rickair7777

Not a vaccine exactly, but Regeneron wants to certify it's monoclonal antibody covid treatment package for use as a preventative in high risk of spread situations. Such antibodies are flushed out of your system fairly quickly, so while they kill covid while present, they don't provide the long-term protection of a vaccine or natural immunity (where your immune system learns to make it's own antibodies on-demand).

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN2BZ0CG

Excargodog

on the other hand, if you can knock down the inoculum even if it doesn’t stop you from getting an infectious dose, it still buys your immune system more time to get up to speed. Assuming it’s not outrageously expensive and has no serious side effects, that couldn’t be a bad thing.

BoilerUP

FDA to pause Johnson & Johnson single-dose SARS-CoV-2 vaccine over rare blood clots observed in women of childbearing age 6-14 days after receiving dose

This is exactly what we DONT need right now...providing fuel for anti-vaxxers, confirming concern for the vaccine hesitant, and further slowing vaccination efforts.

Excargodog

Perhaps not, but you can’t preach the values of science, science, science to even the public - let alone antivaxxers - and then not do the sort of risk benefit analysis that science requires when the statistics get a little dodgy.

The FDA has approved a record number of EUAs for COVID detection testing, treatment, and immunization in a record timeframe. The likelihood of a few of these turning out to have more risk and less benefit than originally thought is a real one. That’s unfortunate if the fears ultimately appear unfounded but less unfortunate than if they didn’t go through the process and the risk-benefit turns out not to have been favorable. That would spin up the anti-vaxxers even more.

BoilerUP

Absolutely agree - it was the right move to make, and the mechanism for this needs to be explored.

That doesn't mean I have to like the downside impact to public psyche due to how it will be spun by various media sources, then presented with little or no context (ie. incidence of these clots are similar to being struck by lightning, and women 0-49 statistically are 5500 times more likely to die from COVID than experience these clots from J&J vaccine.

Mordi

Oh contrarie. Data like this is exactly what we need. Early on in my aviation career I had two major issues I had to overcome. I would cave to peer pressure easily and I would get really worked up in abnormal or emergency procedures to the point that I would blitz through checklists. When I was a regional FO, one of the senior captains put me in my place telling me to "slow down" followed by "unless we're on fire - take your time". That lesson was the ticket for me to overcome my own nervousness of PIC responsibilities (that and developing the confidence to say no when appropriate). The Navy Seals say "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast". In carpentry it's the old adage, "measure once, cut twice, measure twice, cut once". These do not come naturally to me, and to be a successful PIC I have to constantly work at slowing down, and speaking up. For some reason when it comes to Covid - we crucify anyone who approaches their own health care with the mindset that we laud as professional in the cockpit. If it is unprofessional to rush through a QRH, why is it such a bad thing to rush a decision as to if / when / which Covid vaccine? "Its only an emergency use authorization, not enough safety data" is met with "anti-vaxxer". So far 18 countries have suspended the Astra Zeneca vaccine over safety concerns. Now its Johnson and Johnson's turn.

If its not safe, I want to know it! That is not to say, don't get vaccinated -- but if I have a choice of vaccines, I want to know which one offers the best protection for the lowest potential of side effects!

BoilerUP

Agree with this sentiment 10000%. I suspect most folks would like to know WHY this is happening, especially given that women of childbearing age seem to be who is impacted by these clotting events.

I will say, however, there's little perspective given to this. Six reported clotting events in 6.859M administered doses is an incidence of 1 in 1,143,312 or .000018%. That's about the same incidence as being stuck by lightning.

Based on CDC COVID Data Tracker statistics, women in the 18-49 demographic are likely to experience one death per 800 confirmed positive COVID diagnoses, or 0.125%.

That means statistically, women 18-49 are 5500 times more likely to die from getting COVID than they are to experience CVST potentially from the Janssen COVID vaccine. I concede this figure is likely off, as there isn't detailed demographic information about which age groups & genders got which vaccine type so you can't nail down exactly how many women, age 18-49, have received the Janssen vaccine.

Women do comprise 54.8% of all receiving COVID vaccine, however, so I feel like halving that figure to "only" 2750 times more likely to die from getting COVID than experiencing CVST potentially from the Janssen vaccine is a reasonable assumption to make.

rickair7777

Yes.

The FDA may have lucked out by not approving AZ as quickly as other nations. Or maybe I'm not giving them enough credit, but I assume they felt that since the two mRNA vaccines were approved and readily available that they could slow-roll AZ. Also possible they had observed something in the data they didn't like.

Got to look hard at this and see what the stats really are. Might be nothing all though in light of AZ there's getting to be a lot of smoke associated with blood-clots. Also possible that the clotting issue is so rare that it's still worth keeping the vaccines available, especially for older folks, since the cold-chain logs are so much easier than mRNA... that last is vital for the developing world.

My one and only told 'ya so: This is why I prefer the mRNA vaccines, fewer moving parts, any of which can have unintended consequences in biology. Finally got an appointment.

Mesabah

The mRNA vaccines result in the exact same antibody causing the clots. Politics is more likely driving this issue, the AZ issue prompted them to look at the J&J, they haven't "looked" at the others yet, and probably won't.

rickair7777

They don't know that it's the antibody, and even if it is it's not "exactly" the same antibody. Very similar of course but not exactly the same.