Diabetes Symptoms Weblog

February 6, 2002<br
Guides Often Hide Ties of Doctors<br
STOLBERG<br
guidelines for treating conditions like heart disease,
depression and diabetes has found that nearly 9 out of 10
have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry,
and the ties are almost never disclosed.<br
has long been known that contact with the
pharmaceutical industry can influence individual doctors’
prescribing patterns and that financial support from drug
manufacturers can affect the course of academic
research.<br
a team from the University of Toronto, is the first
to document the extent to which the industry may
influence so-called clinical practice guidelines. These

voluntary guidelines, which are typically published in
medical journals and endorsed by medical societies, set
standards that are followed by countless
doctors.<br
as unbiased,” said Sheldon Krimsky, a health policy
expert at Tufts University who has written extensively
on financial conflicts of interest. “The fact that
there is a veil of secrecy over most of these does not
bode well for a clinical community which is trying to
ensure trust in the public.”<br
week’s issue of The Journal of the American Medical
Association, sought the opinions of 192 medical experts who
participated in writing 44 sets of practice guidelines
covering treatment for asthma, coronary artery disease,
depression, diabetes, high cholesterol, pneumonia and other
ailments. <br
of 10 had some type of financial relationship with a
drug manufacturer, including research financing and
speaking, travel or consulting fees. About 6 out of 10 had
financial ties to companies whose drugs were either
considered or recommended in the guidelines they
wrote.<br
by pharmaceutical companies and carried declarations
stating so. But of the 44 guidelines, just one reported a
potential conflict of interest.<br
said Dr. David Blumenthal, a health policy expert at
Harvard Medical School who has written about financial
conflicts in the medical profession. “This is just
emblematic of the extensive, often undisclosed relationships
that exist between medical experts and pharmaceutical
companies.”<br
debate in medicine. Pharmaceutical companies often
underwrite the cost of medical conferences and hire
prominent academic doctors to serve as speakers or to lead
symposiums at which the companies’ drugs are
discussed.<br

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