Health & Fitness News

The Irish Pharmaceutical Union has defended the decision to administer a potentially harmful swine flu vaccine.

In the aftermath of European findings, which determined that the swine flu vaccine administered in Ireland was dangerous, the Irish Pharmaceutical Union has said the risks involved with swine flu were much greater than the risks involved with the vaccine.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has said Pandemrix should only be given to children if no other vaccines are available. It follows an investigation into reports from Finland and Sweden of children and young teens suffering from sleep disorder narcolepsy.

Narcolepsy is a severe sleep condition, which causes extreme drowsiness every three or four hours and is also associated with hallucinations, sleep paralysis and muscle weakness.

Those who have been administered the vaccine are considered to have a six-fold increase in the risk of developing the serious sleep disorder compared to those who were not vaccinated.

The EMA has also recommended that anyone under 20 years of age should only receive this version of the H1N1 jab if the normal seasonal flu jab is not available.

The EMA, to which Ireland's Irish Medicines Board is affiliated, said that the vaccine was likely to have interacted with genetic or environmental factors, which could increase the risk of narcolepsy. According to the EMA, other factors may also have contributed to the results.

Further studies into the link are currently being conducted.