Experts: Halt not cause for concern
With Ohio halting all distribution of the Johnson & Johnson one-dose vaccines Tuesday, area health officials reassured residents that the governmentrecommended pause is simply the review process working and not a cause for concern.
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, along with the Food and Drug Administration, recommended states and health entities stop the use of the shot due to blood clots “out of abundance of caution” while they review six reported U.S. cases of people developing a rare and severe type of blood clot after receiving the vaccine.
Dr. Joseph Gastaldo, medical director of infectious diseases for Ohiohealth, urged the public to keep those numbers in context.
“What we learned is that out 6.8 million doses (of J&J vaccine), they’ve identified a very rare potential adverse reaction — six recipients had a very uncommon brain blood clot,” Gastaldo said.
He added that less than 7 million of the 190 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine given so far in the country are Johnson & Johnson. The other 183 million are either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, two-dose vaccines that work differently than the J&J shot.
However, Gastaldo said the pause is warranted and welcomed to allow necessary data-collecting and evaluation to occur to continue to keep the public safe.
“That’s the process we want them to do, how we want this to play out with the extra air of caution,” Gastaldo said. “We need to be transparent with the public and let them know about it and also let providers know about it.”
Although the blood clots represent a very rare potential reaction, health officials recommend anyone who has a severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath — and is less than three weeks out from their vaccine — be checked by a medical professional.
Dr. Mark Herbert, an infectious disease specialist with Mount Carmel Medical Group, said national health organizations will spend the next few days trying to discern whether there were other missed cases of similar reactions and whether the reported cases had other risk factors. (All incidents so far have occurred in women between the ages of 18 and 48 within 13 days of vaccination.)
“I am certain that the CDC has a high priority of making the vaccine available to as many people as possible, and the FDA has the highest priority of making them as safe as possible,” Herbert said. “I think it’s encouraging that these two organizations are working together on this.”
His hope is that the public sees it that way, too.
Both he and Gastaldo said that while this will be a hiccup in terms of the amount of vaccine available, they don’t want it to stop people from getting the Moderna or Pfizer shots that still are being distributed.
“A concern is this is another piece of information that is discouraging people from receiving any vaccine,” Herbert said. “The vaccine needs to be a very important piece that ends this pandemic.”
Several health entities in central Ohio announced Tuesday that they planned to keep all vaccine appointments for patients scheduled to receive the Johnson & Johnson shot — they would simply receive the Moderna or Pfizer versions instead.
Hearing the news Tuesday about the vaccine halt did give some people, such as 25-year-old Carly Chambers, a bit of a pause: She received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the end of March.
“I just got a text from a friend who is a nurse and she said, ‘I’m not trying to scare you, but this is causing blood clots,’” said the North Linden resident, adding that it was the topic of the conversation among her coworkers that morning.
However, after doing some research, she realized that not only was the incidence of the cerebral brain clots extremely rare, but she also was more than two weeks out from her vaccine, most likely signaling she was in the clear. Still, she took the time to familiarize herself with clot symptoms — just in case.
“That was my biggest reason for doing research. How do you even know if you have a blood clot?” Chambers said.
Reading more than just headlines, listening to medical professionals and following CDC recommendations can go a long way toward quelling fears and making informed decisions, Gastaldo said.
He said he hopes that after a thorough review the CDC will again recommend the use of the vaccine, possibly with some new guidelines. A very similar situation happened with the Astrazeneca vaccine in Europe, where officials saw cases of blood clots and began recommending that only older adults get that vaccine.
And while the Astrazeneca shot operates similarly to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the Moderna and Pfizer are different, he continued.
“This is a very rare potential adverse reaction, but it does not apply to the (Moderna and Pfizer) vaccines,” he said. award@dispatch.com @Allisonaward