Authors of guidelines have strong links with drugs industry

Most guidelines on clinical practice are written by experts with undisclosed links to the pharmaceutical industry, researchers from Toronto, Canada, say in an article in the journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA 2002;287:612-7).

In a survey of nearly 200 authors of 44 clinical guidelines, 87% of respondents admitted to financial links with one or more pharmaceutical companies. Over half of the authors had been paid to conduct research, over a third had been an employee or consultant, and two thirds had received fees for speaking.

On average each respondent had links with 10 companies, including companies whose products they recommended in guidelines. Only one of the 44 guidelines carried a declaration of the authors' competing interests.

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