By Hanna Park
(WASHINGTON) The Food and Drug Administration announced on Friday that it will discard about 60 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine produced in a troubled Baltimore plant that accidentally contaminated a batch of the company’s vaccine, New York Times reports.
The FDA also plans to clear nearly 10 million doses of J&J’s vaccine to be distributed in the U.S. or sent to other countries. It will issue a warning that regulators cannot guarantee good manufacturing practices by Emergent BioSolutions, which produces shots for both J&J and AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine.
The 10 million J&J doses only represent a fraction of the existing stock made by Emergent.
In March, Emergent's Baltimore plant ruined a batch of J&J doses by mixing them with the active ingredient of the AstraZeneca vaccine. More than 100 million doses of J&J and at least 70 million doses of AstraZeneca were put on hold during the FDA's investigation of the facility and the remaining batches.
The federal agency has not yet allowed Emergent to reopen its factory, which has been closed for two months due to regulatory concerns, per the Times.
Federal officials have stripped Emergent of its role in manufacturing AstraZeneca’s vaccine and J&J has asserted direct control over producing its vaccine there.
The loss of 60 million Johnson & Johnson doses marks a dent in the Biden administration’s global vaccination plan to curb the ongoing pandemic. The one-shot J&J’s vaccine was once considered a potential game-changer in the nation’s vaccine supply, which the administration had counted on to share abroad, NYT reports.
Now, the U.S. government has an ample supply of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the two other federally authorized vaccine manufacturers.