Ministers lose fight to stop payouts over swine flu jab narcolepsy cases

Dozens of children who developed narcolepsy as a result of a swine flu vaccine could be compensated after the high court rejected a government appeal to withhold payments.

Six million people in Britain, and more across Europe, were given the Pandemrix vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline during the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic, but the jab was withdrawn after doctors noticed a sharp rise in narcolepsy among those who received it.

The sleep disorder is permanent and can cause people to fall asleep dozens of times a day. Some narcoleptics have night terrors and a muscular condition called cataplexy that can lead them to collapse on the spot.

In 2015, a 12-year-old boy, known as John for the proceedings, was awarded £120,000 by a court that ruled he had been left severely disabled by narcolepsy caused by the vaccine. He was seven when he had the jab and developed symptoms within months.

Because of his tiredness, John became disruptive at school and found it almost impossible to make friends. He takes several naps a day, cannot shower or take a bus on his own, and may never be allowed to drive a car.

Despite paying out, the Department for Work and Pensions argued John’s disability was not serious enough to warrant compensation and said the court was wrong to take into account how the illness would affect him in the future. But the high court on Thursday rejected the government’s appeal that only the boy’s disability at the time should have been considered.

The ruling paves the way for more than 60 other people to claim compensation.

“This important decision brings clarity to anyone who brings claims under the Vaccine Damage Payment Act in future,” said Peter Todd, the family’s solicitor at Hodge Jones & Allen. “It will in particular bring welcome relief to those who developed narcolepsy as a result of taking the swine flu vaccination and who have been awaiting payment from the DWP scheme but also has implications for anyone affected by other vaccines covered by the scheme.”

The judgment means the DWP has to take into account the impact disability has on a person’s entire life, and not just the impact it has on the individual at the time their claim is made.

“Sadly, those who developed narcolepsy as a result of the swine flu vaccination have had their lives changed forever. The condition will affect many aspects of their lives including working, driving, personal and family relationships – the very things most of us take for granted,” Todd said.

In 2014, a 23-year-old nursery assistant who developed narcolepsy after receiving the swine flu vaccine took her own life, telling her family that living with the sleep disorder had become unbearable. In a note written on the day she died, Katie Clack, urged her family to pursue her legal case, saying she had been left with “no quality of life”. Her sister, Emma Sutton, told the Guardian at the time: “We feel she was let down by the defective vaccine, which caused her narcolepsy, and by the insufficient intervention and support, which ultimately led to this tragedy.”

The Pandemrix compensation case was the first that the court of appeal considered under the Ul statutory compensation scheme, which was set up in 1979 for rare occasions when vaccines cause severe damage. The decision to consider the impact of the disability over the person’s entire life is now binding on all future cases brought under the act.

Todd said there are about 100 people in the UK with narcolepsy caused by Pandemrix. A further 100 applications a year are made for compensation under the scheme due to harm caused by other vaccines. “Today’s judgment brings a welcome relief to the many people affected by the DWP’s continued refusal of applications for compensation,” Todd said. He is acting for 88 claimants, mostly children, who developed narcolepsy as a result of the swine flu vaccine, and in a civil case against GSK, which manufactured the vaccine.

A DWP spokesperson said: “We are aware of the judgment of the court and are carefully studying the court’s reasons.”

Ministers lose fight to stop payouts over swine flu jab narcolepsy cases

Tamiflu: medicines offered for swine flu "were waste of £500m"

Nevertheless, researchers from The Cochrane Collaboration, a not-for-revenue organisation which carries out evaluations of well being data, identified that Tamiflu only minimize flu-like signs and symptoms from seven days to six.3 days and there was no evidence of a reduction in hospital admissions.

Eight youngsters who took the drug in Japan ended up committing suicide after suffering psychotic episodes. Other side effects integrated kidney problems, nausea, vomiting and headaches.

A lot of people reported feeling anxious or depressed when taking the drug.

Data from 20 trials of Tamiflu also recommended that it prevented some men and women from creating enough numbers of their very own antibodies to fight infection.

Dr Carl Henegen, professor of evidence-based mostly medicine at Oxford, said: “This drug was offered to one,000 people a week over a mobile phone line, but it was no far better for symptom relief than more than-the-counter medicine — and you are speaking about probably serious problems. I wouldn’t prescribe it to my sufferers.”

Dr Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist with The Cochrane Collaboration, additional: “The stuff is toxic. It improved the risk of psychiatric events, headaches and renal events in one in 150 people. Individuals reported nausea, vomiting and constriction of the airways. In Japan eight youngsters jumped out of windows and committed suicide.” The report’s authors mentioned they had struggled to receive the authentic trial information from Roche, which at first claimed it was confidential.

The Government began stockpiling Tamiflu in 2006 more than fears about bird flu after it was accredited by the Nationwide Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence. It is not widely prescribed for standard flu.

Roche stated it “fundamentally disagrees” with the newest findings.

Dr Daniel Thurley, the company’s Uk healthcare director, extra: “We disagree with the total conclusions of this report. Roche stands behind the wealth of data for Tamiflu and the decisions of public wellness companies worldwide, including the US and European Centres for Ailment Control and Prevention and the Globe Overall health Organisation.

“The report’s methodology is frequently unclear and inappropriate, and their conclusions could probably have significant public overall health implications. Neuraminidase inhibitors are a vital remedy selection for individuals with influenza.”

The Department of Wellness said that Tamiflu had a “proven record” of security, good quality and efficacy. But a spokesman said overall health officials would think about the most recent Cochrane overview “closely”.

The assessment is published on Thursday in the British Medical Journal.

Tamiflu: medicines offered for swine flu "were waste of £500m"

Urgent CDC Warning Of Threat From H1N1 Swine Flu

If you haven’t had a flu shot but this year, get 1. This from the CDC, which issued an urgent contact for flu shots today, warning that this year’s flu season is turning out to be specifically deadly and still has weeks or even months to go.

“Flu can be serious for anyone, and it can destroy,” stated Centers for Condition Control (CDC) director Tom Frieden, M.D. “Vaccination is the single most crucial point you can do to shield your self.”

The CDC is calling for flu shots for everybody except babies beneath six months, which includes pregnant women. The flu can destroy a healthy little one in as tiny as 3 days, CDC officials warned in a report issued in the October 28 issue of Pediatrics.

This year’s greatest flu risk is the H1N1 virus, informally acknowledged as swine flu, a virulent strain of the virus that triggered a globally pandemic in 2009.

Flu virus information exhibiting the prevalence of H1N1 (swine flu) Source: CDC

Far more worrisome is who’s getting sick – simply because it’s not the elderly and infirm, as you might count on. Alternatively, a lot more than 60 % of individuals hospitalized were amongst the ages of 18 and 64, in accordance to CDC reports published right now in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). And a scary 60 percent of flu deaths have been among these 25 to 65.

This is a big change from past flu seasons, in which adults beneath 65 have manufactured up just 35-45 percent of people critically unwell enough to be hospitalized.

Unfortunately, it’s this population group that’s also least likely to get flu shots, officials say, prompting their strongly worded public call for vaccination.

Today’s numbers come from a nationwide sampling of 122 U.S cities, but the CDC also issued a unique report for California, in which the flu has been notably deadly in recent weeks. Flu deaths in California reached 243 on February 8th, the California Department of Public Wellness reported, but also explained the peak season could have passed in the state (in which spring comes early).

Swine Flu Pandemic Revisited?

Most people keep in mind H1Ni from the pandemic of 2009, when swine flu swept the country after the flu strain arrived here in April, really late in the flu season. In that episode, serious illness predominantly involved kids and adults under the age of 24, top the CDC to conclude that older individuals might have developed antibodies to the virus.

Although this year’s numbers aren’t nevertheless closing in on 2009, the fact that it’s youthful and middle-aged adults who are acquiring sick adjustments the picture substantially.

CDC data from the time period September 29, 2013 to February 8, 2014 checklist 571 deaths connected with the flu, and out of people 352, or 62 % were aged 25 to 64. CDC officials expressed concern that part of the difficulty may be that flu vaccination charges among grownups are substantially lower than in the elderly and kids.

Becoming Overweight or Obese a Danger Aspect

The vast majority of the individuals becoming seriously ill or dying from H1Ni this 12 months already suffered from some other health issue, in numerous cases diabetes or obesity, which have been also recognized as chance elements in 2009.

Tomás Aragón, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Berkeley, here delivers a cogent evaluation of who’s on the “blacklist” for susceptibility to H1N1, and why you ought to take oneself off it – by receiving vaccinated.

Urgent CDC Warning Of Threat From H1N1 Swine Flu