H1N1 flu vaccine: the long path to compensation for French people who have become narcoleptics

Being able to fall asleep at any time, without being able to control it. This is the ordeal currently experienced by more than 200 people in France, who were vaccinated in 2009 against the influenza A virus. As they tell in an article from Figaroeleven years after the events, they are taken from narcolepsy, that is to say from a sleep disorder which is similar to extreme fatigue, forcing them to sleep very often, even when they do not want to .

Extreme drowsiness and loss of muscle tone

Since the arrival of the first cases of recognition of the side effects of the vaccine, only around thirty have been settled by the National Office for Compensation for Medical Accidents (Oniam). In this case, it is up to the State to pay, because it had undertaken to bear the cost of any side effects. However, 170 cases are still awaiting compensation. An unbearable wait for the victims.

If we put these figures into context, the 200 people disabled by this narcolepsy-cataplexy represent only a drop of water compared to the 5.74 million French people who suffered no side effects from the H1N1 vaccine. Nevertheless, the damage to daily, school or professional life remains impressive. These bouts of uncontrollable sleep (narcolepsy), daytime drowsiness, accompanied by a sudden loss of muscle tone (cataplexy), disrupt all aspects of life.

A 13 times higher risk of narcolepsy in children and adolescents

The link between narcolepsy and the H1N1 vaccine is known. What the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) cannot explain, on the other hand, is that “France East the only country where there is an association between the H1N1 vaccine and narcolepsy in adults. The reasons for this peculiarity are not known to date.“With regard to the causality data identified by the ANSM, the risk of developing narcolepsy-cataplexy is 13 times higher in children and adolescents between 5 and 19 years of age, which demonstrates a significant association between vaccination against influenza A and the occurrence of narcolepsy.

With the preparation of vaccines against Covid-19, compensation files with Oniam for the H1N1 vaccine are taking even longer. As explained in Figaro lawyer Charles Oudin-Joseph, “it is Oniam that judges the admissibility of applications, and it is Oniam that chooses the experts. However, when an expert does not conclude in their direction, they ask for a second, then a third expertise… A college of independent experts should be created.” According to figures from the National Institute of Sleep and Vigilancenarcolepsy, also called Gelineau’s disease, would affect 0.026% of the population, or 30,000 people in France.