The J&J Rescue Mission Starts With a Choice
Had Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine been the first to get the FDA’s green light, it might have been hailed from the get-go for what it actually is: a scientific and technological marvel. It requires just one injection to confer full immunity—a boon for needlephobes and tough-to-reach populations who can’t easily access a second dose. It’s relatively cheap and has forgiving refrigeration requirements, making it a breeze to ship and store. And clinical trials showed that it’s a knockout at guarding against hospitalization and death, and 66 percent effective at preventing moderate to severe cases of COVID-19, even amid the rise of antibody-dodging coronavirus variants. Johnson & Johnson accomplished all this in less than a year, granting the world a safe and effective vaccine crucial to hastening the pandemic’s eventual end.
That’s not how the J&J story played out.
By the time the authorization for the J&J vaccine went through, its mRNA-based counterparts, boasting clinical-trial efficacies of roughly 95 percent, had been in the field for months. Experts cautioned that differences in trial design and timing made the trio of vaccines impossible to accurately compare. But people pitted them against one another all the same, and time” just as it surged into some of the disadvantaged populations hit hardest by the pandemic, raising discomfiting questions about whether the rich and privileged were hoarding the top-tier vaccines for themselves. Manufacturing snafus that quickly . Last month’s , when the CDC and FDA linked the vaccine to a rare and unusual blood-clotting disorder, dealt the shot yet another blow, in confidence in the J&J formulation.
