– I am not an opponent of vaccines

Dagbladet has written about the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine and how it was not tested in children before it was approved by European and Norwegian pharmaceutical authorities. 2.2 million Norwegians took the vaccine during the mass vaccination in 2009.

Among them was Janiche Henden (46), who is a trained drug consultant and lives in Nøtterøy. In the time after the vaccine, he developed narcolepsy, a serious neurological disease.

She believes fear of vaccine resistance has muzzled the debate over the swine flu vaccine.

Recommended mass vaccination: No adverse reactions are considered.

Henden herself experiences being dismissed as a vaccine opponent if she asks critical questions about the swine flu vaccine.

– We should not talk about vaccines as one thing. I am not an opponent of the vaccine, although I am critical of a vaccine, Henden says.

She says there is a big difference between vaccines that are part of, for example, the childhood vaccination program, and vaccines that are urgently developed in connection with a pandemic, such as the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine.

Henden believes authorities have covered up the lack of evidence for the swine flu vaccine for fear of fueling the arguments of vaccine opponents.

Fire torch in companies

– Vaccines save many lives. But we must also speak out loud about those who had their lives ruined by the swine flu vaccine, without it being about vaccine resistance, Henden says.

A total of 156 Norwegians have received compensation for injuries after Pandemrix; Among them, 125 have received compensation for narcolepsy, according to the Norwegian Patient Injury Compensation (NPE). The hand is among 91 who have applied for narcolepsy or cataplexy and have been rejected, and will sue NPE.

The hand experiences that it is difficult to tell others that it is vaccinated.

– So they call me an opponent of vaccines, people get mad at me, says Henden and adds:

– People think that “yes, then she probably thinks that the earth is flat too”, and that I practice conspiracy theories. If I’m not going to be a firefighter in a company, I don’t say anything about it.

Charlotte (17) was injured for life

Vaccine resistance was described in 2019 as one of the top ten threats to global health by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Right now, we are more dependent than ever on people who trust vaccines. One or more covid vaccines may be ready next year. It was previously announced that Pfizer’s covid vaccine will be 90 percent effective. The vaccine is in phase 3 studies, where it is being tested in 43,000 people, and Pfizer management has stated that they will be seeking formal approvals from the world’s pharmaceutical authorities very soon.

But at the end of September, as many as four in ten Norwegians said they would not take a covid vaccine if it came then, in a survey commissioned by Dagbladet.

Henden believes that skepticism about an upcoming covid vaccine would be lessened if authorities were more open about the swine flu vaccine trial and the decision on mass vaccination in 2009.

That is why we wrote about the swine flu vaccine.

– The reason people are skeptical is that they don’t know if they get all the information. If you had been sure of the information you received at the time, it would have been easier. In hindsight, we know there was a lack of information about the development and testing of Pandemrix, says Henden.

Acute critical

Elling Ulvestad is a professor, physician, and department chair in the Department of Microbiology at Haukeland University Hospital. He was one of the sharpest critics of the decision on mass vaccination in 2009.

– In Norway, it was almost read aloud and it was decided that he did not go to mass vaccination, so either he was against vaccines or he was no longer smart. Neither part is particularly fun, says Ulvestad.

Dagbladet asks the Norwegian Medicines Agency, through medical director Steinar Madsen, if they feared that too much candor about the side effects of the swine flu vaccine could lead to resistance to the vaccine.

– Not at all. When it comes to side effects, our attitude has always been one of total frankness, Madsen responds.

The son has narcolepsy: – They deceived us

– Resistance not so strong

Camilla Stoltenberg, director of FHI, tells Dagbladet that the openness today is greater than it was during the swine flu eleven years ago, in part because she believes interest in medical research has increased.

– Is transparency also necessary to prevent resistance to vaccines?

– We do not experience that resistance to vaccines is so strong now in Norway. It is first of all vacillation about vaccines, skepticism about vaccines, problems related to vaccines. And it’s healthy and good, Stoltenberg responds.

FHI Technical Director Hanne Nøkleby previously told Dagbladet that she believes the decision on mass vaccination in 2009 was correct:

– It was agreed that it was correct to make an offer to everyone, because we did not know enough about who could get seriously ill, says Nøkleby.

It was FHI in collaboration with the Norwegian Health Directorate who actually made the decision.

– I have learned

But Nøkleby admits they could communicate more clearly how the vaccine was tested:

– That is probably what we have learned, that we must be even clearer in our communication and say more clearly what we do not know. The written information indicated that the vaccine had not been largely tested in children.

Kid approved, no testing

The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, which was behind the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine, writes to Dagbladet that the pandemic vaccine underwent an extensive approval process and that the company did all the tests required by the pharmaceutical authorities.

All analyzes of safety data during and after the pandemic have concluded that the so-called risk / benefit ratio of the vaccine was positive, GSK writes.

Janiche Henden herself was vaccinated against swine flu because her son had asthma and therefore belonged to one of the risk groups.

She says she did the right thing to protect her son.

Your call when people now face the decision to receive a covid vaccine is:

– Be a healthy critic. Take the vaccine, but the state needs to make sure you have good information and a good safety net.