News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Scientists have found the first evidence of a link between the 2009 pandemic flu vaccine Pandemrix and an increased risk of narcolepsy in English children, echoing previous findings in several other European countries.

(CIDRAP News) – A large study of narcolepsy background rates in six European countries before and after 2009 H1N1 pandemic vaccine campaigns confirmed increases in Finland and Sweden—the two countries that first reported the problem—but also detected a rise in Denmark.

The world needs much better influenza vaccines, but the quest for them faces a formidable barrier: overconfidence about the effectiveness of existing influenza vaccines.