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Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner of the F.D.A., said at a news conference that the pause might last only “a matter of days,” although she said that depended on “what we learn in the next few days.” Dr. If the public suspected that the government was concealing serious potential side effects, she said, far more people might decide against vaccination.ĭr. “It’s incredibly challenging, but to ignore it would have been worse,” said Rachael Piltch-Loeb, an expert in health risk communication at the N.Y.U. Scores of vaccine appointments were canceled this week, and some public health officials feared that by fueling vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy theorists, the pause could prompt fewer Americans to get vaccinated - and expose them to far more risk. The reaction prompted an intense debate among public health experts about whether guarding against such a rare disorder was worth the cost. “There is enough vaccine, that is basically 100 percent unquestionable, for every single, solitary American,” he insisted. “Right now, these adverse events appear to be extremely rare.” Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the C.D.C., said in a joint statement. Peter Marks, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and Dr. “We are recommending a pause in the use of this vaccine out of an abundance of caution,” Dr.
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More than seven million people in the United States have received Johnson & Johnson shots so far, and another 10 million doses have been shipped out to the states, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One woman in Virginia died, and a second woman in Nebraska has been hospitalized in critical condition. WASHINGTON - Injections of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine came to a sudden halt across the country on Tuesday after federal health agencies called for a pause in the vaccine’s use as they examine a rare blood-clotting disorder that emerged in six recipients.Īll six were women between the ages of 18 and 48, and all developed the illness within one to three weeks of vaccination.
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