A U.S. government health advisory panel has recommended lifting the suspension of Johnson & Johnson’s new coronavirus vaccine despite evidence linking it to rare cases of blood clots.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said after meeting Friday (April 23) that use of Johnson & Johnson vaccines should resume in the United States. Last week, U.S. regulators recommended suspending the use of Johnson & Johnson vaccines to consider reports of rare but serious cases of blood clots in a very small number of Americans following Johnson & Johnson vaccinations.
The advisory group voted 10 to 4 to recommend reinstatement of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which they say has benefits that outweigh the risks.
Among the nearly 8 million people in the U.S. who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, 15 had rare blood clots, all of whom were women under age 50, according to data presented Friday. Three people who developed blood clots after receiving the vaccine have died, and seven others remain hospitalized.
The CDC advisers said it is important to inform younger women of the risk of blood clots so they can decide whether to choose another vaccine.
The committee debated whether to impose an age limit on the vaccine, but voted not to do so.
The CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will consider the group’s recommendations Friday and decide whether to end the moratorium.
On April 13, the CDC and FDA issued a joint statement recommending that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine be suspended “out of an abundance of caution” to give experts a chance to examine six cases of blood clots and see if more cases have been identified.
CDC officials later said they investigated a “very small number” of other cases, but were encouraged by the relatively small number of cases.
Earlier this week, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said that while it found a possible link between the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and rare blood clots, the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks.
The EMA said it would recommend the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and also recommended that additional warnings be included in the vaccine’s information statement.
European regulators have previously found rare cases of blood clots in people who received the AstraZeneca New Crown vaccine. The AstraZeneca vaccine and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are different but use similar manufacturing techniques.
The meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Friday followed an emergency meeting last week, a day after U.S. health authorities announced a moratorium on Johnson & Johnson vaccines. At that meeting, committee members had said they did not have enough time to make a recommendation.
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