US health panel reviews J&J vaccine pause over rare clots

US health panel reviews J&J vaccine pause over rare clots

SeattlePI.com

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With the U.S. pause of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine stretched into a second week, authorities are weighing whether to resume the shots the way European regulators decided to -- with warnings of a “very rare” risk.

New guidance is expected late Friday after a government advisory panel deliberates a possible link between J&J’s shot and a handful of vaccine recipients who developed highly unusual blood clots.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is looking to its advisers to help determine how big any risk really is -- and how to balance it with the need to vaccinate millions against a virus that’s still infecting tens of thousands of Americans every day.

“I appreciate the importance of acting swiftly” on that advice, said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. She hoped for “a recommendation that takes into account the risk versus reward” of using J&J's single-dose vaccine.

European regulators earlier this week allowed the rollout of J&J's shot after concluding those benefits outweigh what appears to be an exceedingly rare risk, and many U.S. health experts agree. But one consideration for the CDC panel is whether healthy younger adults who are less likely to suffer severe COVID-19 might be better off with a different vaccine, as the rare clots have been reported in people under 60.

“The population, the community, needs to be informed of what those risks are so that they can make informed decisions,” said vaccine expert Naor Bar-Zeev of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who will be watching Friday’s debate.

At issue is a weird kind of blood clot that forms in unusual places, such as veins that drain blood from the brain, and in patients with abnormally low levels of the platelets that form clots. The CDC and Food and Drug Administration initially...

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