After the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended a pause in administering the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, Quinnipiac University students and faculty who received the J&J vaccine voiced their thoughts and concerns.
The pause stemmed from six women between the ages of 18 and 48 developing a condition called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, which is a brain blood clot combined with low platelet counts after getting their J&J vaccine. The FDA and CDC want to further investigate the issue, asking pharmacies and vaccination sites to hold off on giving out this vaccine.
“The pause in administering the J&J vaccine worried me, especially since I had just received the vaccine and was experiencing rough side effects,” said Katie Place, associate professor of strategic communication at Quinnipiac. “Pausing administration of the vaccine to investigate is the ethical thing to do in order to reassess the safety of the vaccine, even if the risks of developing a clotting disorder are very slim.”
Place received her J&J vaccine at the 24 hour Trinity Health Vax-a-thon in Hartford this past weekend. She experienced fever, chills, body aches and a severe headache after receiving the vaccine.
Students who also received the J&J faced similar side effects. Sydney Nelson, freshman health science studies major, had nausea, a headache, fever, body aches and vomited after receiving her vaccine at Rite Aid on April 10.
At first Nelson said she was nervous after hearing the news of the pause in the J&J vaccine, but believes that side effects to vaccines are normal.
“There are rare bad reactions and side effects to all vaccines, so I am not too concerned,” Nelson said.
Rebecca Knight, a senior accounting major, also got the J&J vaccine on April 5, at the Xfinity Center in Hartford. She too had side effects, but is not very concerned about the pause as blood clotting can also be caused by hormonal birth control.
“(It) makes you think if the vaccine was really tested on females, especially ones on hormonal birth control which can also result in blood clots,” Knight said.
However, Dr. David Hill, senior medical adviser of the COVID-19 task force, said people really shouldn’t compare the blood clots caused by birth control to the condition these six women have as they are different.
“The type of clot that’s seen typically with birth control pills is generally not a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, so this is something different,” Hill said. “The clots that you see with birth control pills are typically lower extremity clots and not as severe. So yes blood clots occur at a higher rate with birth control pills, but they are not of this type.”
For students, faculty and staff who received the J&J vaccine before the pause, Hill said to be alert to their symptoms if they are in the first two weeks after receiving it, so they can get evaluated quickly. Some symptoms include headache and weakness. After those two weeks are over, Hill said recipients should be fine.
In an email sent to the Quinnipiac community, Hill announced that the university will be hosting a vaccine clinic the last week of April for students. Originally the clinic was going to host the J&J vaccine, but is now going to administer the Pfizer vaccine.
“The J&J vaccine was going to be ideal because it was one and done and (Pfizer) necessitates that you get your second dose on your own,” Hill said. “We will be running a second clinic at some point.”
And for students, faculty or staff that are worried about receiving a COVID-19 vaccine after the recent news about J&J, Hill said that it is important to recognize the transparency of the system and that millions of Americans have received the other two vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna.
“We do have a system that recognizes when adverse events like this happens and the public is informed, we’re not hiding anything and with the other two vaccines, we have tens of millions of doses, so we should feel very comfortable,” Hill said. “… Never say never, but with several months of giving those vaccines to millions and millions, there haven’t been any surprises.”