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Baltimore plant ruins 15M Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccines

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Re: Baltimore plant ruins 15M Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccines

#31

Post by dcolkitt »

briefcomment wrote: post #3

How do you make 15 million of anything without realizing there's an issue, let alone the most scrutinized thing on the planet right now?

I'm guessing because you're not really making "15 million of something". The process is more like making one or two (or ten) batches, which is then sub-divided into 15 million doses.

It'd be like the difference between burning dinner 7 nights in a row, versus making a single mistake during Meal Prep Sunday and ruining a weeks worth of dinners all at once. The latter is much more understandable.

Re: Baltimore plant ruins 15M Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccines

#32

Post by eyelidlessness »

slillibri wrote: post #13
eyelidlessness wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I stopped looking at news for one week and the frothy right has entirely new sentences I don't understand. Edit: folks stop upvoting this I was missing a cultural reference I didn’t remember.

It’s a reference to the HBO series The Wire.

Well now I just feel old.

Re: Baltimore plant ruins 15M Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccines

#33

Post by cortesoft »

bitcharmer wrote: post #14
jschwartzi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the article it says that these doses were produced in a facility that wasn't approved by the FDA yet, so this has no impact on the availability of doses now. It might have an impact on the availability of doses in the future though.

Honest question: if the facility wasn't approved by the FDA then why was it manufacturing the vaccines at all? And how could such vaccines be used anywhere if they were produced by an unapproved facility?

Maybe making them for another country?

Re: Baltimore plant ruins 15M Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccines

#35

Post by eric-hu »

markdown wrote: post #27
endisneigh wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Context: Workers at the plant, which had been producing Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines, conflated the ingredients between the two different types of vaccines, destroying 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine, according to the Times.

Jesus Christ, this shouldn't happen in a certified cGMP (food) facility let alone a pharmaceutical plant. HACCP would prevent this in any number of ways.

Can you describe in more detail how that process would prevent such an error?

Re: Baltimore plant ruins 15M Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccines

#36

Post by adventured »

hetspookjee wrote: post #26

It's funny to read it as J&J vaccine, while here in the Netherlands where the institute we all call it Janssen because that is the name of the institute. Im also in favor if the title reflected Janssen as well but I guess it's what it is as the article and the rest of America also calls it J&J vaccine. It's just a bit weird that it now gets the American name while they're just the parent company and didn't were invol…

They're not just the parent company, J&J owns the vaccine. It's their property.

The world knows the Johnson & Johnson brand. It's one of the top brands on the planet and has been for decades. Most of the world doesn't know Janssen. It's logical to call it the J&J vaccine accordingly, for marketing purposes it makes a lot more sense.

If the Berkeley West Lab subsidiary of J&J produced the vaccine, nobody would call it the Berkeley West Lab vaccine.

Re: Baltimore plant ruins 15M Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccines

#37

Post by adventured »

sebmellen wrote: post #29
hetspookjee wrote: post #26

It's funny to read it as J&J vaccine, while here in the Netherlands where the institute we all call it Janssen because that is the name of the institute. Im also in favor if the title reflected Janssen as well but I guess it's what it is as the article and the rest of America also calls it J&J vaccine. It's just a bit weird that it now gets the American name while they're just the parent company and didn't were invol…

Same deal with the Pfizer vaccine, really. My family in Germany lives near where BioNTech is located, and everyone is very proud to call it the BioNTech vaccine.

Entirely different in fact. Pfizer doesn't own BioNTech, they're business partners. J&J owns Janssen (for 60 years now), the vaccine belongs specifically to J&J.

Re: Baltimore plant ruins 15M Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccines

#38

Post by mulmen »

bitcharmer wrote: post #14
jschwartzi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the article it says that these doses were produced in a facility that wasn't approved by the FDA yet, so this has no impact on the availability of doses now. It might have an impact on the availability of doses in the future though.

Honest question: if the facility wasn't approved by the FDA then why was it manufacturing the vaccines at all? And how could such vaccines be used anywhere if they were produced by an unapproved facility?

Because that's how good we are as a society at efficiently allocating capital and operating supply chains. Regulators have to sign off before you can administer it to anyone but you can ramp up your production in parallel with the approval process.

It's actually an incredible achievement.

Re: Baltimore plant ruins 15M Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccines

#39

Post by Guthur »

anitil wrote: post #15

It bothers me that people have expectations of perfection. Of course there will be breaks in the chain the lead to doses being wasted. There are thousands or millions of ways for it to go wrong, and only a few ways for it to go right. It is an astounding miracle of human progress that we can get to this point.

This is a failure of leadership to ensure that a quality product is being delivered by the system they're responsible for.

I'd usually be pretty forgiving especially when there is a high degree of novelty.

Maybe this particular vaccine is novel and that benefit of the doubt should be extended in this case, I'm not sure though.

It's also possible this is common variation but we never hear about it.

Re: Baltimore plant ruins 15M Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccines

#40

Post by sp332 »

finolex1 wrote: post #20
hn8788 wrote: post #2

I wonder if those vaccines were primarily going to be distributed locally. I live nearby, and my county's weekly covid update said they expect to have most people 16+ vaccinated by the end of April because we're supposed start getting an increased number of vaccine doses every week.

"The error should not affect Johnson & Johnson doses currently being delivered and administered nationwide, as they were produced in the Netherlands. ... The Times says the accident won't stop the U.S. from reaching President Biden's goal of having enough vaccine by the end of May for every adult, but in the global race against the virus, every dose counts." Won't affect vaccine delivery for Americans. Difficult to s…

It's good that it won't hurt the current schedule, but we could have had 15 million doses sooner.
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