The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that vaccine providers should resume using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that vaccine providers should resume using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and a review of all available data about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine indicate that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and the Colorado Joint Vaccine Task Force are alerting providers they can proceed with using the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine immediately.
What do you need to know about receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine?
- If you get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Colorado, you will receive the FDA’s updated warning to patients about the increased risk of very rare but potentially severe thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS).
- TTS is very rare, but more common in women under the age of 50 (approximately 7 cases of TTS per 1,000,000 vaccine doses have been identified in this group to date). The reported adverse event is only associated with the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccines, not the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, and is very rare, occurring in less than one in 1,000,000 people.
- The use of the vaccine was paused to further inform health care providers about the possible risk of TTS. Health care providers have now received information on how to identify and treat TTS in the very rare case it were to occur.
No vaccine is recommended over another. All three COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and free.
How do we know COVID-19 Vaccines are safe?
The FDA and CDC closely monitor vaccine safety, and both agencies have both longstanding and new safety systems in place for heightened monitoring of all COVID-19 vaccines.
According to the CDC, "Safety and effectiveness were top priorities in developing COVID-19 vaccines. Researchers relied on years of previous research in other viruses and vaccines to help inform a vaccine development process for COVID-19." Typically each phase in a vaccine clinical trial takes several months to a year, and takes place only after the phase before has ended. Due to the urgent need presented by the severity of the pandemic, researchers completed the phases of the required clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccine at the same time, or with some overlap, in order to work quickly but within proven vaccine safety protocol and without skipping any steps. Everyone involved in the production of COVID-19 vaccines, which included many governments around the world including the U.S. government and private funders and philanthropists, dedicated financial resources to developing a COVID-19 vaccine, which allowed pharmaceutical companies to focus on research right away.
Learn more about vaccine safety.