J&J COVID Vaccine Use Paused in US Due to One-in-a-Million Complication
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
J&J COVID vaccine use paused due to one-in-a-million complication;:
On Tuesday morning, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a release acknowledging that an extremely rare clotting disorder was associated with the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine. The problem is actually less than a one-in-a-million issue; in data from the US, where 6.8 million doses of this vaccine have been used, there have only been six instances of the clotting problem detected.
Because the clots call for an unusual treatment, however, the organizations are calling for a pause in administering the shot. This will provide them with time to ensure the medical community is aware of the appropriate treatment.
[...] The leading hypothesis to explain the phenomenon is that, in very rare cases, the adenovirus triggers an immune response to factors found on the surface of platelets, which are an essential part of the clotting process. This activates platelets, causing clots, and at the same time reduces the total platelet count.
These seemingly contradictory changes make treating the issue through the normal approach to excessive clotting dangerous. Typically, the appearance of clots would call for using a treatment that would reduce the probability of clots forming. But due to the low platelet counts in these individuals, those treatments can make it much less likely that clots form when they're needed.
It's this difference between apparent patient needs and appropriate treatment that has caused the CDC and FDA to call for a pause in the use of the J&J vaccine.
[...] So far, all six cases have occurred among women below the age of 50 and appeared between one and two weeks after vaccination.
To put that in a different perspective, imagine giving a shot of vaccine every single second of every minute of every hour of every day.
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