Health officials flag "small possible risk" of nervous system disorder in recipients of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine

Federal health officials flagged "a small possible risk" of developing a nervous system disorder after receiving Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, after the CDC identified a very rare pattern of Guillain-Barré syndrome in some recipients of the shot. 

The warning, which the FDA will attach to Johnson & Johnson's emergency use authorization fact sheet, comes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged Monday that their monitoring had detected "a small possible risk of this side effect" following the drugmaker's Janssen vaccine but not for the authorized mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.  The CDC said some 100 preliminary reports of the syndrome had been reported to its Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System following a shot of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine, many in men aged 50 and older.