Johnson & Johnson Has Its Own Vaccine, and Doses are On Hold After Factory Mix-Up

A plant in Baltimore has confirmed that several weeks ago, they mixed up the ingredients between the two COVID-19 vaccines they were manufacturing, resulting in the contamination of an estimated 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Johnson & Johnson is a well-known company that manufactures products for the physical health and hygiene of young children and infants. Because of this incident, the plant’s production of vaccines is currently halted.

The plant is run by Emergent BioSolutions, which is a vaccine manufacturing partner to both Johnson & Johnson and the British-Swedish company, AstraZeneca which has a vaccine that has not been approved for use in the United States.

The Food and Drug Administration of the United States is currently investigating what exactly has occurred in the plant, meaning further shipments of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine doses have been delayed within the country. In order to avoid any additional lapses in quality and reliability of their vaccine, Johnson & Johnson has been making moves to strengthen control over their subcontractor, Emergent BioSolutions, as this lapse has been embarrassing for both companies. Human error has been the attributed cause of the mix-up according to federal officials. Emergent BioSolutions has faced significant criticism for its heavy lobbying of federal contracts, especially and specifically for the US government’s stockpile for emergency health. Despite this, Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine has been credited with speeding up the national immunization program.

Fortunately, the error does not impact any doses of the vaccines which are currently being delivered and distributed worldwide, including shipments planned to arrive in the US during the next couple of weeks. All of these doses have been produced in the Netherlands, where operations have been fully approved by federal regulators.

Federal officers do expect that there are enough doses from Johnson & Johnson and the other two approved vaccine producers to meet President Biden’s commitment to provide enough vaccines to immunize every adult in the US by the end of May.