Experts: J&J pause deepens the divide on issue of vaccine hesitancy
Dr. Gregory Buller hasn’t seen people rushing to cancel COVID vaccine appointments following the pause of Johnson & Johnson.
But an influx of cancellations could be coming, according to Buller, associate chief medical officer and chairman of the department of medicine at Bridgeport Hospital. He knows the Johnson & Johnson pause — which came after six of the 6.8 million people who received the vaccine suffered serious blood clots — caused many people to have second thoughts about the vaccine in general.
“If someone is on the borderline, they could say, ‘Yep, see, I told you,’ ” Buller
said. “I’m sure it will increase the level of vaccine hesitancy for all the vaccines.”
That hesitancy might also have been deepened by Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla’s declaration last week that people will likely need at least one more “booster” dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech
vaccine six to 12 months after their second shot.
“If they’re looking for another reason to not get the vaccine, that could be a factor,” Buller said.
But while Buller and other experts said they understood why the Johnson & Johnson development might make people nervous about getting the vaccine, they pointed out the cure isn’t worse than the disease.
“Don’t forget, the problem we’re trying to solve is a lethal disease,” said Dr. James Cardon, Hartford HealthCare’s chief clinical integration officer.
Dr. Ulysses Wu, HHC’s system director of infectious diseases, reminded those who are hesitant that the vaccines are “preventing deaths.”
Concerns about COVID vaccinations predated the Johnson & Johnson pause. According to a new tool released by the U.S. Census , nearly 16 percent of U.S. adults 18 and older said they were hesitant about getting a COVID vaccine as of March 29.
Nearly 49 percent of them said they were “concerned about side effects” as the reason for their hesitancy.
In Connecticut, nearly 8 percent of residents 18 and older were hesitant about the vaccine, according to the survey. About 45 percent of those hesitant said it was because of concerns
about side effects, the survey said.
The census tracker estimates are based on survey self-reports from specific time periods. The numbers will be updated as more data is collected.
Vaccine hesitancy isn’t a new problem, said Dr. Andre Newfield, chairman of psychiatry at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport. He said there has been skepticism about vaccines for decades, linked to a variety of incidents, including a 1998 paper published in the journal, The Lancet, by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that claimed there was a connection between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism.
It was later found that the children studied were carefully selected and some of Wakefield’s research was funded by lawyers acting for parents who were involved in lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers. The article was eventually retracted and subsequent research — including a study published in 2015 in the Journal of American Medicine — has shown “no harmful association between” autism and the MMR vaccine.
Still, skepticism persists about vaccines, Newfield said, particularly the COVID products, which went on the market fairly quickly.
“When you see the latest vaccines coming out as quickly as they did … that certainly leads to concerns,” Newfield said.
He said suspending the Johnson & Johnson vaccine “could solidify people’s concerns, and that’s a real shame.” To put concerns at ease, Newfield said, it’s important that people understand the side effects are extremely rare.
“We’re talking at this point about a one-in-million chance (of getting the blood clot),” Newfield said. “With things like smoking or birth control, the risks are much greater. But people aren’t always great at perceiving risks. Sometimes we over-perceive them, sometimes we underperceive them.”
The best thing to do is implore anyone with doubts about the vaccine to seek good information, preferably from a physician, Newfield said.
Of course, there are some people who likely won’t get the vaccine no matter how many people try to convince them that it’s safe, said Dr. Paolo Pino, chief of infectious disease at Norwalk Hospital. For this group, “it’s very difficult to provide them with information and for them to change their mind. They’re just not going to proceed with the vaccine.”
That’s a concern, he said, because getting more people vaccinated is the only way back to normalcy.
“Frankly, there’s no better treatment than prevention,” Pino said.