Not all FDA-approved drugs get same level of testing

Liz Szabo, USA TODAY12:21 p.m. EST January 22, 2014  |  Patients might assume that all approved drugs are created equal.  Yet new research finds that there can be big differences in the amount of testing that drugs and medical devices go through before being approved or given to patients, according to a series of articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association.  Many heart devices, for example, have been approved through a Food and Drug Administration process that assumes newer models are safe and effective based on the approval of earlier versions, a study shows.  Read more