MIAMI — Johnson & Johnson vaccinations are one step closer to resuming in Florida now that the Food & Drug Administration on Friday evening lifted a national pause on the vaccines after blood-clot concerns arose.
The decision, which came after a committee with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to end the pause Friday, means that states can resume the J&J vaccines.
The FDA said it will add a warning to the J&J vaccines to note the potential risk of rare blood clots.
Committee members agreed that the benefits of the one-dose COVID-19 vaccine outweighed the risks of developing blood clots.
U.S. and European health officials paused the vaccines last week after reports that six women who had received the vaccine had contracted a rare blood clotting disorder. Nine other women also developed the clots. In total, three women have died and several have been hospitalized.
The European Union on Tuesday resumed the vaccinations after the company added warning labels to the shots.
J&J shots could be back at Miami Dade College North campus and the other federally supported sites in Tampa, Jacksonville and Orlando sometime next week, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which oversees vaccine distribution at the four FEMA sites.
Vaccine pop-up sites will also continue to give Pfizer and Moderna until further notice. Earlier in the day, the state had said that if the J&J pause were lifted, the state would plan to have J&J pop-ups possibly by next weekend.
(McClatchy News staff writer Katie Camero contributed to this report.)
