CDC Panel Says J&J COVID-19 Vaccine Benefits Outweigh Risks

• The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee reviewed cases of a rare neurological disorder seen in some people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
• As of June 30, there have been 100 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome reported through the CDC’s vaccine safety monitoring system for Johnson & Johnson.
• This comes out to 8.1 cases per million doses administered, which is higher than the 1.6 cases per million doses expected in the general population.

Despite reported cases of a rare, but serious, neurological disorder after vaccination, an advisory group for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday the benefits of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine “continue to outweigh the risks.”

As of June 30, there have been 100 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome reported through the CDC’s vaccine safety monitoring system.

This comes out to 8.1 cases per million doses administered, which is higher than the 1.6 cases per million doses expected in the general population, according to slides presented at the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting on Thursday.

It is also about eight times the rate of Guillain-Barré syndrome seen with the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna-NIAID vaccines.

Cases reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) still need to be reviewed in depth to confirm that they fit the definition of this neurological condition.