J&J also wanted to build an informal alliance with its competitors, hoping that the industry will be able to speak with one voice about the safety of the vaccines and to address the public’s concerns about the blood clots, reports the Journal .
The news comes just three days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration recommended to suspend the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, following six reported U.S. cases of a rare and serious blood clot.
All six cases were among women between 18 and 48 years old, the agencies said in a statement, and the symptoms occurred six to 13 days after vaccination. The recommendation to break comes from an ‘abundance of caution’, they added, and these cases “appear to be extremely rare.”
CNN’s Nadia Kounang contributed to this report.