Basic info on the J & J vaccine kerfuffle

I ' ve seen a lot of chatter to the effect that the FDA/CDC advise to pause administration of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is ignorant, counterproductive, foolish and contrary to the public interest. The same reaction followed when many countries in the EU halted administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine, accusing the authorities of succumbing to thepost hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. Well no. There is a legitimate debate about whether this was an overreaction, I suppose, but it isn ' t simple.Here ' s a good summary of the issues. It isn ' t as simple as saying there have been six cases of the adverse effect --cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, a rare event in the first place, but associated with low platelet count in these cases which is unusual -- out of more than six million doses. So that ' s one in a million, far less dangerous than actually getting Covid-19, so why are we even paying attention to it?Well, in the first place, all of the cases are in young adult women, who are at low risk from Covid-19 complications, so the cost-benefit calculus isn ' t quite as extreme as it might appear at first glance. And it ' s not just " blood clots, " as most news stories have it, it ' s something more specific and much more rare. Also, most doctors have never seen this and won ' t know to recognize it or how to treat it. Also, if this can happen maybe there is some biological mechanism going on that could have other ill effects which haven ' t yet been recognized. The same comp...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs