Important note: This article is intended for those who understand vaccines as critical to maintaining their health and that of their families. It is NOT intended for those who are anti-vaccine and as such is NOT intended to foster a discussion on the merits of vaccines in this forum. It is also NOT intended to foster a discussion of the lethality of COVID-19 or the need for civic action to limit the spread of the disease.
The Food and Drug Administration authorized Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine for emergency use this weekend after a panel of advisers to the agency voted unanimously (22-0) in its favor.
Dr Paul Offit — a member of the FDA’s advisory panel — told NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, the vaccine “is very effective … at preventing severe disease after a single dose and it induces the kind of response, so-called cellular immune response, that looks like it’s going to have fairly long-lived memory, which is all good.”
In a brief submitted to the Food and Drug Administration dated February 27, 2021, Janssen Pharmaceuticals — a division of Johnson and Johnson — listed the ingredients of their COVID-19 vaccine. We provide them here for those concerned with food or drug allergies.
Ingredients in the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine
Active ingredient:
- Recombinant, replication-incompetent adenovirus type 26 expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein
Excipients:
- citric acid monohydrate
- trisodium citrate dihydrate
- ethanol
- 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HBCD)
- polysorbate-80
- sodium chloride
- FACT SHEET FOR RECIPIENTS AND CAREGIVERS — Janssen Pharmaceuticals
- FDA Authorizes Johnson & Johnson’s One-Shot COVID-19 Vaccine — NPR
- Emergency Use Authorization Letter — FDA
