Today’s announcement that federal officials recommend maintaining the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine could hamper efforts to encourage people to be vaccinated. But – critically – it does not mean that federal officials should not have made the recommendation, says Melanie Kornides, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, who studies why some people are reluctant to get vaccinated.
“Some people miss the message – they are so worried about hesitation that they do not see how important it is to address security to make people feel less hesitant,” she says.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) recommended the break while examining six reports of rare blood clots in people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The specific diseases were unusual: the patients had a rare type of blood clot in their brains and very low levels of platelets, a type of blood cell involved in clotting. Similar clotting disorders have been seen in the AstraZeneca vaccine, which uses the same vaccine technology as Johnson & Johnson. This combination of blood clots and low platelets requires a different type of treatment than normal blood clots, and federal agencies wanted time to investigate the cases and tell doctors what symptoms to look for.
“I think they did the right thing,” Kornides said. ‘The worst possible thing they could do would be – if they had a legitimate concern, which they seem to have done, to investigate it without announcing it, which would make them appear to be covering something. ‘
The fact that a potential safety concern is being highlighted among the public may make some people reluctant to get the vaccine, Kornides says. Even if it appears that the blood clots are not linked to the vaccine, or that it is extremely rare, the break can cause people to no longer get a vaccine. The biggest concern is for people who have already been on the fence about the shots. These people may now decide to wait longer to get their vaccine or to turn it down.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was the shot of choice for the group of people who were on the fence – it’s just one shot and had less common side effects. “It’s going to pose new fears for the people,” Kornides said.
This is a bad time to lose ground with the group: in some states, the supply of the COVID-19 vaccine has already begun to exceed demand. In those areas, health officials and doctors are trying to encourage people to be vaccinated.
Fortunately, there are two other vaccines available (the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna shots), and these safety issues have not been seen in the more than 100 million people who have received them. People who are worried about the very rare blood clots may be convinced to get it sooner. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, highlighted this during a White House press conference today. “There were no red flag signals from them,” Fauci said.
From a messenger perspective, the break can be communicated as a positive sign and an indication that the FDA is taking safety seriously. “They’re not hiding anything,” says Kornides. It shows that people can be confident that the system is paying attention to problems, even rare ones. Fauci stressed in the press briefing that the investigation should be left to the health officials. “You want to make sure safety is the most important issue here,” he said. “We are fully aware that this is a very rare event. We want it to work out as quickly as possible. ‘
This is a good message, even if there is a chance that it may not win back and forth around the COVID-19 vaccine. People are still afraid of potential risks, even though they know officials are monitoring them, Kornides says.
But in the end, a personal touch can be more effective than public messaging. It is now even more important for doctors and health officials to hear each person’s concerns about the shots and to adjust their conversations accordingly, says Kornides. For example, if someone is worried about the blood clots, a doctor may explain the rarity of the reaction or encourage them to take one of the other types of vaccines.
The FDA and CDC must remain transparent about the investigation, Kornides said. The risk of increasing hesitation may not be a reason for the FDA and CDC not to explain the vaccine-related problems. “They had to do it because that’s the way we monitor vaccine safety,” she says. “Without doing so, you can not say that it is a transparent system.”