More than a week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration recommended a pause on the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to reports of severe blood clots, a government advisory committee will meet again Friday to discuss next steps.
"I want this vaccine back as soon as possible," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. "I was recommending it preferentially to my friends. One and done."
The vaccine was paused after reports of a rare combination of blood clots and low levels of platelets within two weeks of vaccination in six women out of the more than 7 million Americans who recently got the J&J shot, and one man from an earlier clinical trial. One of the women died, and another is hospitalized in critical condition.