US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by bitcurious » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

Trasmatta wrote: post #136

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 ev…

> 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.

Right, but the clots happened about 2 weeks after the vaccine, so that what portion of those ~7 million were administered over two weeks ago? Clots happened to a similar demographic, so what portion of those ~7 million were to women in the right age group? What about clots that cause damage that’s not immediately obvious (and thus not spotted).

I hesitate to dismiss the risk outright, but I do think that we should hold the CDC/FDA to the standard of “methodical.”

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

#172

Post by theli0nheart » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

ChadHomenim wrote: post #160

endisneigh wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please then, post your source and post the alternative that doesn't have the issue (orders of magnitude more).

"Citation needed" is a lazy way to throw FUD at an argument; if someone who didn't even leave the comment you are responding to can spend 30 seconds to find the citation on Google to answer your question, you could have done so yourself instead of demanding other people cite every single thing they say lest they aren't believed.

The burden of proof falls on the accuser.

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

#173

Post by amluto » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #155

endisneigh wrote: post #150

I love how people are complaining about this decision without addressing the fact that there are two other vaccines that don't have this issue that have been used orders of magnitude more. Why wouldn't you pause J&J? It's just a drop in the bucket in total vaccinations anyway and the other two don't have this issue.

J&J was the best option for those who didn't want to dabble in experimental vaccine tech. Now there is no choice.

J&J is an adenovirus vector vaccine, which is barely less experimental than mRNA. AFAICT the only licensed adenovirus vector vaccines are for Ebola, and those have not been used very widely.

Earlier attempts to use adenovirus vectors for gene therapy had issues due to, wait for it, thrombocytopenia.

The the one and only COVID vaccine that uses more or less tried and true technology and looked excellent in trials is Novavax. (AIUI Novavax’s adjuvant is newish, fancy, and not necessarily that easy to scale, and it may well be responsible for the excellent performance.)

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

#174

Post by stickfigure » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #150

I love how people are complaining about this decision without addressing the fact that there are two other vaccines that don't have this issue that have been used orders of magnitude more. Why wouldn't you pause J&J? It's just a drop in the bucket in total vaccinations anyway and the other two don't have this issue.

According to the article, 6.8 million people in the US have received the J&J shot. Without the J&J vaccine, those people (6.8 million others) would not be vaccinated due to lack of supply.

The US CDC website[1] currently says the 7-day death rate per 100k people is 1.4. Without the J&J vaccine, that's almost 100 additional people dying per week - and just in the US.

[1] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_deathsper100...

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

#175

Post by washedup » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

The 9 day median length to development of the condition leads me to believe that this number will grow, and that they are smart to pause for a week or two to see what the real numbers are.

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

#176

Post by jhoechtl » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

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…

The others are way more expensive though. Allegedly artificially expensive to milk those in despair.

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

#177

Post by _ea1k » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

randomfool wrote: post #154

_ea1k wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All of these vaccines are approved under emergency authorization- the long-term effects are still unknown. At this same rate (6 in 6 million+), there could easily be unnoticed issues lurking in the alternatives as well. What we do know is that the alternative to not being vaccinated is much worse.

That's possible, but this isn't "unnoticed" and the others have far longer track records in the US at this point.

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

#178

Post by CannisterFlux » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

krastanov wrote: post #148

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.

For many people the risk of serious complications from COVID is similar. I am a young, healthy introvert working from home and enjoying the social isolation in a location that does not have explosive spread right now. The product of "probability of getting COVID" * "having serious long term effects or death" is in the same ballpark for me. I would still get this vaccine (or the AZ one) if offered because I consider i…

The risk of a vaccine is very low. But emotionally it is hard to accept.

It is my actual choice to have the vaccine and go from 0 chance of vaccine-related blood clots to some non-zero value. Whereas catching covid feels more like I'm in control of not catching it by not leaving the flat, and even if I did catch it, chances are it'd not affect me that much.

I know this is not totally logical, but it is difficult to get past emotionally. Imagine if I did get blood clots from the vaccine - I'd go from safe in my flat and healthy, to dead, and for what? To protect me from a virus that has an even lower chance of causing long-term problems, and from which I can protect myself by being careful.

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

#179

Post by endisneigh » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

space_fountain wrote: post #163

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…

What organizations are forcing you to get vaccinated. I’ve heard a lot of speculation and honestly there should be more forceful, but I’m not aware of any. Plenty of jobs force you to drive which is absurdly risky

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/11/984787779/should-colleges-req...

There are also jobs. I don't disagree with the forced vaccinations, but it is what it is.

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

#180

Post by dr-detroit » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #76

cheph wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We know that there are no side effects that are common enough to be of real concern How did they establish that there are no long term side effects?

Not a doctor, but from what I've heard from immunologists, vaccines in general are incredibly unlikely to have long-term side effects on the scales that you think about. When an immunologist talks about "long-term side effects" of a vaccination, they're usually considering time ranges on the order of 6-8 weeks. Meanwhile, the 10000s of patients from the big Phase 3 trials have been vaccinated for 6-9 months, so the u…

It was researched as quickly as possible on a for-profit basis. All my friends from college who went into biomed quit because of how corrupt it was and they would start with a profitable hypothesis and work backwards its antiscience and honestly capitalism has a proven track record of poising everyone and anyone to make a penny.