Healthcare
Biden admin pauses distribution of J&J vaccines after six out of 7 million report ‘rare and severe’ blood clots

The Biden administration paused the distribution of Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccinations on Tuesday after six recipients in the United States developed a “rare and severe” disorder involving blood clots after receiving the vaccine.
According to a statement released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), six women between the ages of 18 and 48 developed a blood clot within about two weeks of vaccination. One woman died and a second woman has been hospitalized and is in critical condition.
“We are recommending a pause in the use of this vaccine out of an abundance of caution,” The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
6.8 million people in the United States have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as of April 12.
“The U.S. CDC & FDA are reviewing data involving 6 reported U.S. cases of a rare & severe type of blood clot in individuals after receiving the vaccine. Right now, these adverse events appear to be extremely rare,” the FDA said.
“I know that the information we are providing today is going to be very concerning for Americans who have already received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and I want to let you know what we’re doing to learn more and to protect people in the meantime and what you can do to be on the alert,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, said during a Tuesday press conference. “There have been six reports of a severe stroke-like illness linked to low platelet counts.”
“For people who recently got the vaccine within the last couple weeks, they should be aware to look for any symptoms,” Schuchat said. “If you received the vaccine and develop severe headaches, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness or breath, you should contact your healthcare provider and seek medical treatment.”
“Importantly there are three vaccines available and we are not seeing the clotting events with low platelet counts with the other two vaccines,” Schuchat continued.
Johnson & Johnson said the “safety and well-being of people who use our products” remains the company’s number one priority.
Follow Annaliese Levy on Twitter @AnnalieseLevy

China
National Institutes of Health renews ‘bat coronavirus’ research funding

Have we not learned our lesson? The now infamous National Institutes of Health has renewed a grant to EcoHealth Alliance for research on the “risk of bat coronavirus spillover emergence.” The news is shocking to many due to multiple agencies of the U.S. government supporting the lab leak theory of Covid’s origin.
“Zoonotic coronaviruses (CoVs) represent a significant threat to global health, as demonstrated by the emergence of SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2,” a press release read. “Bats were identified as the wildlife reservoirs of SARS-CoV by EcoHealth Alliance, and since then, we have published hundreds of novel SARS-related CoV (SARSr-CoV) sequences from wildlife in China and across Southeast Asia.”
In order to “ease” concerns and some objections, the press release noted on-the-ground work under the auspices of this new grant will not be conducted in China. The study is specific to southern China, but the “renewed work will involve collaboration only between EcoHealth Alliance and the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School.”
All “recombinant virus culture or infection experiments” will also be removed from the research process. The press release assured that the research would not be “gain of function,” which involves extracting viruses from animals and engineering them in a lab to make them more transmissible or dangerous to humans.
The Biden administration has been supportive. National Review reports:
In February, national-security council communications coordinator John Kirby said the Biden administration supports gain-of-function research despite the potential risks as long as that it is pursued in a safe and transparent manner.
“[The president] believes that [the research is] important to help prevent future pandemics, which means he understands that there has to be legitimate scientific research into . . . the potential sources of pandemics so that we understand [them] and so we can prevent them from happening,” Kirby said.
However, let’s not forget:
in February, FBI director Christopher Wray told Fox News that Covid likely escaped from a laboratory in China, issuing the first public opinion of the sort from the agency on the origins of the virus.
“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray said. “Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.”
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