Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Anxiety, Not The Actual Shot, Caused Dozens Of Reactions To J&J Vaccine
The Hill: CDC: Dozens Of Adverse Reactions Caused By Anxiety, Not Johnson & Johnson Vaccine
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has concluded that dozens of Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients experienced adverse physical reactions because of anxiety and not the vaccine itself, according to a report published Friday. The agency investigated clusters of anxiety-related events, with a total 64 incidents out of 8,624 doses administered, reported to the CDC by five mass vaccination sites across five different states. (Coleman, 4/30)
Fox News: Fainting After Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccination 164 Times More Common Than Post-Flu Shot: CDC
Prior to reports of rare but serious blood clotting with Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, federal health authorities were investigating dozens of anxiety-related events and fainting episodes in vaccine recipients, according to the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In early April, four of out five mass vaccination sites across different states temporarily shuttered while the CDC analyzed 64 anxiety-related events, including 17 instances of syncope, or fainting among some 8,600 vaccine recipients. None of the reports were classified as serious, the agency said. (Rivas, 5/1)
Bloomberg: Victims Of Rare Vaccine Injury Wait To See If U.S. Fund Will Pay
High school senior Emma Burkey received her “one and done” Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine on March 20, and within two weeks was in an induced coma following seizures and clotting in her brain. She’s making a slow recovery, having recently been transfered from the hospital to a rehabilitation center, and the first round of bills totaled $513,000. The 18-year-old’s family friends in the Las Vegas area started a GoFundMe account to help with medical expenses from the very rare vaccine reaction. (Decker, 5/3)
KHN: Detecting Rare Blood Clots Was A Win, But US Vaccine Safety System Still Has Gaps
The quick detection of an ultra-rare blood clotting reaction in some covid-19 vaccine recipients showed the power of a federal warning system for vaccine safety issues, but experts worry that blind spots in the program could hamper detection of other unexpected side effects. Before the pandemic began, the Food and Drug Administration had scaled back a program it used successfully to track adverse events during and after the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, and the agency is still ramping up its replacement, said Dr. Robert Chen, scientific director of the Brighton Collaboration, a nonprofit global vaccine safety network. (JoNel Aleccia, 5/3)
And an analysis found few injuries from nasal swabs —
CIDRAP: Report Details Rare Injuries From Nasopharyngeal COVID-19 Swabbing
Risk of complication from COVID-19 nasopharyngeal swab tests is low (1.24 per 100,000 people), according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. The researchers found 8 instances among 2,899 patients admitted to Helsinki University's otorhinolaryngology emergency department from Mar 1 to Sep 30, 2020; 643,284 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction tests occurred during this time. Of the patients, seven were female, and mean age was 39.5 years. Four experienced severe nosebleeds, and four had broken swabs. None were positive for COVID-19. (4/30)
