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Boston Doctors Represented On FDA Advisory Committee Tasked With Approving Pfizer's COVID Vaccine

BOSTON (CBS) – The FDA Advisory Committee is set to vote Thursday to issue an emergency authorization for Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, which could allow the FDA to make final authorization within days. Among those on the committee are doctors from several top Boston hospitals.

The FDA advisory committee is made up of doctors and infectious disease experts from across the country.

In that group three local doctors from Tufts Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard.

We want to make sure that the right people see all the right data that they can and have the discussion," said Dr. Robert Finberg, Chair of UMass Memorial Department of Medicine and one of the doctors involved. "I'm very optimistic because the data looks great, both in terms of safety and efficacy.

Two of them are also members of the Broad Institute, which has taken on a lot of the testing in Massachusetts.

The meeting starts at 9 a.m. on Thursday. The voting process could begin after 3 p.m.

We will get to see this whole process all over again when Cambridge-based Moderna's vaccine is considered for emergency use -- one week from Thursday.

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