Reports Detail More Drug Industry Ties to Medical Societies

http://www.propublica.org/article/reports-detail-more-drug-industry-ties-to-medical-societies



As we reported earlier this month, there are often deep financial ties <1> between professional medical societies and the drug and medical device industries. This week, other news outlets chimed in, detailing how recommendations made by two medical societies raise at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Professional groups represent physicians in specialized areas of medicine. They are responsible for writing the guidelines that those physicians use to decide on treatments and care. The organizations also lobby for the interests of their members. But recent <2> reports <3> question whether some of the groups' recommendations are in the best interests of patients or are tainted by industry support.


The National Lipid Association, for example, has been working on recommendations for the screening and treatment of a group of genetic disorders that can lead to premature coronary artery disease. It turns out the development of those recommendations was supported by $112,500 in grants <4> from six drug companies that stand to profit from the results, according to the website Cardiobrief <2>. Many societies explicitly ban such funding for guideline writing because of the appearance of conflict.

The association told Cardiobrief that the grants were among various sources of funding for the development of the guidelines, but it did not specify what percentage of the funds came from drug companies. The Lipid Association hasn't responded to our request for comment, but it gave the following response to Cardiobrief (the genetic disorder is known as familial hypercholesterolemia, or FH):

More at the link --

"As the Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Steven Nissen told us, "What you're exploring here is the subtle ways in which the companies and professional societies become partners and -- wittingly or unwittingly -- physicians become agents on behalf of the interests of the sponsoring company."