A panel of advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) unanimously voted on Thursday to recommend the agency tell the public that the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines are preferred to the jab from Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
“mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are preferred over the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 for all 18 years of age,” the recommendation states.
Pfizer and Moderna are both based on messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology.
Janssen is a subsidiary of J&J.
COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
Hours after the vote by the advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky endorsed the recommendation.
“Today’s updated recommendation emphasizes CDC’s commitment to provide real-time scientific information to the American public. I continue to encourage all Americans to get vaccinated and boosted,” Walensky said in a statement.
The panel voted after hearing presentations on a serious combination of blood clotting and low blood platelet levels that has been seen at higher than background rates in people who have gotten the J&J vaccine.
The link prompted a near-nationwide pause in administration of the vaccine in April but health agencies lifted the pause after determining the benefits of the shot outweighed its risks.
Since then, though, the number of confirmed cases of post-vaccination thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) has climbed, particularly in middle-aged women, CDC experts told members.
Data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System shows the highest rate, one case per 100,000 doses administered, among women aged 30 to 49.
CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel to Meet on Severe Condition Linked to J&J’s COVID-19 Vaccine
A panel of experts who advise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccines is meeting Thursday to discuss updates to a severe condition linked to Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The panel will listen to presentations by CDC officials on thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), which U.S. drug regulators say has a “causal relationship” with the jab, according to a draft agenda for the meeting.
The syndrome is a combination of blood clots and low blood platelet levels.
Concern over patients getting the syndrome after getting the vaccine led to a near-nationwide pause in administering the shot in the spring, but the pause was lifted after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined the benefits of the vaccine outweighed its risks.
Since then, more evidence has emerged linking the syndrome to the vaccine.
Researchers with the CDC last month found people who got the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) shot were far more likely to experience the syndrome when compared to people who got a Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
The reporting rate to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a system run by the CDC and the FDA, was 3.55 per million doses administered for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, compared to 0.0057 per million doses administered after one of the other vaccines.
The rate was the highest among women aged 30 to 39.
As of Dec. 16, 1,700 cases of TTS following administration of J&J’s vaccine were reported to VAERS, according to an Epoch Times review of the database. There were also 1,429 reports of thrombosis and 265 reports of thrombocytopenia. Altogether, the conditions were said to have resulted in 89 deaths.
VAERS is a passive system that anyone can report to but studies have indicated the number of reports submitted to the system is an undercount of issues following vaccination.
The FDA updated fact sheets for the vaccine this week, warning people with a history of TTS following vaccination not to get the J&J jab. TTS is now listed as a contraindication. That means people can potentially obtain medical exemptions to vaccine mandates if they have had adverse reactions to adenovirus-vectored vaccines like the J&J shot.
By Zachary Stieber
Read Full Article on TheEpochTimes.com
