J&J Vaccine on Pause

 There were 6 cases of a severe clotting syndrome in combination with low platelets among 6 U.S. women out of 6.85 million people vaccinated.  The syndrome has also been seen in Europe possibly associated with the Astra Zeneca Vaccine that is similar to the J&J vaccine.  

It has NOT been see with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. 

We have to take this seriously, so the CDC and CDPHE have stopped using the J&J vaccine for now.  There is a CDC meeting today to look at the issue and I suspect that a decision will be made quickly regarding restarting the use of the J&J vaccine, or not. 

We have to keep this in context.  It could be that the J&J vaccine can lead to this rare clotting disorder or it could be that the clotting would happen even if the vaccine never existed.  We simply don't know yet. 

Keep in mind that the incidence of similar rare clotting disorders was very low in the general population prior to COVID.  These other illnesses still exist and the incidence of these illnesses might be expected to be the same, regardless of the existence of COVID. 

For example, people have car accidents every day.  Some of them have been vaccinated.  However, it is not likely that the vaccination caused the car accident.  Correlation is not necessarily Causation and that is why good scientific methods are required to tease apart the reality of such associations. 

We also must recognize that there will be rare reactions to ALL vaccines.  However since we are vaccinating tens of millions of people worldwide at the same time, we will see most certainly see these reactions.  A 1 in a million reaction occurs 1 out of every million doses and we are vaccinating millions of people daily. Thus, we will, without any doubt, see rare and unfortunate reactions to the vaccines. Certainly, these reaction will be much less frequent than the unfortunate reactions that we have seen to the COVID-19 virus itself. 

Stay calm, let science do it's work, and don't be alarmist.  Vaccines are not perfect but it is still the only way out of our current COVID conundrum.  I suspect that you would all agree that things have certainly improved since we started vaccinating. We must stay the course. 

Incidence clotting disorder after J&J vaccine -- 6 per 6.85 million vaccinations - 0.00009%

Incidences in general population prior to COVID-19:

Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic purpura  -- 3.7 per 1 million people - 0.0004%

Cavernous Sinus Thrombosis -- 2-4 per 1 million people - 0.0004%

For comparison, the odds of being struck by lightening are 1 in 500,000 -- .0002%

Lightning Strike Victim Data | Lightning | CDC