Various cases have cultivated the current distrust of the French towards the AstraZeneca vaccine and other vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. If denials and other studies attempted to allay suspicion, the "damage" was already done.
In 1994, the Minister of Health Philippe Douste-Blazy launched a vaccination campaign against hepatitis B. Vaccination became compulsory in all colleges and 20 million of French received their doses until 1998. The campaign was suspended that year, giving way to epidemiological investigations. However, this halt is linked to the appearance of side effects, including a hundred cases of multiple sclerosis.
These studies have given often contradictory results and the case is coming to court. In 2008, GSK and Sanofi Pasteur were then indicted for deception. In 2016, the court dismissed the case, but several patients still obtained compensation in the name of the presumption of causation.
As of 2006, two vaccines against human papillomaviruses (cancers of the cervix) are marketed by GSK and Sanofi Pasteur. Three years later, Australian neurologists evoke a possible correlation between vaccines and multiple sclerosis. Some vaccinated patients also have lupus, Verneuil's disease or experience episodes of demyelination. In France, dozens of families are complaining. Vaccination drops and only concerns 17% of 16-year-old girls in 2015.
Several studies then came to exculpate the vaccine, but in 2015, umpteenth work by the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines (ANSM) evokes an increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome post-vaccination. Nevertheless, vaccination is still recommended, as it remains the best weapon against cancer.
In 2009, the WHO alerted the world to a new influenza virus that had emerged in the United States and Mexico. Roselyne Bachelot, Minister of Health at the time, orders no less than 94 million doses of vaccine to several laboratories and buys around 22 billion masks. In the end, the H1N1 flu will be less serious than expected and the vaccination campaign is a real failure. Many people then accuse the WHO of communicating about fake pandemics under pressure from laboratories.
In addition, the vaccine in question would promote narcolepsy, a chronic sleep disorder. INSERM had even mentioned a risk multiplied by five among those under 19. And yet, the Institut Pasteur, Roselyne Bachelot and even Prof. Antoine Flahault, director of the Schools for Advanced Studies in Public Health (EHESP) affirmed that it was necessary to vaccinate everyone.
