As of April 13, the COVID-19 vaccine known as Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) was issued a pause by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and FDA after a handful of patients experienced a rare form of blood clotting. Even though over 7 million people in the US have received this vaccine and have not experienced any dangerous symptoms, the FDA is taking the situation cautiously in order to maximize safety. Within the next ten days, the CDC plans to announce their reccomendation on whether it is safe to take or not.
So far, only six patients, all females between the age of 18-48, have experienced these rare blot clots known as CVST. CVST happens when a blood clot froms which prevents blood from clearing out of the brain, leading to broken blood cells and possibly a hemorrhage. The Johnson vaccine has often been compared to the AstraZeneca vaccines in that both are viral vectors compared to the Pfizer and Moderna which are mRNA vaccines. The AstraZeneca has also caused some patients to undergo blood clotting, although only a few out of millions. All of these patients have been confirmed to have a low count of platelets, which are cells that help repair damages in the body.
As a result of the US having multiple options available on which vaccine to take, the FDA and CDC have the ability to take their time and determine the best outcome for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. As for those who have already booked their appointment for the Johnson vaccine, officials have been confirmed to give them priority to reschedule with another vaccine variant in order to compensate for the pause.
Do you believe the Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause was justified given that only a handful of individuals have had problems?
Are mRNA vaccines more viable than viral vectors when it comes to addressing COVID-19?
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7 comments:
I think it makes sense for the rollout of the J&J vaccines to be paused, since it obviously has more dangerous side effects than the Pfizer and Moderna shots. However, like the AstraZeneca vaccine, it only seems to pose a danger to younger people, so perhaps it could be reintroduced and limited only to older people. I think this is what some European countries are doing, in order to vaccinate their population as fast as possible while mitigating the danger of developing the side effects. As for the advantages of mRNA vaccines over adenovirus vaccines like AstraZeneca and J&J, I don't know enough about the science of each vaccine to really judge them. It seems that maybe not all adenovirus vaccines cause blood clots, since the Russian Sputnik vaccine hasn't had any cases like the two aforementioned ones, though I'm not sure how trustworthy the Russian government's statements are.
Even though only 6 out of 7 million people received this radical symptom, I think it's definitely still justified to to pause J&J vaccine distribution. As the CDC recommends a pause, it will help scientists ensure whether these people were just outliers or if the vaccine can cause potentially more harmful side effects. I think one big problem of this situation is that even if J&J vaccine distribution is resumed and it's found safe, many people might still be hesitant to take this vaccine or even others (even if Pfizer and Moderna are different mRNA vaccines). As the J&J vaccine was already known for it's slightly worse efficacy rate, now it's additionally known for causing potential blood clots. This could definitely sway public trust in this vaccine as they would prefer the other vaccine or even no vaccine at all now. However, hopefully this is just a minor setback in the U.S's vaccination process.
Unfortunately, side effects can be a part of medical treatment breakthroughs like vaccines. While some will say that a pause in distribution is justified, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine will still have a greater positive effect on society than a negative effect. Right now, 6 out of seven million people have contracted blood clots, which is about a 0.00008 percent chance. Additionally, the specific blood clots that the vaccine formed has an 8 percent mortality rate. Does that extremely small chance of significant illness or death due to CVST blood clots outweigh the potential benefits of vaccinating millions of people? If we look at a simple cost-benefit analysis, the costs of lower public confidence in the vaccine are hard to measure, but we can still rationally conclude that immunizing millions of people with the J + J vaccine would save more lives than it would hurt. That's a blunt way of looking at the situation, but it's the truth.
Next, if the US decides to have a longer pause on the vaccine or even terminate it, there would (I think) still be plenty of countries in the world that would be eager to have access to any vaccine. The US is one of the countries with the highest vaccination rates. Think about all of the second or third-world nations-they'd love any vaccine.
I found Brian's remark about hesitancy interesting. There are already lots of people who are scared / hesitant to get the vaccine due to conspiracies (an extreme example would be Alex Jones claiming that there is HIV in the vaccine), and I think that leaving the J&J vaccine on the market (especially when there are already multiple accessible alternatives to it) can be dangerous to people's trust of the vaccine. If people keep dying from the vaccine, that can be used to fuel conspiracy and strengthen distrust of the vaccine. For vaccines to be effective, we need as many people as possible to get it, and conspiracies get in the way of that. While the risk of getting the blood clot is rare like Samuel said, I don't know if I'd feel safe getting the J&J vaccine when there are other options available. I think the CDC is justified in their actions and I trust their judgement. It is better to be safe than sorry, and pulling the J&J vaccine from the market doesn't mean less people are going to get vaccinated anyway, as there are many alternatives.
I think it's also important to note that correlation doesn't mean causation. Unfortunately, in a time where herd immunity is imperative, there are large amounts of individuals who are hesitant to get vaccinated, and the concerns over the Johnson and Johnson vaccine likely increased this hesitancy. A couple days ago, US health officials lifted the halt on the production and distribution of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, with the FDA and CDC saying that the benefits of getting vaccinated outweigh the risks of complications. Additionally, the chances of developing a clot after receiving the vaccine is around one in a million, while the chances of developing a clot after contracting COVID is about one in five. I hope that people continue to get vaccinated, and that we are able to increase accessibility to vaccines in other countries as well.
The pause in distributing the J&J vaccines was justified considering how there are alternatives (Pfizer and Moderna). This relates to the elasticity of demand--the demand for the J&J vaccines is elastic because there are available substitute goods. The pause also gives the CDC and FDA time to perform a cost-benefit analysis to see if distributing the vaccine outweighs the risks. However, even though the CDC and FDA lifted the pause on Friday, people are more hesitant to take the J&J vaccine, as Brian had suggested. A poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC suggests that only 46% of US adults overall believe that the J&J vaccine is safe, while 73% and 71% believe that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are safe, respectively. The J&J vaccine does not necessarily cause blood clots, but now people are more wary of its side effects, proving to be a setback in the distribution process.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/poll-johnson-johnson-vaccine/2021/04/26/a1085b26-a3ad-11eb-a774-7b47ceb36ee8_story.html
I definitely understand Lucy's point. Because so many people were already hesitant to get the vaccine, taking J&J to the backshelf will definitely increase the hesitancy. However, I understand why it was paused but after news of CDC saying that the benefits outweigh the complication that J&J has started to been distributed again. I think since we do have two other vaccines it wasn't that big of an impact however we have to make sure we are confident in raising awareness about their safety to make sure we can get back to normal or resemble one as soon as possible.
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