[ted_dunning]

What you say is something that is actually already happening.

There is no longer a binary approval/non-approval status. Drugs and treatments that address terminal conditions often get special status. Drugs for rare diseases definitely get special treatment.

In addition, many studies now use continual data collection and evaluation. If the results are very good or very bad, that can be recognized much more quickly and with fewer people exposed to risk than previous types of studies. Reaction to negative events doesn't happen in hours, but it isn't all that far from that.