Blood Clots in Brain Venous Drainage System associated with a Low Platelet count pausing use of Johnson and Johnson Vaccine
What happened: 6 cases of women 18 to 48 yrs of age in 7 million doses given in US, 1 death and 1 person the ICU had this complication within 2 weeks of receiving the vaccine. Presenting symptom is severe headache and stroke like symptoms. Background rate for this illness is 2 to 14/million but the concern was seeing low platelets. This pattern is similar to Astra-Zeneca vaccine blood clot complication and it works similar to JnJ vaccine (a modified adenovirus used to help the vaccine work) Not seeing this Pfizer or Moderna.
Suspected mechanism: Speculated cause is an immune response activating the clotting system. I wonder if the issue is birth control or female hormones-estrogen, progesterone are somehow involved with a genetic predisposition to blood clotting. Scientific analysis of the data will be available in days to make specific recommendations. The FDA and CDC are working with other health safety organizations across the globe to better understand this issue. Qualified scientists in many countries are working together in this analysis. I had the JnJ vaccine 5 weeks ago and am fine.
What you should do: Anyone who has received a JnJ vaccine in the past 3 weeks needs to go to the emergency room (ER) if get a severe headache, stroke like symptoms https://www.cdc.gov/stroke/signs_symptoms.htm or chest pain and shortness of breath (symptom of blood clot in the lung) and let them know you had the JnJ vaccine. Call your doctor with leg pain and swelling or if severe go the ER. A directive will be available soon for which group in the population should not get the JnJ vaccine and who can.