Johnson & Johnson vaccine paused over clot fears
What happened
The use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine was paused in all 50 states this week after a handful of recipients developed an extremely rare blood-clotting disorder, hampering the U.S. inoculation campaign as the coronavirus surges across the Upper Midwest and Northeast. The FDA recommended the pause “out of an abundance of caution” as it investigates the cases of six women, ages 18 to 48, who experienced the clots within three weeks of getting a shot; one woman in Virginia died. More than 7 million Americans have so far received the one-dose vaccine. As thousands of appointments for J&J shots were canceled across the U.S., the Biden administration insisted there are “more than enough” Pfizer and Moderna doses to maintain the country’s pace of 3.3 million shots a day. GOP pollster Frank Luntz said the new safety concerns were “devastating” to efforts to win over the vaccine-hesitant. “Right now, there are thousands of people saying, ‘See, I told you so.’”
New Covid cases climbed 11 percent over the past two weeks, with infections rising in states including Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan, where the Covid test-positivity rate is now more than three times the national average. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pleaded for an increased allotment of doses from the federal government, but was rebuffed. Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Wilensky urged Michigan to “close things down,” saying increased vaccinations alone wouldn’t contain the outbreak.
What the columnists said
The FDA’s pause on J&J “is a dangerous overreaction,” said Philip Klein in NationalReview.com. There’s no evidence yet that the vaccine caused the one-in-a-million blood clots, but we do know from clinical trials that this vaccine is “100 percent effective in preventing people from being hospitalized and dying from Covid-19.” With 563,000 Americans already dead from the disease, delaying protection for potential J&J recipients “will cost lives.”
Health officials made “the right decision,” said Dr. Leana Wen in WashingtonPost.com. “With so much scrutiny on vaccine safety,” such caution should bolster public confidence. Officials will likely have updates in the coming days, and perhaps women under 50 will be advised to get a different vaccine. People who have received the shot and within three weeks experience symptoms such as a severe headache or one-side leg or arm swelling should call their doctor. All other J&J recipients, including me, can feel safe.
The U.S. “could get by” without J&J, said Katherine Wu in TheAtlantic.com, but it would be a huge setback in the global fight against Covid. J&J’s and AstraZeneca’s vaccines, which use similar technology, are cheap and easy to store and so are perfect for use in developing nations. But these shots are now both associated with rare blood clots. If the J&J shot does return with the FDA’s blessing, we’ll need to rehabilitate it with a simple message: “A vaccine can be excellent” and still carry tiny risks. With millions more Covid deaths possible worldwide, those risks are “worth it.”