Instead, the research shows that the faster pace of the review process was due to where financial resources went -- to FDA staffing -- not where it came from. The more funding for review scientists there is, the more scientists are on staff, and more work gets completed at a faster rate. The study found that the decrease in turnover time from application submission to completed review began a few years before the passage of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, thus before the collection of those user fees started (Carpenter et al., 2003).

The question for us to consider is whether the increased efficiency observed by Carpenter et al. means that the FDA is moving back toward a Type I error orientation from the Type II orientation observed by Miller et al. Viewing the drug review process along the dimension of rate of review alone might suggest that a...
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