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

361–370 of 1001 posts

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

#361

Post by throwaway5752 »

I trust the experts here in the FDA and the CDC. These are people that have been working their entire lives in vaccines and vaccine approval. They understand the medicine, the understand the policy.. if there's anything that most people here could think of, the odds are astronomically low that they haven't considered it.

It is very encouraging that this appears to be a science led decision.

Unsure why I've been downvoted, but if you've worked in FAANG level tech and with scientific staff of the CDC/FDA, you would not think that the caliber of people on either side was much different. There are a very, very large number of Moderna and Pfizer/Biontech doses going out at this point. The bigger risk is 501Y.V2 and company evolving to escape the vaccine, and that is not going to be fixed by a week long pause in J&J/Jannsen to identify the source and treatment for the errant platelet response.

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

#362

Post by fastball »

gnfargbl wrote: post #261

For AstraZeneca and not J&J, but these slides from the University of Cambridge do a better job of communicating the balance of risks than I possibly could: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Yeah, the problem though is that we have a Tragedy of the Commons situation on our hands. There is a non-negligible portion of the population that wants to have its cake and eat it too – reduce the risk that they will suffer health consequences from COVID-19 by letting everyone else get the vaccine, but not getting the vax themselves, therefore putting their risk from vax at zero.

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

#363

Post by kian »

_wldu wrote: post #211

Covid itself causes blood clotting in many seriously ill patients. A friend, who was in ICU in March 2020, was given Herparin (due to clotting concerns), and was told to take aspirin at home after release. Is it surprising that the vaccines cause clotting too? Isn't this sort of obvious?

Vaccines for tetanus don't cause lockjaw. Vaccines for measles don't give you bumps all over your body. Most vaccines, except for those that used to work by actually infecting you with a related virus, do not cause the same symptoms as the diseases they treat.

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

#364

Post by woofie11 »

cogman10 wrote: post #335
jdminhbg wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a vaccine for a disease that has killed over half a million people in the US over the past year, not a new breast implant. The rules are not some holy writ handed down from above, they are our way of trying to properly manage risk. When the situation changes, the rules can also change.

This is what's been frustrating for me with world health organizations. I get the need to make sure medicine is safe and effective, and we absolutely should follow those to a T when it comes to new medicines on the market in non-emergency situations. However, that's not the case here. vaccines are well studied in general and J&J is one of the more "normally developed" vaccines on the market. After generally ensuring…

Here, risk management should be a personal decision. In this case, the right set of actions might be to grant people freedom, and let market forces rule.

I think some people would choose the J&J vaccine if it meant getting vaccinated faster. Some people would choose Moderna / Pfizer, later.

It really depends on things like whether or not you can work from home, how depressing it is not interacting with people, or how concerned you are about the risk of long COVID19. That's not something we can answer for anyone centrally.

From a public health perspective, vaccinating people now with Johnson is an obvious win.

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

#365

Post by _ea1k »

washedup wrote: post #175

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.

They also need to make sure the information is out there on how to identify and treat the condition if it does occur. Proper warnings and information are pretty important.

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

#366

Post by ChrisLomont »

yboris wrote: post #312

Relevant tweet: https://twitter.com/robertwiblin/status/1381967753234411530 J&J doses delivered: 7 million. Reported blood clotting events: 6. Daily risk of dying of COVID19 in the US: 1 in 330,000. CDC and FDA: Pause the J&J vaccine. Draw your own conclusion on how aligned these folks are with your interests.

That tweet ignores that there are alternatives to the J&J vaccine, so implying that there is a binary decision between J&J or 1 in 330k death chance is flawed reasoning.

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

#367

Post by dragonwriter »

daemoens wrote: post #128

A pause on vaccines will cause far more deaths than a 1 in 1 million chance of blood clots.

> A pause on vaccines will cause far more deaths than a 1 in 1 million chance of blood clots.

Its not “a pause on vaccines” it’s a pause on one vaccine. And its not 1 in 1 million, because many of the 6.45 million doses administered of J&J are still, or even not yet, within the 1-2 week window after administration where this complication has been observed. And the pause is to get information to healthcare providers and permit them to establish appropriate protocols for handling the clots, not for open ended study. And it coincides with the timing of a short-term supply drop (-80% from prior week) in J&J vaccines that was going to force a sharp drop in the rate of adninistration at some point in the very near future anyway.

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

#368

Post by Baeocystin »

xiphias2 wrote: post #352
xyzzyz wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many more people will die as a result of stopping vaccination than they will of alleged side effects to some vaccines.

They are not alleged at this point, they are real, and we have enough data that proves it. Using a language that pretends that vaccines can't have lethal side effects is just dividing people farther. It's all about the risk-reward calculation, which is still on the vaccine's side for most people. For a 18 year girl though it may be better to wait 2 weeks more for the Moderna / Pfizer vaccine in lockdown at home than…

From what I understand, we have data that shows a few people per million have a serious health condition that appears to be similar in order of magnitude as the normal background rate of the same condition without the vaccine.

As someone else in this thread said, isn't that (potentially) like someone getting hit by a car, then calling that a side-effect? When dealing with very large numbers of people, there's going to be deaths at all ages due to the normal vagaries of life.

Do we have enough information to be certain that these clots are genuinely above the background rate?

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

#369

Post by em500 »

wdb wrote: post #294

I like how BBC calls the vaccine made in the UK the Oxford-AV vaccine but can't call this correctly the Janssen vaccine.

It probably works the same in most places. In the Netherlands it's usually called Janssen, while the Oxford one is called AstraZeneca. I'm guessing in the US they usually leave out BioNTech, while in Germany BioNTech comes before Pfizer.

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

#370

Post by ceejayoz »

temp667 wrote: post #342
conistonwater wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, that doesn't sound quite right: the benefit of taking the vaccine goes not only to you, it's also to the people you would have otherwise infected by spreading the virus yourself.

We have been told we have to wear masks and socially distance with or without vaccine, so you can ABSOLUTELY still spread it even if fully vaccinated. Please follow the health guidelines and do not spread disinformation.

That advice is based on "we don't know if you can spread it". Evidence is starting to show it may indeed reduce/stop transmission.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/dr-fauci-explains-why-...

> "It may be that we will show that if the level of virus in your nasopharynx because you're vaccinated is so low that you don't have to worry about transmitting, that's going to be a game changer for what a vaccinated person can or cannot do," Fauci said.

> The doctor explained that if the findings are corroborated, Americans will likely see a pulling back on some restrictions, but emphasized "we're not there yet."

Post reply on HN