Financial Conflicts of Interest Among Authors of Urology Clinical Practice Guidelines

Conclusions Many of the AUA guideline authors received payments from industry, some in excess of $50 000. A significant portion of disclosure statements were inaccurate, indicating a need for more stringent enforcement of the AUA disclosure policy. Patient summary Pharmaceutical company payments to doctors have been shown to influence how doctors treat patients. If these doctors are charged with making clinical recommendations to other doctors, in the form of clinical practice guidelines, the issue of industry payments becomes more severe. We found that many urologists on guideline panels receive money from industry and that a significant portion did not disclose all payments received. Our results show that financial relationships between urologists serving as guideline panel members and the pharmaceutical industry are common. Furthermore, conflict disclosure statements were often inaccurate, namely, among guideline chairs.
Source: European Urology - Category: Urology & Nephrology Source Type: research