The suspension of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine over concerns about a vanishingly small number of blood-clotting issues is a perfect illustration of the limits of journalism.
My Twitter feed is filled with admonitions to the media saying that we should remind our audience of how rare this side effect has been — six total cases out of nearly 7 million vaccines. That’s much lower than the risk women face using birth control pills or, for that matter, much rarer than the risk of dying or becoming seriously ill from COVID. Just one example:
1 in 1,000 women get blood clots from birth control pills.
Less than 1 in 1 million have gotten a blood clot from the J&J vaccine.
FDA has paused J&J for a few days while they disseminate info about how to treat this super rare clot if it occurs. Report with context. Please!
— Arlen Parsa (@arlenparsa) April 13, 2021
Fair enough. We should always strive to be responsible. But it was the government, not the media, that made this announcement. And if people become unnecessarily frightened into rejecting the J&J vaccine, or any vaccine, that’s on the government, not the media.
We get many things wrong. But we’re actually pretty good at passing along frightening announcements from official sources.
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I don’t think you mean to, but your statement (“But it was the government, not the media, that made this announcement. And if people become unnecessarily frightened into rejecting the J&J vaccine, or any vaccine, that’s on the government, not the media.”) seems to absolve journalists of any responsibility for providing context.
And if it is not the journalist’s role to provide context, then there’s a limited need for journalists.