Pausing J&J Vaccine Rollout Is a Move to Keep Public Trust (Interview w/ Florian Douam)
Original article from The Brink , 2021
In this Q&A, a BU vaccine researcher says it’s the right course, but that the vaccine’s benefits “without doubt outweigh the risks”
On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that states pause their rollout of the Johnson & Johnson one-shot COVID-19 vaccine, citing six people who suffered rare cases of blood clotting in a vein carrying blood away from the brain. The six cases occurred in American women between the ages of 18 and 48, and one of the women died.
The news comes as Johnson & Johnson was also dealing with a processing plant that botched 15 million doses before distribution. Tuesday’s Johnson & Johnson pause, which could last days or a week, is also an obstacle to President Biden’s administration as it tries to assure vaccine-hesitant Americans that the coronavirus vaccines are safe. On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said at a White House press briefing: “This is a really rare event. If you look at what we know so far, there have been six out of the 6.85 million doses, which is less than one in a million.”
For help explaining the news, The Brink reached out to Florian Douam, a virologist and vaccine expert at BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL). At the NEIDL, Douam is developing humanized mouse models that can help lead to better vaccines against COVID-19 in humans. Douam, who is also a BU School of Medicine assistant professor of microbiology, gave us his take on how the J&J news will impact national and global COVID vaccination efforts as well as vaccine hesitancy among the public.
Q&A
With Florian Douam
The Brink: Were you surprised by the news today?
Douam: Partially. You’ve probably heard about what is going on with the AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe—the European Medicines Agency has established a link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and some thrombosis cases. Both the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are derived from an adenovirus. So when I heard the news, my first thought was, this might be bad news in general for adenovirus-based vaccines.
Can you explain what you mean by that?
It’s the first time we’ve vaccinated so many people with an adenovirus-based vaccine. [These vaccines use a protein shell, derived from a virus and encased around the genetic material from the coronavirus, delivering the coronavirus genetic code into the body which triggers an immune response to build antibodies against the coronavirus.] What we’re uncovering is a very small risk that the vaccine may cause clotting in some individuals. With the J&J vaccine we’re talking about six cases among seven million people vaccinated. These events are providing us with a better overview of the risks and benefits associated with the J&J vaccine; it’s very informative from a vaccine development perspective.
That being said—the benefits still far outweigh the risks. I understand the cause for concern, for the need to step back and see what’s going on, but I don’t think these six cases should be a cause for people to fear the J&J vaccine. For comparison, if you consider the yellow fever vaccine—more than 500 million people have been vaccinated. Even though it’s one of the most efficient vaccines ever created, there’s a slight risk. About .4 to .8 percent of every 100,000 vaccines will cause severe illness (that’s about .0004 percent of people vaccinated). But yellow fever has a 25 to 50 percent mortality rate. So the vaccine benefit outweighs the risk. In the case of a massive-scale pandemic like coronavirus, the benefits without doubt also outweigh the risks. What we’re witnessing here is .00008 percent of people might develop a severe reaction—much, much less than the chances of getting COVID-19. So this pause announced today should not be a cause for widespread fear. As we try to shut down a global pandemic, the benefit of the J&J vaccine, which only requires one dose, is huge.