Today, the CDC and FDA announced that they're recommending we pause administration of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine due to reports of a rare side effect involving blood clotting. Most states seem to be following this advice.
In the US, this is literally a one-in-a-million side effect, with 6.8M doses dispensed, and 6 cases that have been tied to the vaccine. The fact that we can detect something this minor should give people confidence that the people monitoring vaccine safety are really on the ball.
Under normal circumstances, a side effect this rare wouldn't be a reason to pause the use of anything. But in this case, the standard treatments for clotting disorders would actually make matters worse. So the FDA wants to take the time to make sure all doctors are aware of the symptoms of the problem, as well as the appropriate way to treat it.
Since all 6 cases are women under the age of 40, there's a lot of debate about whether it wouldn't have been simpler to just steer that population away from the J&J vaccine instead of pausing it. This debate has, in part, focused on the message this sends to the people hesitant about the vaccine. Will they be reassured we're being so cautious, or scared into thinking that all vaccines are dangerous? (My personal bet is... both! Different people will respond different ways).
In the grand scheme, this is not a big deal at the moment, as the US vaccination efforts have been mostly focused on the RNA-based vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna — we've got tens of millions of people vaccinated, and under 7M have received J&J, so it's a relatively small component of the overall effort. The CDC is estimating that it can maintain a pace of 4M doses a day using the RNA vaccines alone.
That said, the timing is somewhat awkward, in that a lot of states are opening vaccinations to the general population this week, and a bunch of said people are seeing their appointments cancelled. Longer term, it'll be an issue for outside the US, as the J&J vaccine is cheap and easy to transport/store. These are the same side effects seen in the AstraZenica vaccine that was also paused in much of Europe, and would be expected to occur in other vaccines using the same technology (ie, Russia's Sputnik and China's Sinovac). On the plus side, the widespread use means that we should have a good handle on how to limit and treat the clotting issue before very long.
In the US, this is literally a one-in-a-million side effect, with 6.8M doses dispensed, and 6 cases that have been tied to the vaccine. The fact that we can detect something this minor should give people confidence that the people monitoring vaccine safety are really on the ball.
Under normal circumstances, a side effect this rare wouldn't be a reason to pause the use of anything. But in this case, the standard treatments for clotting disorders would actually make matters worse. So the FDA wants to take the time to make sure all doctors are aware of the symptoms of the problem, as well as the appropriate way to treat it.
Since all 6 cases are women under the age of 40, there's a lot of debate about whether it wouldn't have been simpler to just steer that population away from the J&J vaccine instead of pausing it. This debate has, in part, focused on the message this sends to the people hesitant about the vaccine. Will they be reassured we're being so cautious, or scared into thinking that all vaccines are dangerous? (My personal bet is... both! Different people will respond different ways).
In the grand scheme, this is not a big deal at the moment, as the US vaccination efforts have been mostly focused on the RNA-based vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna — we've got tens of millions of people vaccinated, and under 7M have received J&J, so it's a relatively small component of the overall effort. The CDC is estimating that it can maintain a pace of 4M doses a day using the RNA vaccines alone.
That said, the timing is somewhat awkward, in that a lot of states are opening vaccinations to the general population this week, and a bunch of said people are seeing their appointments cancelled. Longer term, it'll be an issue for outside the US, as the J&J vaccine is cheap and easy to transport/store. These are the same side effects seen in the AstraZenica vaccine that was also paused in much of Europe, and would be expected to occur in other vaccines using the same technology (ie, Russia's Sputnik and China's Sinovac). On the plus side, the widespread use means that we should have a good handle on how to limit and treat the clotting issue before very long.
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