U.K. too finds link to GSK's Pandemrix, narcolepsy

A month after the European Medicines Agency said there was insufficient evidence of the link between the sleep disorder narcolepsy and children being vaccinated with GlaxoSmithKline's ($GSK) Pandemrix vaccine, another study says it is so. The study from the U.K. was published in the British Medical Journal and found that youth that got the vaccine had a 14 to 16 times greater chance of developing the serious sleep problem than those who do not get it. More than 30 million people in 47 countries received GlaxoSmithKline's Pandemrix, a flu vaccine containing an adjuvant not used in the United States. There have been reports that 795 people across Europe have developed narcolepsy since the vaccine hit the market in 2009. Finland, Norway, Ireland, France and Sweden all previously reported spikes in the sleep disorder. Glaxo has been working to figure out what it all means and has provided some of the funding for the research. Story | More