Georgia Southern recently added FDA-approved Pfizer to its vaccine menu, but without enough takers for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, they had to toss over 1700 doses of the vaccine.

By last Wednesday GS had to throw out 1770 doses of the J&J vaccine for reaching their expiration date, according to open records obtained by the George-Anne. 

The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is the only vaccine that requires just one shot to be effective, but after the FDA put a pause on the vaccine to investigate side effects, distribution slowed up.

When asked how they felt about the J&J vaccine most students revealed that they weren’t super informed about the vaccine.

“We know what it is but we haven’t really heard much about it,” said Mya Kirkman and Emily Delk.

Georgia Southern students also said that they had not heard anything negative about the J&J vaccine. “I know it’s the one that only requires one shot.” said Emily Delk

“I got Pfizer because it was the first one that got approved for minors.” said Mya Kirkman. The Pfizer vaccine was also just approved by the FDA.

Johnson & Johnson also makes products that we use on a daily basis such as the Band-Aid Brand line of bandages, Tylenol medications and J&J baby powder which came under a few thousand lawsuits for using talc in their product, making it hard for some to trust J&J given their history.

89 doses of Moderna and 45 doses of J&J were thrown out because “doses were not needed after preparation”, according to the records request.

GS continues to offer the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine to students along with awarding $50 credit EagleExpress credit for getting vaccinated through September 30th.
Students can schedule an appointment to receive the COVID-19 vaccine through their MYGS portal under the “COVID-19 Information and Resources.”