The 2009 H1N1 pandemic, vaccine-associated narcolepsy, and the politics of risk and harm

Abstract

The article traces the emergence of a new type of vaccine injury—vaccine-associated narcolepsy—following immunization with Pandemrix vaccine during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in Europe. The article highlights the processual nature of vaccine injury: it shows how vaccine-associated narcolepsy emerges gradually as a recognized object through epidemiological and immunological studies as well as patient organizations’ public discourses. The article argues that despite public recognition of injury, vaccine-associated narcolepsy remains an incongruous object characterized by underlying tensions. These tensions take shape in relation to the history of vaccine injury debates, on the one hand, and the connection between vaccine-associated narcolepsy and non-vaccine-related narcolepsy, on the other. The article shows how these underlying tensions enable a range of mutually incompatible framings and mobilizations through which risk, harm, responsibility, and justice are claimed and negotiated.