PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — This afternoon, a CDC advisory committee recommended that Americans should get the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, instead of the Johnson & Johnson shot.
It's not new information that Johnson and Johnson's coronavirus vaccines carry a rare risk of blood clots.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Vaccine Education Center Director Dr. Paul Offit told KYW Newsradio the original thinking was that this was a rare but real risk, about one in every 500,000 people.
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Now, he said the advisory committee looked at 54 cases where blood clots in the brain were blamed on the J&J vaccine, and eight of those people died.
The risk is now estimated at about one per 100,000, still rare, but a risk.
"It's still a very, very rare phenomenon," said Dr. Offit a member of the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee
"If you picture University of Michigan Stadium, which has a hundred thousand people out there, and all of them got J&J's vaccine, one of them would have this problem."
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He said that the benefits of the vaccines STILL outweigh the risks of what could come with COVID-19, and he agreed with the new recommendation, saying Pfizer and Moderna are the safer options.
"Both vaccines protect against serious illness at least for the period of time we've been looking at these vaccines, which is almost a year. So that's all good news," said Dr. Offit.
"But this serious side effect I think was considered too much for the CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee to allow to go without comment."
He also suggested if you have received one dose of the J&J vaccine, you need a second dose after at least two months, whether that be another Johnson & Johnson vaccine with knowledge of the risk, or the Pfizer or Moderna shots.
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