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Syracuse University’s Barnes Center at The Arch will suspend distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine amid concerns about rare blood clots.

Onondaga County will provide SU with doses of the Pfizer vaccine later Tuesday so that vaccinations of students, faculty and staff can continue on campus, said Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie in a campus-wide email. Vaccine appointments scheduled for Tuesday at the Barnes Center will likely be rescheduled.

The Barnes Center will contact community members to reschedule appointments originally made for Tuesday. Anyone with a vaccine appointment scheduled at the Barnes Center for Wednesday should expect to receive the Pfizer vaccine, Haynie said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration released a joint statement Tuesday recommending a “pause” in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after six U.S. recipients developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within two weeks of vaccination. All six were women between the ages of 18 and 48.

In the joint statement, the CDC and the FDA acknowledged that the “adverse effects appear to be extremely rare.”

Onondaga County has stopped administering the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine out of “an abundance of caution” after concerns about blood clots, County Executive Ryan McMahon said earlier Tuesday. 

Anyone scheduled to receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from the county will be switched to receive the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, McMahon said. Those with a Johnson & Johnson vaccination scheduled for Tuesday at a state vaccination site don’t need to cancel their appointment, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. 

Nearly seven million people in the U.S. have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, with nine million more doses available to states, according to the CDC.

SU began administering its first allotment of 1,600 Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses on Wednesday. 

In a CNN interview on Sunday, Chancellor Kent Syverud highlighted SU’s vaccine rollout.

“The vast majority of the faculty and staff have already been vaccinated, and we have vaccinated well over 4,000 of our students. And we’re vaccinating another 800 students in the next 48 hours,” Syverud said.

While the European Union faced similar concerns over the AstraZeneca vaccine last month, the European Medical Agency eventually cleared it for use after an investigation for the incidence of blood clots.

The FDA and the CDC will examine links between the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the disorder while the pause is in place, according to The New York Times.

Published on April 13, 2021 at 9:47 am

Contact Richard: rcperrin@syr.edu | @richardperrins2