Helsinki court orders payments to narcolepsy patients in Pandemrix case
By Anne Kauranen
HELSINKI (Reuters) -A Helsinki court ordered on Thursday payment of indemnities to a new group of Finnish patients who were found to have caught the sleep disorder narcolepsy as a side effect of GSK's Pandemrix flu vaccine distributed in 2009 and 2010.
Several studies have linked GSK's Pandemrix with a spike in cases of narcolepsy, while the company itself denied the link in 2020, suggesting it was associated with the H1N1 flu virus itself, not the vaccine.
On Thursday, a GSK spokesperson reiterated the company's position, highlighting that other studies showed a spike in narcolepsy cases among unvaccinated people during the 2009/10 flu pandemic, as well a rise in narcolepsy cases in 2013 linked with the occurrence of the H1N1 virus.
"These data support the hypothesis that infection with the H1N1 virus can trigger narcolepsy, as these populations were not exposed to Pandemrix," the spokesperson said.
The Helsinki District Court said it ordered the Finnish Pharmaceutical Insurance Pool to pay between 30,000 and 70,000 euros ($31,900-$74,400) per person to seven people who had previously been denied indemnities due to having been diagnosed with narcolepsy more than two years after receiving the shot.
The patients can seek further indemnities for loss of income and other expenses that could amount to more than 10 million euros in total over time, their legal representative said.
The Pharmaceutical Insurance Pool, a legal arrangement through which Finnish non-life insurance companies mutually share liabilities, said it would study the court's justifications carefully before deciding whether to appeal.
Narcolepsy is an incurable, lifelong disorder that disrupts normal sleep-wake cycles and causes severe nightmares and daytime sleep attacks that can strike at any time.
The court confirmed the link between narcolepsy and the shot in the patients despite the delay in diagnosis, using the same criteria as a study by Helsinki University researchers published last year by Nature Communications.
The study confirmed the mechanism with which the vaccine triggered an autoimmune reaction in certain people with a specific type of genetic susceptibility.
The court's decision could lead to more patients seeking to challenge their rejected applications in courts.
Over the years, the Insurance Pool has paid out some 14.75 million euros in Pandemrix-related indemnities to 236 patients in Finland, while denying them to another 131 applicants, it said in a release.
It rejected the applications of 93 people because their narcolepsy-related symptoms had been diagnosed more than two years after they had been vaccinated with Pandemrix, it added.
($1 = 0.9407 euros)
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki, additional reporting by Natalie Grover in London; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Barbara Lewis)
