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J&J
Johnson & Johnson is earmarking nearly USD 9 billion to cover allegations that its baby power containing talc caused cancer, more than quadrupling the amount that the company had previously set aside to pay for its potential liability. Under a proposal announced Tuesday, a J&J subsidiary will re-file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and seek court approval for a plan that would result in one of the largest product-liability settlements in U.S. history. The USD 8.9 billion that J&J would transfer to the subsidiary, LTL Management, would be payable over the next 25 years. The amount is up from the USD 2 billion that the New Brunswick, New Jersey, company set aside in October 2021. The revised amount is being backed by more than 60,000 parties that have filed lawsuits alleging harm from J&J talcum powder, according to the company. J&J isn't admitting any wrongdoing as part of the proposed settlement, a point that company executive emphasised in a Tuesday statement
Germany is making the one-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine available to all adults as it did with the AstraZeneca vaccine, though the bulk of the expected deliveries is still some way off. Germany has recommended the AstraZeneca shot mainly for over-60s because of a rare type of blood clot seen in an extremely small number of recipients. But amid a push to get as many people inoculated as possible, the government decided to allow doctors' offices to vaccinate any adults with it -- putting aside a priority system under which the oldest and most vulnerable have been vaccinated first. Health Minister Jens Spahn said authorities decided Monday to take the same approach with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, about which there are similar concerns. He estimated that 5 to 6 million over-60s in Germany still need to be vaccinated and that should be concluded by early June. Spahn said the largest deliveries from Johnson & Johnson, more than 10 million doses, are expected in .
A San Francisco Bay Area man in his 30s is recuperating after developing a rare blood clot in his leg within two weeks of receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, University of California, San Francisco officials said. As of Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reported the condition in 15 people, all women, after 8 million doses were administered nationally. It involves unusual clots that occur together with low levels of blood-clotting platelets. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first male patient with VITT syndrome in the US following the US emergency authorization of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on February 27, 2021," UCSF said in a statement. US health officials lifted an 11-day pause on COVID-19 vaccinations using Johnson & Johnson's single-dose shot on Friday, after scientific advisers decided its benefits outweigh the rare risk of blood clot. Three of the women previously identified died, and seven remain hospitalised. The man is .
South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on Tuesday said that the country will be suspending the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine after health concerns raised by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)."We have determined to voluntarily suspend our rollout until the causal relationship between the development of clots and the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is sufficiently interrogated," Mkhize said in a statement."In the extremely unlikely event that Johnson and Johnson rollout is completely halted, we will not have any impediment to proceed with phase two of the rollout with Pfizer," he added.This comes after the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the FDA recommended a "pause" in the use of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine "out of an abundance of caution" over six reported cases in the US of a "rare and severe" type of blood clot.In a joint statement, the CDC and the FDA said they were investigating clots in six women in the days after .