Paper short abstract:

The paper is about the Swedish mass-vaccination with Pandemrix during the swine-flu pandemic in 2009 and the following side-effect with children and young adults suffering from narcolepsy. How do children and parents cope with this chronic disease?

Paper long abstract:

The mass-vaccination with Pandemrix was the most important preventive measure in Sweden during the A(H1N1) influenza pandemic of 2009-2010 and covered 60 percent of the Swedish population. From 2010 an increased incidence of the neurological disease narcolepsy was reported, and an association with Pandemrix was affirmed for 200-300 children and young adults. The parental experience of this side effect provided a starting point for a collectively shaped critical narrative to be acted out in public, but also personalized narratives of continual learning about the disease and its consequences. This didactic functionality resulted in active meaning-making practices about how to handle the aftermath, such as using dark humor, cognitive tricks, and making themselves and their children's bodies both objects and subjects of knowledge. Using material from interviews with parents, this mixing of knowledge work and political work together with its potential for reflective consciousness, is discussed.