A federal advisory panel will meet Wednesday to debate whether and how Johnson & Johnson ’s Covid-19 vaccine should continue to be used in the U.S., following reports of rare but severe blood clots among a few recipients.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, is expected to review clinical data gathered to date on six women between the ages of 18 and 48 years who developed blood clots after receiving J&J’s vaccine, according to a draft agenda of the meeting posted online Tuesday.
The committee’s virtual emergency meeting, scheduled for three hours Wednesday afternoon, will be open to the public.
Its findings and decisions will help determine how the federal government moves forward with the J&J vaccine at a difficult juncture in the pandemic. The U.S. is racing to vaccinate more people to damp the impact of more-infectious and rapidly spreading variants of the Covid-19 virus.
J&J has said it is aware of the cases involving blood clots and low platelet counts and is working with health authorities. It is unclear whether the vaccine is the cause. President Biden said the U.S. has sufficient supplies of other vaccines to inoculate all eligible adults in the U.S.
