All federal health channels that have been administering the single-dose Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, including mass vaccination sites and community health centers, will immediately pause over concerns that they could potentially be causing blood clotting issues. The Food and Drug Administration ordered the halt Tuesday morning.
“Right now, these adverse events appear to be extremely rare,” the FDA said in a joint statement with the CDC. “COVID-19 vaccine safety is a top priority for the federal government, and we take all reports of health problems following COVID-19 vaccination very seriously.”
Officials say they are reviewing six cases of a “rare and severe type of blood clot,” a tiny amount of people considering that more than 6.8 million individuals have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
All six cases have been in women between the age of 18 and 48.
The type of blood clot, called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) requires specialized and urgent medical treatment.
The former head of the FDA, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, said people should be “cautious not to overinterpret” the decision to halt the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. “Let’s start with what the FDA didn’t do. They didn’t revoke the emergency use authorization. They didn’t order this off the market,” Gottlieb told CNBC.
Still, he noted that even if no relationship is found between the vaccine and blood clotting, further debate over the Covid-19 vaccines is being ignited over today’s decision.
“Even if there isn’t a causal relationship, even if this is exceedingly rare, I think we’re going to see that whole conversation now get ignited on social media,” he said.
Statement from New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli:
Out of an abundance of caution and following the guidance of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the New Jersey Department of Health this morning paused the administration of the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccine across all vaccination sites in the state.
The CDC and the FDA are reviewing the data involving six reported cases—among nearly 7 million doses administered in the U.S.—in women between the ages of 18 and 48 who received the J&J vaccine. Symptoms occurred 6 to 13 days after vaccination. In these cases, a type of blood clot called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis was seen in combination with low levels of blood platelets. Both the CDC and FDA have said that these adverse events are extremely rare. According to the FDA and CDC, individuals who have received the vaccine and develop abdominal pain, leg pain, shortness of breath, severe headache or other unusual symptoms within three weeks after vaccination should contact their health care provider.
All New Jersey vaccination sites have been told to cancel or put on hold appointments for the J&J vaccine until further notice. For individuals scheduled to receive the J&J vaccine, the Department will work with all vaccination sites to make arrangements for the administration of an alternative two-dose vaccine. We will work with all sites, as needed, to reschedule vaccination appointments.
The Department will await further guidance from the federal government. The federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting tomorrow to discuss these adverse events and make recommendations to the CDC on how to proceed.
What about the VAERS reports of 237 cardiac arrests, 322 strokes, and 63 cerebral hemorrhages as of April 1 from Moderna and Pfizer vaccines (not to mention the 2,342 death reports)? (Keep in mind only one percent of adverse events are reported in, accd to an NIH-sponsored study through Harvard.)
But it stops Covid deaths, so whats better, Hemorrhages or Covid?
Didnt all those trusted doctors and governement agencies tell us it’s SAFE and EFFECTIVE????? Ahem… do you believe me now that all the COVID vaccines are experimental and still have trials ongoing? Check on medalert.org and you will see that pfizer and moderna had many life threatenting events as well, including 25 cases of thrombosis. For some reason those were kept under the radar with the true data being suppressed or ignored. I am not an antivaxxer at all but I think people need to wake up and realize the truth about the covid vaccine. We are only starting to get real life data about the immediate adverse events from the vaccines. What about the long term data of which THERE IS NONE??? If you wait, the true safety and effectiveness of these vaccines will become evident with time.
So the anti Vaxers are not that crazy after all
To all you brainless commentators, if like you say, that all vaccines kill, then please explain how Israel has vaccinated a substantial portion of their population with virtually no side effects and is now getting ready to fully open up the whole country!
This is Totally Untrue… I know people in Israel dealing with the effects of the vaccine and I’m on Israeli chats. Terrible, terrible stories and deaths. You could check the AFLD website for more information. It’s all suppressed.
Reading conspiracy stories doesn’t count as proofs. You say the info “It’s all suppressed”, baloney in the 21st century with everyone online it’s impossible to suppress.
Do you remember Osnat Ben-Shitrit? The frum 32 year old who died in in February in her 3rd trimester of covid. Even her brother-in-law who ran a antivax facebook group shut it down because he felt guilty about her death.
Please think before spreading more falsehoods and convincing other frum yidden from protecting themselves from potentially fatal illness.
i think r yitzchok sheiner died from the vaccine
anyway to say virtually no side effects is plain ignorance
R’ Schenier got the vaccine and very shortly after the first dose came down with COVID (I’ve heard this exact situation happen numerous times after the first vaccine due to a weakened immune system or some other effect the vaccine has on the body) and then it was much harder to treat and he unfortunately passed away shortly after. No question in his case that the vaccine was instrumental in his petirah. His memory should be blessed.
Wrong, as per Lakewood scoop and all the frum sites he died of Covid in between the first and second shots. And there is no virus in the vaccine so he couldn’t have gotten it from the Vax shot.
Please think before hitting the send button.
If you still believe the frum media, I pity you. I research the data as close to first hand as possible and it’s very often extremely different. MANY people have gotten COVID right after being vaccinated with the first vaccine including the husband of Osnat Ben-shitrit. It doesnt matter if there is virus in the vaccine or not. It somehow weakens the body and predisposes people to it. I know someone who got COVID right after the flu vaccine for the same reason.
To question
So many people who have taken the vaccine are older or very unhealthy. Well getting the covid vaccine is not going to stop an incoming stroke , heart attack, cancer or any other serious illness.
The hard fact is that thousands of people have heart attacks per day. People die every day. Just because you get a covid vaccine will not stop death from other underlying causes you have.
Stop spreading false info.
Have their been a handful of deaths of relatively healthy individuals. Yes. But the majority of deaths that anti vaxxers are attributing to covid shot, are totally unrelated.
If you actuallly look at the reports, you will see that many events happened within a short time of the vaccine and when someone starts feeling unwell immediatly after being vaccinated and then dies in their sleep or dies within a day or 2… well we can never know FOR SURE… but we could start to wonder if there is indeed a correlation. Regardless, the longterm effects are more of the concern at this point, because reliable scientists and doctors are issuing warnings about this and we really dont’ know yet how risky the effects of this vaccine really are.
Funny how people always see what you want to. When there were no other death for 6 months straight and every death was a “COVID” death to up the numbers and keep the country closed did you believe the cause of deaths than? Or were you fed false info and ate it up with fear? COVID never caused as much death in the first place than they are saying it did. So why risk it and take a vaccine for a drug that has a recovery rate that’s so high? Especially for the health kids and 18-48 year old women that may die but were fine without the toxins? (PS also not an anti vaxxer)
This is such a good point!
Doesn’t this show that the FDA is cautiously monitoring vaccine outcomes? That is in fact the entire purpose of VAERS monitoring systems. One can even argue that the FDA is being overly cautious by stopping a life saving vaccine that only 6 out of 7,000,000 people suffered life threatening complications.
Somehow when all our neighbors were dying my anti vaxer friends said it just the flu. Now that we are all getting back to normal and don’t know anyone passing away they say all our neighbors are dying. Odd.
They are monitoring all vaccines but only stopped the J &J even though pfizer and moderna also had over 95 blood clotting events including other events so don’t ask me why they didnt stop those! You could see all the adverse events yourself on medalerts.org. The bigger issue is that the data is just starting to come out…. who knows whats down the line…