Experts are urging anyone who received Johnson & Johnson's COVID vaccine to get a booster shot after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee unanimously voted to recommend a second dose to everyone 18 and up.
The advisory committee, made up of an array of public health experts, announced on Friday that all adults who were vaccinated with the one-dose vaccine get a second shot at least two months after their first.
One study, released Thursday but not peer-reviewed, tracked more than 620,000 military veterans who received the vaccine and found that protection fell from 88% in March to just 3% in August.
'There is a public health imperative here, because what we're seeing is that this is a group with overall lower efficacy than we have seen with the mRNA vaccines,' Dr. Arnold Monto, the committee's acting chairman and a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health said.
'So there is some urgency there to do something.'
The Food and Drug Administration advisory committee recommended that all adults be advised to receive a booster shot of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine
Nearly 15 million Americans have received the J&J vaccine was first approved in February
Following the FDA advisory committee's unanimous vote, the FDA now has to make a decision but it expected to follow the committee's suggestion
In comparison, Moderna's vaccine effectiveness fell from 92% to 64% and Pfizer's vaccine protection dropped from 91% to 50%.
Nearly 15 million Americans received the J&J vaccine, with nearly 91% of them having gotten the shot more than two months ago, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
COVID vaccine booster shots are being recommended even though cases of infections have been dropping after a summer surge caused by the Delta variant. Experts point to CDC data that shows unvaccinated adults are 11 times more likely to die of
