By. Joshua Gardner. and Afp. The Food and Drug Administration's OK is all that stands between drug companies and patients who need healing medications, but a new study reveals the agency's approval process doesn't scrutinize some drugs nearly as closely as others. The Yale School of Medicine analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Tuesday found that how the FDA deems drugs 'safe and effective' varies widely drug to drug and suggests patients who think their doctors are doling out only safe and effective therapies should think again. 'Not all FDA approvals are created equally,' said Nicholas Downing, author of the study that bills itself as the first systematic look at the agency's standards for approval. Was yours scrutinized? A study out of Yale reveals the widely varied standards the FDA uses to approve different new drugs. A startling number of some 188 therapies approved by the FDA between 2005 and 2012 were given the OK without having to cite long-term evidence of their effectiveness or safety. Only 34% of the new drug approvals were backed by a study that lasted more than six months, according to the analysis of publicly available data. And even if a drug company's successful study does last longer, it still doesn't mean the therapy is any more effective. Some 37 percent were allowed on the market based on the results of a single trial that was never replicated or confirmed. What's more, most of the drugs were never compared to existing treatments to see if they are better or worse, said the study. Fewer than half were compared to treatments already on the market. 'Many. other trials were small, short, and focused on lab values, or some. other surrogate metric of effect, rather than clinical endpoints like. death,' said Downing. Although. patients may think that doctors only dole out safe and effective. medicines, a closer look at the FDA process raised doubts. OK'd but is it okay? The FDA has a blemished safety record that includes drugs with major fatality rates. In 1996, 18million prescriptions were written for fenfluramine (left) as part of the weight-loss regimen phen-fen before it was revealed to have caused major heart-valve damage to a third of users. Vioxx (right) was wildly popular in the early 2000s until revelations of its deadly side effects on the heart became clear in the wake of the deaths of tens of thousands of American users. Cause for caution: Belviq (pictured) has become one of only two long term weight-loss drugs approved in the years since the phen-fen disaster. 'Based on our study of the data, we can't be certain that this expectation is necessarily justified, given the quantity and quality of the variability we saw in the drug approval process,' Downing said. These eyebrow-raising findings are nothing to ignore, but its authors admit there is merit to the FDA's reasons behind the varying levels of scrutiny. 'The agency applies the same statutory approval standards of safety and efficacy to all drugs, but uses regulatory flexibility in applying those standards,' spokeswoman Stephanie Yao said in a statement to the Washington Post. In some cases, the FDA's 'regulatory. flexibility' can pave the way for faster approval of 'potentially. effective therapies for life-threatening diseases, such as certain. cancers, or those diseases for which there is no existing effective. treatment,' said the study. To insist that all drugs meet the same standard could result in higher costs and longer wait times. Still,. researchers said the public and the regulatory community should be. aware of the vastly differing standards for market approval. 'Based. on our analysis, some drugs are approved on the basis of large,. high-quality clinical trials, while others are approved based on results. of smaller trials,' said senior author Joseph Ross, assistant professor. of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine. 'There was a lack of uniformity in the level of evidence the FDA used.' The FDA does not require data on comparative effectiveness as part of its approval process, the JAMA study noted. Ross. said only 40 percent of drug approvals involved a clinical trial that. compared one new drug to another, which he described as 'an important. step for determining whether the new drug is a better option than. existing, older drugs.'

Write highlights.
The Yale analysis found the FDA allowed 37 percent of drugs onto the market after a single trial that was never replicated or confirmed. Just 34 percent of new drug approvals were backed by a study that lasted more than six months. The study concludes that patients' assumptions that doctors dole out trustworthy and effective drugs cannot be 'necessarily justified'

Problem: Try as they might, President Barack Obama and his administration can no longer get away with attributing their 'scandals' to their predecessors, former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday. 'They've been in office a long time now, going on six years,' Cheney pointed out on AM 970. 'They can't. blame George Bush anymore. 'I think he's. been a failure as a president,' Cheney charged. Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, pictured here in Washington, D.C. in May, said Sunday that Obama is a 'failure as a president.' Cheney, left, the former vice president under George W. Bush, center, said that the Obama administration can no longer blame his former boss for all their woes. Bush and Cheney are pictured here with former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert on the House floor during the State of the Union address in 2006. Cheney, who has returned to his Wyoming roots since serving as vice president under George W. Bush, told the radio station that Washington is 'a mess' these days he's glad he no longer has to live there. 'I think the scandals, with respect to the Veterans Administration, with respect to the IRS, these are bad situations,' he said, according to Business Insider. 'Even worse,' Cheney said, is the current administration's 'absolute gutting' of the military. 'The army is being cut by this administration back to a level that is lower than what we had at the time of Pearl Harbor in 1941.' Cheney, a former Department of Defense Secretary under President H.W. Bush, said he'd learned that the army was about to get rid of 500 majors and it recently laid off a 'large group' of captains. 'They're dramatically cutting back the defense budget, year after year. after year,' he opined. While Cheney said he thinks Obama is out of line for scapegoating his predecessor, the former Bush administration official forewarned Obama that future presidents would be justified in reprobating him over the dilapidation of the U.S. military. 'I think it's a terrible mistake. I think we'll pay a terrible price for. it down the road when his successors are faced with world crises and. we don't have the kind of military that will let us guarantee that we. can get a favorable outcome,' Cheney said of the cuts in audio of the interview provided by Mediate. Noting that it takes years to train members of the nation's armed forces, Cheney argued that a draw down of forces would 'cripple us in future years.' Cheney levied similar criticisms at Obama during a meeting of Republican Party officials on Thursday evening, Time reports. 'We need the world’s strongest military,' Cheney reportedly said. 'It’s as important now as it’s ever been. 'President Obama is making an enormous impact on some President 15 or 20 years from now when he has to respond to some crisis. 'I can guarantee you no future secretary of defense will call Barack Obama and thank him for what he did,' Cheney added. Presumably speaking about the Middle East, Cheney said: 'We are not involved in that part of the world for charity. We are involved for our basic interests.'
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Answer:
Cheney served as George W. Bush's vice president and George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense. 'I think he's. been a failure as a president,' Cheney said of Obama. 'Even worse' that the current administration's scandals is the 'absolute gutting' of the military, he charged. 'I think we'll pay a terrible price for. it down the road when his successors are faced with world crises'