On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) further restricted the use of Johnson & Johnson coronavirus shots, again pushing Americans to use just the coronavirus shots from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
Pointing to blood clots arising from Johnson & Johnson shots as the reason, the FDA announced its new limitation on the availability of Johnson & Johnson shots, referred to by the FDA as Janssen shots, to only “individuals 18 years of age and older for whom other authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccines are not accessible or clinically appropriate, and to individuals 18 years of age and older who elect to receive the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine because they would otherwise not receive a COVID-19 vaccine.”
Yet, the Johnson & Johnson shots are not alone in carrying risks of blood clots and other effects that result in injury and death. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots are in the same boat. And all the shots have been failures in efficacy, falling far short of achieving initial claims regarding protecting people who receive the shots from coronavirus infection, as well as regarding preventing transmission of coronavirus from them to other people.
Nonetheless, the United States government has repeatedly singled out the Johnson & Johnson shots for criticism and restrictions. I have written about previous occurrences here, here, here, and here. Why do Johnson & Johnson’s competitor companies with shots of a different sort — mRNA — keep sliding by despite similar failures in safety and efficacy? It seems like the United States government is playing favorites to benefit either certain companies or the mRNA shots.
