Hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration recommended a halt to the release of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to adverse reactions in six women, Dr Anthony Fauci spoke to CBS Evening News about what the decision means.
The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.
CBS News: People who just got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are worried. What should they watch out for?
Dr. Anthony Fauci: Well, it depends on when they got it. This adverse event appears to occur between six days and 13 days. So if you had it a month or two ago, I think you need not worry about anything. Remember one thing if you have been vaccinated within a period of within a week or two: it is a very rare event. That’s less than one in every million. Having said that, you still want to be alert for some symptoms, such as severe headaches, movement problems or chest discomfort, and breathing problems.
These are women of childbearing age. Does it suggest that it may be hormonal?
This is absolutely one of the things we want to explore. There were similar phenomena that occurred during pregnancy. Clotting disorders are known in women taking birth control pills, and it can certainly be a hormonal aspect.
Do you think birth control can play a role?
We do not know. And this is one of the questions that is going to be asked to these people, was there a common prevalence of people taking birth control pills? We do not know now what the answer is.
You pointed out that it is less than one in a million chances that you can have it. It’s very, very rare. But will it fuel the hesitation of the vaccine?
Well, that’s definitely worrying. The question that is often asked, does it have anything to do with the other vaccines, the mRNAs, from Moderna and from Pfizer? You know, absolutely not. Because you look at it, 121 million people have received at least one dose of vaccine. Only 6.85 million of them were J&J. The rest were Moderna and Pfizer, and there is no negative or detrimental or red flag signal from any of these vaccines, which is very good news. In other words, they are very safe.