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WASHINGTON– In yet another obstacle for Johnson & & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine, the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday limited its usage to grownups who can not or decline to get the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, mentioning safety issues.

The agency said 60 cases of a serious however uncommon blood-clotting condition have been determined, including nine deaths, out of about 18 million dosages administered. The action happens five months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Moderna’s and Pfizer’s vaccines over Johnson & & Johnson’s for booster shots.

The F.D.A. stated that weighing the threats of Johnson & & Johnson’s vaccine versus the advantages, it had chosen to limit its use to adults who can not access Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccines, or for whom those shots are not “scientifically proper.” One example would be individuals who experienced a severe allergy to the other 2 vaccines, the agency stated.

It stated the vaccine might also be offered to adults who “would otherwise not receive a Covid-19 vaccine.”

Johnson & & Johnson was eclipsed long earlier by Pfizer and Moderna in the country’s vaccination campaign; federal authorities have stated the mRNA vaccines produced by those companies are both more secure and more efficient. In a declaration, Johnson & & Johnson stated the F.D.A.’s action reflected the already-known threat of the adverse effects, not brand-new data on the rate at which it takes place. In an indication of the company’s own flagging interest in its vaccine, it has stopped supplying sales outlooks for the shot to financiers.

Reports that the vaccine can trigger a condition understood as thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome have bedeviled it from early on. In April 2021, not long after it was approved for emergency use, federal authorities stopped briefly circulation of the vaccine for a security examination. Regulators raised the time out 10 days later on but added an alerting to guidelines for its use.

Then, in December, the C.D.C. advised that grownups seeking a booster shot pick Moderna or Pfizer instead of Johnson & & Johnson, citing more benefits and lower threats. Combined with a host of producing problems in the United States, some specialists stated, the agency’s judgment showed that the federal government had all however crossed out Johnson & & Johnson’s vaccine.

According to the F.D.A. statement on Thursday, federal authorities now have 60 reports of the blood-clotting disorder– or 4 times as lots of as were reported when last year’s pause in distribution was lifted. In the interim, the variety of Johnson & & Johnson doses administered has a little more than doubled, while the variety of Pfizer and Moderna receivers has actually escalated.

The number of deaths credited to the disorder activated by the Johnson & & Johnson’s vaccine does not appear to have increased much, if at all. However there have been far less, if any, presumed deaths due to negative effects from the mRNA vaccines, federal health authorities have said.

In its announcement, the F.D.A. pointed out more than 6 cases and close to one death attributed to the blood-clotting disorder for every two million shots of Johnson & & Johnson vaccine administered in the United States.

About 17 million Americans have actually now gotten one dose of Johnson & & Johnson’s vaccine, and another 1.5 million have gotten a booster dosage, according to the C.D.C.’s information. By contrast, more than 200 million Americans have gotten at least two doses of either Moderna’s or Pfizer’s vaccine.

Trying to cast the tight brand-new constraints in a positive light, Johnson & & Johnson said: “Data continue to support a beneficial benefit-risk profile for the Johnson & & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in grownups, when compared with no vaccine.”