Let's talk about THIS (which hit Wall Street pretty hard early today before the news was tempered a bit) and which is serious if not reversed soon because the one-shot J&J vaccine has been seen as the solution to immunizing hard-to get groups like the homeless, illegal immigrants and so forth. Many such people will not show up for second doses.
Quote:
U.S. Seeks to Pause J&J Covid-19 Vaccine Use After Rare Blood-Clot Cases
By Peter Loftus and Thomas M. Burton
Updated April 13, 2021 1:27 pm ET
U.S. health authorities recommended a pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine in order to investigate rare but severe cases of blood clots, a setback to vaccination efforts racing against virus variants.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the move Tuesday, after finding that six women between the ages of 18 and 48 years who got the vaccine had developed blood clots and one died. More than 6.8 million doses have been administered in the U.S., the agencies said.
The decision prompted the U.S. government to suspend at its vaccination sites administration of J&J’s vaccine, a federal health official said, while states and other authorities scrambled to adjust.
The government’s review may only take a few days, health authorities said. A panel of outside experts will meet Wednesday to review the matter for the CDC, while the FDA will also conduct an investigation.
J&J said Tuesday it is aware of an extremely rare disorder involving people with blood clots in combination with low platelets in a small number of people who received its vaccine. J&J said it is working with health authorities and medical experts.
The company also said it has decided to delay the rollout of its vaccine in Europe, which had been planned for later this month . . . .
J&J’s vaccine “makes up less than 5% of the recorded shots in arms in the United States to date,” . . . .
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-see...d=hp_lead_pos1
Quote:
For each of the six clotting cases, symptoms occurred six to 13 days post-vaccination . . . . The six cases all occurred among women between 18 and 48 years, suggesting younger women might be at higher risk. A similar pattern was seen with clotting side effects among people given AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine . . . .
The J&J vaccine, like the shot from AstraZeneca, uses a new technology to help people’s immune systems mobilize against the new coronavirus. The two viral-vector vaccines contain a virus that causes the common cold, but which has been rendered harmless. That virus is engineered to include genetic instructions that trigger a protective immune response.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use a different technology . . . .
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/j-j-ast...article_inline
The condition in question is called "thrombotic thrombocytopenia" (platelets are also called "thrombocytes" so the name means "clots with a reduced number of platelets" which can occur basically when the platelets are used up forming clots.
An article published in the New England Journal of Medicine discusses the situation:
Quote:
Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia after ChAdOx1 nCov-19 Vaccination
April 9, 2021
Andreas Greinacher, M.D., Thomas Thiele, M.D., Theodore E. Warkentin, M.D., Karin Weisser, Ph.D., Paul A. Kyrle, M.D., and Sabine Eichinger, M.D.
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Several cases of unusual thrombotic events and thrombocytopenia have developed after vaccination with the recombinant adenoviral vector encoding the spike protein antigen of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (ChAdOx1 nCov-19, AstraZeneca). More data were needed on the pathogenesis of this unusual clotting disorder.
METHODS
We assessed the clinical and laboratory features of 11 patients in Germany and Austria in whom thrombosis or thrombocytopenia had developed after vaccination with ChAdOx1 nCov-19. We used a standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to detect platelet factor 4 (PF4)–heparin antibodies and a modified (PF4-enhanced) platelet-activation test to detect platelet-activating antibodies under various reaction conditions. Included in this testing were samples from patients who had blood samples referred for investigation of vaccine-associated thrombotic events, with 28 testing positive on a screening PF4–heparin immunoassay.
RESULTS
Of the 11 original patients, 9 were women, with a median age of 36 years (range, 22 to 49). Beginning 5 to 16 days after vaccination, the patients presented with one or more thrombotic events, with the exception of 1 patient, who presented with fatal intracranial hemorrhage. Of the patients with one or more thrombotic events, 9 had cerebral venous thrombosis, 3 had splanchnic-vein thrombosis, 3 had pulmonary embolism, and 4 had other thromboses; of these patients, 6 died. Five patients had disseminated intravascular coagulation. None of the patients had received heparin before symptom onset. All 28 patients who tested positive for antibodies against PF4–heparin tested positive on the platelet-activation assay in the presence of PF4 independent of heparin. Platelet activation was inhibited by high levels of heparin, Fc receptor–blocking monoclonal antibody, and immune globulin (10 mg per milliliter). Additional studies with PF4 or PF4–heparin affinity purified antibodies in 2 patients confirmed PF4-dependent platelet activation.
CONCLUSIONS
Vaccination with ChAdOx1 nCov-19 can result in the rare development of immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia mediated by platelet-activating antibodies against PF4, which clinically mimics autoimmune heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. (Funded by the German Research Foundation.)
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https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104840
When people talk about other than immediate allergic reactions to vaccines, what is usually feared is some type of auto-immune phenomenon. According to the German research, these recombinant adenovirus vector vaccines from J&J and AstraZeneca seem to be causing the development of platelet-activating antibodies against platelet factor 4 in rare individuals, for some reason all younger women (so far).
The situation may ultimately come down to deciding whether 6 cases out of 6.8 million doses is sufficient to suspend use of the vaccine or, perhaps, limit its use to men over a certain age.
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