As part of its routine review process, the U.S. FDA, the agency responsible for evaluating and deciding if the handful of COVID-19 vaccines currently being studied are safe and effective enough to use by people around the world, convened a committee on Oct. 22 to allow experts and the public to learn about and comment on the review process. … Over a period of four and a half hours, the committee, which met virtually, heard from invited speakers from the government agencies responsible for developing testing and distributing COVID-19 vaccines about the latest plans for evaluating how safe and effective the vaccines are.