Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 1001 posts

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#131

Post by opinicus »

rantwasp wrote: post #124

so, let me get this straight. you have vaccines that use a new tech (mrna) that are awesome and vaccines that use “old tech” and at least 2 of then produce blood clots? something is weird here. i’m not saying this is due to mass hysteria generated by people that don’t want the vaccine but this does sure look like a case where we don’t understand relative risk. i may be ignorant and not understand all the factors but…

The J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines are both based on adenovirus vectors. This platform has a little more history, having been used in a recent ebola vaccine, but the number of doses administered has been relatively tiny. I'd say both vector-based and mRNA very new, pioneering tech.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#132

Post by _ea1k »

ravenstine wrote: post #123

I'm trying to understand why this isn't ridiculous, and I'm not sure what that reason could be. The disease left to its own accord has the potential to kill millions (someone please correct me on this). Why would we pause a vaccine because 6 people in 7 million got blood clots? Why would we do that and risk fueling anti-vaccine viewpoints? I'm baffled, but perhaps I'm a fool.

Yes, but the risk is death and there are alternatives that do not appear to have this risk. Why not pause until it is more well understood?

In the US, the other vaccines are starting to become really readily available.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#133

Post by newacct583 »

ravenstine wrote: post #123

I'm trying to understand why this isn't ridiculous, and I'm not sure what that reason could be. The disease left to its own accord has the potential to kill millions (someone please correct me on this). Why would we pause a vaccine because 6 people in 7 million got blood clots? Why would we do that and risk fueling anti-vaccine viewpoints? I'm baffled, but perhaps I'm a fool.

It's bad policy. But it's important to get the analysis right: the choice here isn't between a very safe vaccine and an unvaccinated world population facing a pandemic to completion (which matches "the potential to kill millions").

It's between "continued rapid vaccination with all three approved US vaccines" and "somewhat delayed vaccination with one of the three approved US vaccines". That's not remotely a million-person delta, though the number is surely much higher than the 1/1M case rate on these blood clots.

Honestly the worst effect isn't with the vaccinations per se, it's the potential that this may delay vaccine acceptance rates among people sitting on the edge, due simply to fear.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#134

Post by convexfunction »

opinicus wrote: post #126
bitcurious wrote: post #120

I think this is an example of where government transparency would greatly aid the discourse and build trust. Where is the math that suggests that pausing the J&J vaccine is prudent? Inputs being risk of getting covid, risk of getting a blood clot, risk of injury/death from covid, risk of a new covid variant appearing, etc. Without that transparency we’re all just guessing.

An analysis of the relative risks is obviously the objectively correct answer from a rational perspective, but most people aren't making decisions based on that kind of statistical reasoning (though we'd doubtless have better outcomes if they did). There's a serious risk that problems like this can spark a backlash against all COVID vaccines if not handled conservatively--there are plenty of people just waiting to ha…

One could argue (and many have, persuasively, I think) that Europe making a big show of being highly conservative about the blood clot non-issue with the AZ vaccine caused people to dramatically overestimate the risk of getting any kind of COVID vaccine. e.g., I recall an anecdote about a person in the US, who was going to get a different vaccine in any case, who decided to not get a vaccine because a family member from Europe assured them that blood clots were a serious risk that they should definitely be worried about.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#135

Post by ed_balls »

ravenstine wrote: post #123

I'm trying to understand why this isn't ridiculous, and I'm not sure what that reason could be. The disease left to its own accord has the potential to kill millions (someone please correct me on this). Why would we pause a vaccine because 6 people in 7 million got blood clots? Why would we do that and risk fueling anti-vaccine viewpoints? I'm baffled, but perhaps I'm a fool.

I suppose they don't know what is the cause and what's gonna happen in the future(6 now, 10 000 in a few years).

The communication that public gets is outrageously bad.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#136

Post by Trasmatta »

bitcurious wrote: post #120

I think this is an example of where government transparency would greatly aid the discourse and build trust. Where is the math that suggests that pausing the J&J vaccine is prudent? Inputs being risk of getting covid, risk of getting a blood clot, risk of injury/death from covid, risk of a new covid variant appearing, etc. Without that transparency we’re all just guessing.

Looks like it was 6 cases after about 7 million doses. Even if it were caused the vaccine, the risk there is incredibly low. Much lower than the risk of an adverse COVID case, I would think.

Does pausing to investigate such an incredibly rare occurrence increase the public's trust in vaccines (because they see the government is being extra careful with safety data) or decrease it (because skeptics will use this as evidence that there are problems with the vaccines)? I feel like it's mostly the latter, but I dunno.

Not to mention all the COVID cases that might have been prevented while the rollout is paused to investigate a potential side effect that's less than one in a million.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#137

Post by ars »

Message to anti-vaxxers: As you can see the government is very carefully tracking any kind of safety issues with vaccines. They are being open and telling you about issues despite people fearing it would cause vaccine hesitancy.

So this should actually give you more confidence in vaccine safety, because if there are problem, you will be informed.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#138

Post by ChadHomenim »

Hormonal birth control boasts clot rates of 1 per 10k, yet we hand that out like candy to little girls. Yet this is considered "too dangerous..."

Edit: mods locked my account for this, lol. Some of the idiots replying are purposely conflating progestogen stats with non-progestogen stats, which is dishonest at best and willfully evil at worst. 2/3 of the market causing clots is fine? What a braindead take. I expected better of the HN crowd.

Edit 2: The top comment on the other thread literally says the same thing as my comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26790922

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#139

Post by stickfigure »

endisneigh wrote: post #129

Makes sense. Given there are some organizations that are forcing you to get a vaccination. 1 in a million chance of dying from something you were forced to do is different than 1 in a million chance of a pseudo-random event. Makes no sense to continue with J&J given the other two don't have this issue at the moment. Of course, the utilitarian approach is to simply continue vaccinating with J&J since surely more peopl…

> different than 1 in 150 chance of contracting and dying from COVID

Fixed that for you.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#140

Post by [deleted] »

ravenstine wrote: post #123

I'm trying to understand why this isn't ridiculous, and I'm not sure what that reason could be. The disease left to its own accord has the potential to kill millions (someone please correct me on this). Why would we pause a vaccine because 6 people in 7 million got blood clots? Why would we do that and risk fueling anti-vaccine viewpoints? I'm baffled, but perhaps I'm a fool.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN