THREAD
This J&J pause is a disastrous and unnecessary decision by @CDCgov and @US_FDA. There were NO blood clots in any of the thousands of women involved in the clinical trials. That is pretty significant in terms of the possible correlation between this vaccine and clots.
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@CDCgov and @US_FDA should have weighed the deleterious impact of a pause against the miniscule number of clotting incidents which may not even be linked to the vaccine and are fewer than idiopathic clotting incidents in women 18-48 in the random general population.
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The need to vaccinate the US population to reach herd immunity really should be pre-eminent here. Compounded with the vaccine hesitancy exacerbated by the previous administration, this could be a dangerous decision. We already have 45% vaccine refusal in the military and GOP.
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Super-abundant caution is generally to be lauded, but it has to be weighed against the overall benefit to public health. There is no benefit to pausing the J&J vaccine. The 6 cases could be studied while adding a warning to the vaccine (which is what will happen anyway).
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The benefits to a one-shot vaccine, particularly in rural areas or for homebound patients, is huge. To stop that, even for a week, is an unnecessary error that could actually cost lives--which the clots have not.
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