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Syracuse University quickly suspended its distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Tuesday following warnings from regulatory agencies. 

The Food and Drug Administration released updated warnings regarding the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Tuesday. Six out of nearly seven million people who have received the vaccine have developed a rare disorder involving blood clots, leading to the vaccine’s suspension at many vaccination sites across the country. 

Now that word among students has spread about the pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, it can be all too easy to fall in line with concerning anti-vaccine rhetoric. It’s critical, however, that students don’t lose sight of the advantages that come with being vaccinated. 

Scientific evidence has overwhelmingly demonstrated that vaccination goes hand-in-hand with a person’s ability to combat some of the world’s most persistent, threatening illnesses and afflictions. In a pre-pandemic world, it was perfectly normal for universities, SU included, to require documentation for vaccines for viruses such as tetanus, measles and the flu.

Students at SU who perhaps now feel hesitant in light of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine news should also take the steps to further educate themselves on the facts of modern-day vaccination. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization continually offer updated guidelines related to global health responses. They also amass factual information regarding coronavirus and, to the best of their ability, debunk commonly held opinions and myths concerning the virus. 

The virus has proven to be a polarizing subject, but we must not let groupthink keep us from protecting vulnerable members of our community. 

The university, however, should continue to encourage students to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and ensure community members feel comfortable receiving it, especially as the racist history of vaccinations has significantly damaged marginalized community members’ trust in government health sources.

A particularly significant example of this racist history is the Tuskegee studies conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service from the 1930s to the 1970s, in which the service and the Tuskegee Institute conducted unethical tests on Black community members after they were administered an untreated dose of syphilis.

SU still has a responsibility to its immediate academic community, as well as the greater Syracuse community, to offer vital medical services in a world torn apart by a virus. The university’s decision to suspend its distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine represents yet another complication since the virus’s beginning. Although it’s an easily misconstrued event, we should take this misstep in stride as a student body, a skill that we have learned quite well in the past year of uncertainty. 

At the end of the day, a vaccine of any kind ultimately stands for scientific progress, better days ahead and a departure from this uncertainty — let’s not forget that.

Eleanor Chapman is a sophomore english and textual studies major. Her column appears biweekly. She can be reached at echapm02@syr.edu.

Published on April 14, 2021 at 9:04 pm