This week, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) made no recommendation on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, meaning the CDC’s initial decision to suspend vaccine administration is likely to take effect. will stay until at least next Friday, The Washington Post reported.
As a result, 10 million doses of the vaccine will go unused in refrigerators as hundreds of thousands of Americans are infected with COVID-19. As infections and hospitalizations are on the rise in many states, delaying vaccinations was a deadly mistake, say Govind Persad and William F. Parker in their op-ed in The Washington Post.
The Food and Drug Administration and CDC justified the first pause as needed to help health care providers identify and properly treat a rare post-vaccination syndrome involving not only blood clots but also low platelets. They were right to share that information, but that emergency justification for a brief interruption is gone. There is no evidence that the risks of the vaccine, universal or even typical, outweigh its benefits in preventing a pandemic of serious and unknown consequences. Agencies must end the disruption, continue to share information and let patients make decisions.
At their meeting, ACIP analyzed the side effects of vaccines with admirable transparency. But there was no rigorous analysis of the risks of non-vaccination. On the contrary, the ACIP insisted that because “alternative covid-19 vaccines (mRNA vaccines) are available,” the trade-offs are insignificant. This shows a deep disconnect from the reality that many Americans are facing.
When the hiatus began, millions of Americans still weren’t eligible for vaccines. And universal eligibility on April 19 doesn’t mean immediate access; Obstacles to vaccination will remain, especially for people who cannot travel long distances. This undermines the light-hearted claim that the unrestricted supply of other vaccines makes the pause irrelevant. In addition, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine only requires one appointment instead of two and can be given in settings where others cannot. The disruption has hampered vital efforts such as reaching home-bound seniors at a much higher risk of COVID-19 than vaccination.
Looking at the ACIP listing can help you diagnose your mistake. Nearly all voting members are doctors who are far more familiar with the rare side effects of vaccines than with the poor public health ability to respond to a wave of infections. The committee lacks experts in comparative efficacy or health economists who are familiar with weighing the inevitable trade-offs on a population scale.
What the ACIP should provide, but probably never will, is an estimate of how many of the hundreds of thousands of Americans infected with COVID-19 in the next few days could be protected if vaccines from Johnson & Johnson were available. The resulting hospitalizations and deaths, likely concentrated in underprivileged communities, will occur within weeks and are likely to be ignored by the media. The news will spotlight blood clots after vaccination, but won’t 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 their camp . Without comparing the harm of the interruption with the side effects of the vaccine, we have every reason to fear that ACIP will fiddle loudly as Rome quietly burns.