I Received the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine and the Pause Only Bolstered my Confidence in Vaccine Safety
After the CDC and FDA enacted a temporary pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine over safety concerns, vaccine hesitancy likely increased though these precautionary measures should increase public trust. Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich via Pexels.com
On April 23, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it was ending its recommended pause of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine but will add a warning label about a rare, but potentially serious blood clotting disorder.
In early April, I received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in New Jersey. After a year of crippling pandemic anxieties, loss and mind-numbing social isolation, it was a joyous moment to finally feel one step closer to a return to normalcy. Leaving the vaccination site, my sister and I snapped a proud selfie with our vaccine cards — “vaxxie” — a term coined by Twitter users. We excitedly shared with our friends and family that we received the vaccine.
Our enthusiasm to be “one-and-done” with the J&J vaccine was surely dampened the following Tuesday when we woke up to a slew of news notifications and text messages from those same friends and family asking if we had seen the news — the FDA and the CDC had enacted a pause on the usage of the same vaccine we had received just days before.
Out of an “abundance of caution,” federal authorities soon announced their recommendation that providers temporarily stop administering the J&J vaccine while they launched an investigation into a potential link between the one-shot vaccine and rare blood clots. After the U.S. had already administered more than seven million doses of the J&J vaccine, the FDA noted that a rare blood-clotting disorder had emerged in six women between the ages of 18 and 48 who had recently received the vaccine.
This announcement created an understandable public concern. News that six women had developed serious blood clots after receiving the vaccine, and that one died, is undeniably alarming. Enacting the pause was a necessary response to such a case.
However, the data indicates it is a less than one-in-a-million chance of developing this side effect. With J&J vaccine’s 100% effectiveness against COVID-19 hospitalizations and death, the rare possibility of developing a blood clot, I continue to feel confident that the benefits of the vaccine largely outweigh the minuscule risks.
While I’m certainly not losing sleep about my personal risk of developing rare side-effects from the J&J vaccine, I do fear that this pause will only drive up already mounting vaccine wariness and discourage the vaccine-hesitant from receiving their shot. As a result, this will only prolong the pandemic and make the herd immunity threshold further out of reach.
A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted after the FDA enacted the J&J pause found that fewer than 1 in 4 Americans that are not yet immunized against the coronavirus would still be willing to get the vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson. By pausing the use of the J&J vaccine, health officials likely fueled existing “anti-vax” ideals and conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccine, possibly prompting fewer Americans to get vaccinated. As reported by NPR, the J&J pause seems to have created a “perfect storm” for vaccine misinformation, as this confidence-shaking news allowed for those spreading false information to further feed the skepticism that existed about vaccine’s safety. At a crucial time in vaccine distribution, the fiercest of the vaccine-resistant crowd have largely used the J&J pause as “proof” for outlandish vaccine conspiracy theories, using social media to mislead the public and spread misinformation about the safety of the vaccine.
Although the J&J pause may ultimately lead to a spike in vaccine hesitancy, I’d argue that this pause should instead bolster public trust and signal to those uncertain about vaccine safety that our federal regulatory systems are cautious, robust and are working as intended to address any possible vaccine risks. By instituting a temporary pause on J&J after just a few reports of serious symptoms, it’s clear that public health officials are paying close attention to such reports and are acting quickly to maintain public trust in vaccines as well as individual safety. Those with concerns over vaccine safety should feel reassured to see how even a handful of reports swiftly resulted in a nationwide halt on distribution, indicating a strong commitment to transparency and a profound focus on vaccine safety. I feel more confident in the vaccine effort following this precautionary pause. My hope is that some concerns about vaccine safety will be dispelled by seeing how carefully U.S. regulatory agencies acted to thoroughly investigate safety concerns, and how quick and transparent they reported possible problems to the public.
If I had to do it again, I would get the J&J vaccine without hesitation as this pause — enacted after a miniscule percent of people developed side effects — has only strengthened my confidence in the federal systems monitoring vaccine safety. Now that the vaccine has received the all-clear from health officials, I hope that others, for whom the one-shot J&J vaccine is the best option, will do their part to help the U.S. reach a degree of normality and won’t be afraid to take this critical step.