LA County to resume Johnson & Johnson vaccine distribution
LA County will resume distribution of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine after the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a joint statement recommending lifting the pause after evaluating its safety. (Jefferson Alade/Daily Bruin)
By Anushka Chakrabarti
April 23, 2021 8:58 p.m.
This post was updated April 26 at 7:52 p.m. with a statement from UCLA Health.
Los Angeles County will end an 11-day pause on the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and resume administering the vaccine Saturday after federal health agencies recommended to continue administering the vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration issued a recommendation Friday urging the U.S. to resume administering the vaccine after they found that the potential benefits outweighed the risks of the J&J vaccine.
The LA County Department of Public Health said in a statement Friday that vaccine providers in LA County can resume administering the J&J vaccine as long as they provide recipients of the vaccine with a fact sheet with updated information about the potential risks of the J&J vaccine.
The FDA and CDC initially recommended that health care providers temporarily stop administering the J&J vaccine April 13 after six people out of the 6.8 million who received the vaccine reported rare and severe blood clots after receiving it. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices convened twice and evaluated its safety, along with a thorough safety review from both federal agencies.
UCLA Health stopped administering the J&J vaccine April 13 in accordance with the CDC and FDA recommendation.
Phil Hampton, a UCLA Health spokesperson, said in a statement that UCLA Health has resumed administration of the J&J vaccine. They are following the updated CDC guidelines and are consistent with the steps taken by California and Los Angeles by providing the updated FDA fact sheet, Hampton said in the statement.
