This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (ACIP) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) made no recommendations on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, meaning the CDC’s initial decision to discontinue the vaccine will likely remain in place. effective until at least next Friday, The Washington Post reported.
As a result, 10 million doses of the vaccine will remain unused in refrigerators as hundreds of thousands of Americans become infected with COVID-19. As infections and hospitalizations increase in many states, slowing vaccinations has been a deadly mistake, say Govind Persad and William F. Parker in their publication in The Washington Post.
The Food and Drug Administration and the CDC justified the initial break as necessary to help health care providers correctly identify and treat a rare post-vaccination syndrome involving not only blood clots but also low platelets. They were right to share that information, but the urgent justification for a short hiatus is gone. There is no evidence that the risks of the vaccine, universally or even typically, outweigh its benefits in preventing a pandemic disease with serious and unknown consequences. Agencies need to end the hiatus, continue to share information and let patients decide.
At their meeting, ACIP analyzed the side effects of vaccines with admirable transparency. But there was no rigorous analysis of the risks of not being vaccinated. Rather, ACIP insisted that, as “alternative covid-19 vaccines (mRNA vaccines) are available”, compromises are inconsequential. This shows a profound disconnect from the reality that many Americans face.
When the hiatus began, millions of Americans were not yet eligible for vaccines. And universal eligibility on April 19 will not mean immediate access; There will be obstacles to vaccination, especially for people who cannot travel long distances. This undermines the slight claim that the unlimited supply of other vaccines makes the break irrelevant. In addition, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires a single appointment, rather than two, and can be given in conditions that others cannot. The hiatus prevented essential efforts, such as contacting the elderly who are at a much higher risk of COVID-19 than vaccination.
Looking at the ACIP list helps you diagnose your error. Almost all members with the right to vote are doctors who are much more familiar with the rare side effects of vaccines than with the poor public health capacity to respond to a wave of infections. The committee lacks experts in comparative effectiveness or health economists familiar with weighing the inevitable population-wide trade-offs.
What ACIP should offer, but probably never will, is an estimate of the number of hundreds of thousands of Americans infected with COVID-19 over the next few days that could have been protected if Johnson & Johnson vaccines were available. . The resulting hospitalizations and deaths, probably concentrated in disadvantaged communities, will take place in a few weeks and will probably be ignored by the media. The news will highlight blood clots after vaccination, but will not consider whether a single-dose vaccine could have protected a homeless person who came to the emergency room with a deadly Covid-19 disease or prevented an outbreak in Covid-19. their camp. Without a comparison of the side effects of the hiatus with the side effects of the vaccine, we have every reason to fear that ACIP will boast loudly while Rome burns in silence.