ArticleBMJ open2019
Undisclosed financial ties between guideline writers and pharmaceutical companies: a cross-sectional study across 10 disease categories.
Article in BMJ open, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Rise of Clinical Decision Support Algorithms in Pain Management 2009-2024.Journal of general internal medicine · 2025Article
- Financial conflicts of interest among authors of clinical practice guideline for headache disorders in Japan.BMC medical ethics · 2024Article
- Pharmaceutical industry payments to authors of neurology clinical practice guidelines in Japan: A cross-sectional study.Health science reports · 2024Article
- Factors affecting decisions of an HMO Drug Exemptions Committee on individual patient requests for coverage of non-formulary drugs.Israel journal of health policy research · 2024Article
- Association between Conflicts of Interest Disclosure and Quality of Clinical Practice Guidelines in Japan: A Meta-Epidemiological Study.Journal of personalized medicine · 2023Article
- Influence of Disclosed and Undisclosed Funding Sources in Tobacco Harm Reduction Discourse: A Social Network Analysis.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2023Review
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- Guidelines and evidence-based recommendations in anaesthesia: where do we stand?British journal of anaesthesia · 2022Article
- Evaluation of Conflicts of Interest among Participants of the Japanese Nephrology Clinical Practice Guideline.Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN · 2022Article
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- Financial Conflicts of Interest in Clinical Practice Guidelines: A Systematic Review.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes · 2021Review
- Medicine and Phlebolymphology: Time to Change?Journal of clinical medicine · 2020Review
- Article
- Financial conflicts of interest of clinicians making submissions to the pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review: a descriptive study.BMJ open · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo investigate the proportion of potentially relevant undisclosed financial ties between clinical practice guideline writers and pharmaceutical companies.
designCross-sectional study of a stratified random sample of Australian guidelines and writers.
settingGuidelines available from Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council guideline database, 2012-2014, stratified across 10 health priority areas. POPULATION: 402 authors of 33 guidelines, including up to four from each area, dependent on availability: arthritis/musculoskeletal (3); asthma (4); cancer (4); cardiovascular (4); diabetes (4); injury (3); kidney/urogenital (4); mental health (4); neurological (1); obesity (1). For guideline writers with no disclosures, or who disclosed no ties, a search of disclosures in the medical literature in the 5 years prior to guideline publication identified potentially relevant ties, undisclosed in guidelines. Guidelines were included if they contained recommendations of medicines, and writers included if developing or writing guidelines.
main outcome measuresProportions of guideline writers with potentially relevant undisclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies active in the therapeutic area; proportion of guidelines including at least one writer with a potentially relevant undisclosed tie.
results344 of 402 writers (86%; 95% CI 82% to 89%) either had no published disclosures (228) or disclosed they had no ties (116). Of the 344 with no disclosed ties, 83 (24%; 95% CI 20% to 29%) had potentially relevant undisclosed ties. Of 33 guidelines, 23 (70%; 95% CI 51% to 84%) included at least one writer with a potentially relevant undisclosed tie. Writers of guidelines developed and funded by governments were less likely to have undisclosed financial ties (8.1%vs30.6%; risk ratio 0.26; 95% CI 0.13 to 0.53; p<0.001).
conclusionsAlmost one in four guideline writers with no disclosed ties may have potentially relevant undisclosed ties to pharmaceutical companies. These data confirm the need for strategies to ensure greater transparency and more independence in relationships between guidelines and industry.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.