Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine backed by independent FDA committee

An independent committee of vaccine experts has unanimously recommended that the Food and Drug Administration authorize the Johnson & Johnson one-shot COVID-19 vaccine for people 18 and older, taking it one step closer to use in the United States. The FDA is expected to authorize the vaccine within days.

“I think it’s a relatively easy call,” said committee member Eric Rubin, an immunologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “It’s nice to have a single-dose vaccine.”

The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) met today to discuss the data from clinical trials of this vaccine, which the FDA evaluated over the past three weeks.

The FDA’s analysis, released earlier this week, showed that the...

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