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Use of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine should resume in the United States for all adults 18 and over, an advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decided Friday.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices panel voted for that recommendation 10-4 with one abstention. The announcement comes with an updated warning in the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Emergency Use Authorization language directed at women under 50 who have an increased risk for a rare but serious blood clot disorder called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS).
As of April 21, 15 cases of TTS, with three deaths, all in women and 13 of them in women under 50, have been confirmed among 7.98 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine administered in the United States.
The one-dose vaccine was put on pause on April 13 by the FDA and the CDC after reports that six women developed a rare blood clotting disorder after they had received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
Marcia Frellick is a freelance journalist based in Chicago. She has previously written for the Chicago Tribune, Science News, and Nurse.com, and was an editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times. Follow her on Twitter at @mfrellick.
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