GMAT Question of the Day: Critical Reasoning
The National Centers for Disease Control looked at death certificates from 1980 to 1992 and found a 58 percent increase in infectious disease deaths. Yet, the United States gets new drugs to market more slowly than any other major industrial nation. Total drug approval times have jumped from eight years in 1960 to more than [...]
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Written by Take GMAT Team on August 14th, 2006 with
9 comments.
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The National Centers for Disease Control looked at death certificates from 1980 to 1992 and found a 58 percent increase in infectious disease deaths. Yet, the United States gets new drugs to market more slowly than any other major industrial nation. Total drug approval times have jumped from eight years in 1960 to more than 15 years today. If the United States seriously wants to reverse the rising trend of infectious disease deaths, it should reform the procedures used by the Food and Drug Administration to approve drugs.
The argument above assumes that
(A) there was not an overall increase in the number of non-infectious disease deaths from 1980 to 1992
(B) the cost of manufacturing drugs in the United States is the highest of any industrial nation
(C) some drugs awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration would prevent infectious disease deaths
(D) an eight year drug approval time by the Food and Drug Administration is optimal
(E) accelerating Food and Drug Administration approvals would not impair the agency’s effectiveness

Written by Take GMAT Team on August 14th, 2006 with
9 comments.
Read more articles on GMAT Critical Reasoning and GMAT Question of the Day.
#1. August 14th, 2006, at 12:53 PM.
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