Is the H1N1 vaccine inherently more dangerous?

August 16, 2009 5:40 PM

Swine flu vaccine question: If I've gotten the seasonal flu vaccine in the past without any complications, does this mean that I don't have to worry about the "Guillain-Barre syndrome" that hit people in 1976? Or will the H1N1 vaccine be formulated differently that the seasonal flu vaccine? This question is prompted by this article...

It's still not clear why a rare but serious neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome hit those vaccinated in 1976 at a higher-than-expected rate. But after some 44 million Americans received the vaccine, safety fears scuttled the vaccination program -- and gave "swine flu vaccine" a bad name that still lingers in the American psyche.

Were there any studies done after 1976 to see if the handful of people who got that disorder had previously gotten the seasonal flu vaccine?

posted by exhilaration to health & fitness (7 comments total)

I cannot find the story anywhere, but I saw something a few days ago that said the Brits are asking their health care providers to be on the look out for and report any cases of Guillain-Barre they encounter in vaccinated people this fall as there has not been what they consider adequate time to fully test the new vaccine. There did not seem to be any concern that having both vaccines now or the flu vaccine in the past would affect people. The concern was raised only because of the previous probs with the swine flu vaccine in the US in the 70s.
posted by x46 at 6:20 PM on August 16

this study should be what you're after. Crunch a few numbers and see for yourself why the risk is negligible (and very poorly reported in the WebMD article).
posted by _dario at 6:22 PM on August 16

There was a study.

Nobody knows what causes GBS. Sometimes, it's thought to be an autoimmune disorder. People did get it after (and as a result of) taking the swine flu vaccine in the 1970s, but people get it without having taken the vaccine. My father is a person who had GBS but not as a result of the vaccine.

The current vaccine may cause a relapse in some GBS patients. The GBS/CIDP Foundation says, "If a patient’s GBS episode was associated with the influenza vaccine be aware that there may be a risk of a repeat episode. Patients who have recently had GBS within 3-6 months should be cautious when considering any vaccine."

They also say, "Anyone who has a history of GBS and is in higher risk groups, including the elderly and those with other serious illnesses, should consider getting vaccinated."

Having said all that, I won't take any flu vaccines, but that's an emotional response to what I saw when my father had it (it's pretty horrible, scary stuff); my decision is not a rational one.
posted by Houstonian at 6:38 PM on August 16

The Schonberger article doesn't say whether people who got GBS after influenza vaccination in 1976 had been vaccinated without incident in prior years. I would sort of guess they had not been vaccinated before 1976, only because even today most adults don't get influenza vaccine, and in the 70s it was probably even less widely administered in non-pandemic years.

Fwiw, FDA doesn't seem to regard the novel H1N1 vaccine as anything more exotic than the regular seasonal influenza vaccine - as far as I can tell its plans are to license the H1N1 vaccine on the same "strain change" basis as is applied to seasonal vaccine.

(More scrutiny would be applied if a manufacturer wanted to market an adjuvanted influenza vaccine, which has never been used in the US, but this is not currently being contemplated for the US.)

JAMA has a more recent article that talks about trends in reporting of GBS after influenza vaccination. For reasons that were unclear at the time, and as far as I know are still not understood, the incidence of GBS in this context has been going down for the last decade.
posted by lakeroon at 7:35 PM on August 16

The Health Protection Agency in the UK says:

"Guillain-Barre syndrome has long been identified as a potential adverse event that would require enhanced surveillance following the introduction of a pandemic vaccine. But there is no evidence to suggest there is an increased risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome from this vaccine. There is robust evidence that no increased risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome arises from seasonal flu vaccination." - Source
posted by knapah at 5:38 AM on August 17

Here is this story that might interest you.

On a side note: my mother took that vaccine in 1976 and she got Guillian-Barre from that so I have no plans on getting the current H1N1 vaccine.
posted by govtdrone at 5:29 PM on August 17

After reading all this, I've decided I'm probably going to get the H1N1 vaccine since I've gotten the seasonal flu vaccine several times in the past few years without any problems. My fiancé probably won't, since she's never gotten the flu shot. (We're going into a situation where our risk of contracting it is relatively high.)
posted by exhilaration at 7:43 AM on August 18