Feds recommend pause in Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine rollout
The CDC and FDA will pause the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at federal sites after several instances of severe blood clots in recipients.
Media members across the political spectrum have come together in agreement to bash the decision by the FDA and CDC to recommend a pause in the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine after six instances of severe blood clots in recipients.
"6 cases. Not 6,000 cases. Not 600 cases. Not 60 cases. 6 cases out of more than 4 million shots delivered. Our public health experts continue to fail us," conservative Marc Thiessen wrote.
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FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver called the decision "a disaster" that is "going to get people killed" and create more vaccine hesitancy. Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor quoted Silver’s tweet, adding "I can't disagree with this."
Keith Olbermann, who has proven to be too liberal even for ESPN, had a similar take.
"You would think that of all people the FDA would know about the impossibility of putting the toothpaste back into the tube. This is a moronic step based on six cases. Moronic," Olbermann wrote in perhaps the first time he was on the same page as conservatives such as Theissen and Gainor.
Left-wing former Lincoln Project adviser Kurt Bardella also agreed, "This will fuel anti-vaxxers’ insanity and reinforce vaccination hesitancy. Now even more people will have license to delay getting vaccinated thereby enabling the ongoing spread of this virus and it’s variants."
FDA RECOMMENDS PAUSE OF JOHNSON & JOHNSON COVID-19 VACCINE AFTER BLOOD CLOT CASES
Many other media members from left, right, and center took to Twitter to pan the decision:
Some agreed with the decision and thought the call to pause suggested something more serious than the reported blood clots. White House adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday he did not believe it was "pulling the trigger too quickly."
The decision managed to briefly allow conservatives and the far left to agree on something, but the FDA maintains it was not made lightly.
"Right now, these adverse events appear to be extremely rare," the agency said on Twitter. "Treatment of this specific type of blood clot is different from the treatment that might typically be administered. CDC will convene a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on Wednesday to further review these cases and assess their potential significance. FDA will review that analysis as it also investigates these cases."
However, until that review is completed, the FDA is "recommending this pause."
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In a statement provided to Fox News, Johnson & Johnson said the "safety and well-being of people who use our products" remains the company's number one priority, and that it was aware of an "extremely rare disorder involving people with blood clots in combination with low platelets in a small number of individuals who have received our COVID-19 vaccine."
Fox News’ Alexandria Hein and David Rutz contributed to this report.