A team led by Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD, has shown that the same set of helper T cells responds angrily to both an antigen from a viral protein and an antigen from the bodily protein that’s destroyed by the immune system in the course of a narcolepsy, reports Scope.
In a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Mignot’s team provides strong evidence confirming a theory Mignot has pursued since the global swine-flu pandemic of 2009-10: namely, that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease, and that a trigger for it is an antigen not only found in swine flu (as well as in other versions of the “A” strain of influenza), but — alas — also included in the vaccine hastily developed and massively administered during the pandemic to protect people.
This possibility was suggested by an uptick in narcolepsy cases among patients receiving a version of the vaccine (there were two).
