The Fact
A study published in JAMA surveyed 192 authors of 44 clinical practice guidelines — the rulebooks doctors use to decide treatment. 87% had some financial relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, and 59% had ties to companies whose drugs were considered in the guideline they wrote. Only 2 of the 44 guidelines published the authors’ financial disclosures.
What This Means
The rules your doctor follows are often written by experts who also have money ties to the companies whose drugs those rules recommend — and readers of the guidelines usually were not told.
Sources
- Choudhry, Niteesh K., Henry Thomas Stelfox, and Allan S. Detsky. “Relationships between authors of clinical practice guidelines and the pharmaceutical industry.” JAMA 287, no. 5 (2002): 612–617.