Public health experts and state officials said Tuesday they hope the news of the federally recommended pause in administration of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine increases the public's confidence in the safety of the vaccines, given the low incidence rate of the possible adverse side effect of blood clots and the rapid response from regulators.
"I think it speaks volumes to the idea that they're very good at monitoring safety on all vaccines, and I think that speaks volumes to anyone who's hesitant, that there is profound, you know, carefulness or caution on their part," said Dr. Jean Hausheer, past-president of the Oklahoma State Medical Association and chair of the Healthier Oklahoma Coalition.
Deputy Commissioner Keith Reed of the Oklahoma State Department of Health struck a similar chord.
"For those that want to point to this and kind of do the 'I told you so' on vaccines and stuff, I would argue that, yeah, we're demonstrating how transparent this program is, that we have a very good reporting system, and that we closely monitor the safety of our vaccines and we take the safety of our vaccines very, very safely [sic]," Reed said.
"You're talking about less than one in a million here, but if there's a possible link it's important that we identify what that link is and make sure that we inform providers about this," Reed said. The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said six individuals out of roughly seven million people who have gotten the shot have experienced the blood clots, and it isn't yet known it it's related to the vaccine.
Dr. Gitanjali Pai, an infectious disease specialist in Stilwell and weekly subject matter expert for OSU's Project ECHO COVID-19 presentations, said the pause was important to make sure health care providers knew what to look for and how to treat this particular type of clot.
"Treatment of blood clots usually involves using a blood thinner called heparin, whereas in this condition ... it would be basically detrimental to use heparin in this case," Pai said. "That's one of the reasons we definitely need health care providers to be aware."
"This is an extremely rare event ... and it actually gives me even more faith in the system, that our safety checks and balances are working, and it also speaks to the robust safety surveillance system. And hopefully it gives some people some peace of mind that, you know, FDA has always been the gold standard for safety and it's extremely diligent and conservative when it comes to safety of Americans," Pai said.
Reed said none of the six incidents under investigation by the federal agencies occurred in Oklahoma vaccine recipients, and the pause is unlikely to have a significant detrimental impact to the state's vaccine program.
