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Guideline Authors Often Have Industry Ties

Financial-disclosure rules may need to become stricter for authors of practice guidelines.

Pharmaceutical-industry influence on academic research has been discussed extensively in recent years. Until now, though, there has been little investigation into how this influence may affect the writing of practice guidelines.

These researchers reviewed 44 major practice guidelines that were published between 1991 and 1999 and endorsed by North American and European societies. The 192 authors of these guidelines were asked to participate in a survey of financial interactions with pharmaceutical companies; 57% responded to the initial survey, and 83% of initial respondents answered a second survey about the more intricate details of the interactions.

About 87% of respondents reported having had "any relationship" with pharmaceutical manufacturers; 58% had received financial support for their research from a mean of 6.7 companies. Considered on a per-guideline basis, an average of 81% of authors had some pharmaceutical-company interaction; 59% had relationships with companies whose products were specifically addressed in the guidelines they authored; 19% believed the relationships had influenced colleagues' recommendations; 7% believed the relationships had influenced their own recommendations. In only 2 of the assessed cases were disclosure statements about potential financial ties actually published with the guidelines.

Comment: Although response rates were low, these survey data suggest that many guideline authors have notable financial interactions with the pharmaceutical industry. As the authors note, a more formal and consistent system of disclosure should be developed to ensure that clinician-readers have access to this important information.

— JoAnne M. Foody, MD

Published in Journal Watch Cardiology April 5, 2002

Citation(s):

Choudhry NK et al. Relationships between authors of clinical practice guidelines and the pharmaceutical industry. JAMA 2002 Feb 6; 287:612-7.

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