{"id":478562,"date":"2026-02-14T02:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T02:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/478562\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T02:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T02:20:09","slug":"scientists-say-they-now-know-what-went-wrong-with-johnson-johnsons-covid-vaccine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/478562\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists say they now know what went wrong with Johnson & Johnson\u2019s Covid vaccine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration<\/a> authorized Johnson & Johnson\u2019s Covid vaccine<\/a> for emergency use in February 2021, nearly a year into the global pandemic<\/a> that would go on to kill more than one million Americans.<\/p>\n

Just over two years later, the agency requested the voluntary withdrawal of the authorization, following cases of a \u201crare and severe\u201d type of blood clot<\/a> in people who had gotten the shot called \u201cVITT.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, Australian researchers say they finally know what happened with the shots<\/a> and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine<\/a> in Europe.<\/p>\n

The people who developed the clots had a reaction to the virus used to make the shots, known as adenovirus. And, they were genetically prone to the reaction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy modifying or removing this specific adenovirus protein, future vaccines can avoid this extremely rare reaction while continuing to provide strong protection against disease,\u201d Flinders University researcher Dr. Jing Wang said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

Australian researchers say they finally know how taking the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine was linked to a rare and severe type of blood clot \u2014 and how to prevent it going forward (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

So, what happens?<\/p>\n

When people get the shots, the body\u2019s immune system can accidentally confuse a normal protein from adenovirus – which is used to ferry coronavirus DNA into our cells, leading to the creation of antibodies that protect us from the disease – with a protein found in the blood called PF4.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this confusion that triggers the production of a dangerous blood antibody that leads to clotting, the researchers said. Known as an autoantibody, it mistakenly attacks the host.<\/p>\n

Building on years of previous research that examined PF4 and antibodies from vaccines, they found this out by using a mass spectrometer, an instrument that works to identify and quantify molecules within a sample.<\/p>\n

\u201cA novel aspect of the paper was our use of powerful mass spectrometry sequencing to identify molecular mimicry between the adenovirus vector protein and the PF4 culprit target,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the missing link that explains how a normal immune response can, in very rare cases, become harmful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Flinders<\/p>\n

Flinders University\u2019s Dr. Jing Jing Wang and Professor Tom Gordon pose in a lab in South Australia (Flinders University)<\/p>\n

Nowhere to go but forward<\/p>\n

The FDA and CDC reported that 15 cases of VITT<\/a> had been reported in 2021, with all cases occurring in women<\/a> between the ages of 18 and 59 years old.<\/p>\n

They experienced symptoms between six and 15 days after receiving the vaccine.<\/p>\n

And, hundreds of other cases have been reported in Europe, although little data has been made available regarding cases reported elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Some researchers have estimated a death rate for VITT of more than 20 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For patients who have a very low platelet count and have experienced a brain hemorrhage following blood clots in the brain, however, the risk of death jumps to 73 percent<\/a>, according to University College London.<\/p>\n

But the new research can help to prevent this rare problem entirely, the Australians say.<\/p>\n

\u201cResearchers say the findings will help ensure future vaccines built on this technology remain effective, accessible and even safer, particularly in regions where adenovirus\u2011vector vaccines are critical tools for disease prevention,\u201d Flinders University wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized Johnson & Johnson\u2019s Covid vaccine for emergency use in February 2021,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,243315,22659,44982,6202,137,34166],"class_list":{"0":"post-478562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australian-researchers","11":"tag-covid-vaccine","12":"tag-flinders-university","13":"tag-food-and-drug-administration","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-johnson-johnson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}