Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause

What this means and what to do as a recipient

Maria Simpson / Assistant News Editor / The USD Vista

Since the start of 2021, millions of people have received the COVID-19 vaccine, which has helped propel the world toward normalcy. Currently, three different pharmaceutical companies are producing vaccines for distribution, and two others — Novavax and AstraZeneca — are in phase three of trials. The most recent vaccine to be approved for emergency distribution is the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, known for being the first version of the vaccine to only require one dose. However, distribution of this vaccine was paused on April 13 by federal health officials after six known cases of blood clots occurred in recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the U.S.

The six cases were rare and very severe cases of brain blood clots in women between the ages of 18 and 48. One of the women died, three are in the hospital, and two have been released from hospital care. The symptoms of the clot began six to 13 days after the vaccine was received in each patient.

The clots that have occurred in these women are extremely rare and atypical. They develop when blood clots are forming and the number of platelets (cells meant to create blood clots) are dropping at the same time. The few women who experienced these clots experienced symptoms such as severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain, and/or shortness of breath within three weeks of being vaccinated. Anyone who has received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and has any of these same symptoms should contact their doctor. It is also important to note that these cases should not be treated with the blood thinner heparin. This could worsen the clotting according to federal health officials.

It is still unknown what exactly is causing this issue. This kind of blood clot is extremely rare, especially in young healthy individuals. Normally, only two to 14 out of every million people experience this kind of brain blood clot.

A more likely cause could be something linked to the technology that is used to create the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that differs from Moderna or Pfizer-Biotech. In Europe, similar cases arose in connection to the AstraZeneca vaccine. 222 people out of 34 million people vaccinated developed cases of clots also caused by clotting and falling platelet rates occurring simultaneously. Many countries in Europe have paused the distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine until more is known about the issue. It has been theorized after scientific investigations in Europe that some aspect of the vaccine causes an immune reaction. These studies on the AstraZeneca vaccine show that some recipients formed antibodies that attached themselves to platelets. This caused the platelets to be activated, causing clots, and destruction, leading to their plummeting numbers.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine will remain in a pause until scientists, the CDC, and the FDA are able to determine the possible links between the vaccine and blood clots. They will then need to decide if it is still safe to distribute the vaccine to everyone, or possibly if it can only be given out to specific populations. A second emergency meeting is scheduled for April 23. 

Very little is known about the situation so far. It is important to remember that these clots occurred in only six people out of over seven million recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. It is possible that the women who formed clots all had underlying health conditions that are not yet known and the vaccine was only a coincidental connection between them. Scientists and officials are hard at work assessing the situation and in the meantime, vaccine distribution in the U.S. will go mostly undisrupted since the Johnson & Johnson vaccine only made up a small fraction of the doses being administered.