaccine batches. Therefore the rise in narcolepsy rates in Finland cannot be attributed to the specific batch of vaccines recieved by Finland.

Yes I agree with you, the links that you posted show that no link has been established between the vaccine used and the rise in narcolepsy.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

What has been established is that in Finland children who recieved the H1N1 vaccine were over 9 times more likely to be diagnosed with narcolepsy.

Do you deny this? Or put it down to coincidence?

If you read the full pages that you linked you will see that according to the BBC

"Finland and other Scandinavian countries have reported a general rise in cases of narcolepsy - in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people - but the cause has not been established."

So is it a coincidence?, I have no idea and according to the links that you have posted neither do you.

This problem is effecting Scandinavian countries, again from the links you have posted:

The Pandemrix vaccine, made by Glaxo Smith Kline, has been used in 47 countries following the swine flu outbreak last year.
More than six million doses of the H1N1 vaccine have been given in the UK, with more than 30 million given across Europe.


A rise in youth cases of narcolepsy in Scandinavian countries has been observed (in both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated) and again according to the links provided, the reason for this rise is not know at the moment and the increases are limited to Scandinavain countries.

More invistigation is needed to understand what is causing a upsurge in cases of narcolepsy among Scandinavian people regardless of if they are vaccinated.

Brown Bomber

An association between Pandemrix and narcolepsy among children and adolescents in Finland is confirmed


In its final report, the National Narcolepsy Task Force confirms the tentative conclusion published in its Interim Report last January that the Pandemrix vaccine used in the winter of 2009–2010 contributed to the increased incidence of narcolepsy observed among 4–19-year-olds in Finland.
http://www.thl.fi/en_US/web/en/pressrelease?id=26352