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Thursday 18 October 2012

Conflict of Interest ?



The U.S. National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) is a government organization that educates physicians and the general public about the "dangers" of elevated cholesterol. They have a panel that creates official guidelines for the reduction of cardiovascular disease risk. They contain target cholesterol levels, and the usual recommendations to eat less saturated fat and cholesterol, and lose weight.

They recommend keeping LDL below 100 mg/dL, which would place tens of millions of Americans on statins.

I was reading Dr. John Briffa's blog today and he linked to a government web page disclosing NCEP panel members' conflicts of interest. It's fairly common in academic circles to require conflict of interest statements, so a skeptical audience can decide whether or not they think someone is biased. The 9-member NECP panel was happy to indulge us:
Dr. Grundy has received honoraria from Merck, Pfizer, Sankyo, Bayer, Merck/Schering-Plough, Kos, Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and AstraZeneca; he has received research grants from Merck, Abbott, and Glaxo Smith Kline.
Dr. Cleeman has no financial relationships to disclose.
Dr. Bairey Merz has received lecture honoraria from Pfizer, Merck, and Kos; she has served as a consultant for Pfizer, Bayer, and EHC (Merck); she has received unrestricted institutional grants for Continuing Medical Education from Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Novartis, Wyeth, AstraZeneca, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging; she has received a research grant from Merck; she has stock in Boston Scientific, IVAX, Eli Lilly, Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, SCIPIE Insurance, ATS Medical, and Biosite.
Dr. Brewer has received honoraria from AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Lipid Sciences, Merck,Merck/Schering-Plough, Fournier, Tularik, Esperion, and Novartis; he has served as a consultant for AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Lipid Sciences, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Fournier, Tularik, Sankyo, and Novartis.
Dr. Clark has received honoraria for educational presentations from Abbott,AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, and Pfizer; he has received grant/research support from Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, and Pfizer.
Dr. Hunninghake has received honoraria for consulting and speakers bureau fromAstraZeneca, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, and Pfizer, and for consulting from Kos; he has received research grants from AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Kos,Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Novartis, and Pfizer.
Dr. Pasternak has served as a speaker for Pfizer, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Takeda, Kos, BMS-Sanofi, and Novartis; he has served as a consultant for Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Sanofi, Pfizer Health Solutions, Johnson & Johnson-Merck, andAstraZeneca.
Dr. Smith has received institutional research support from Merck; he has stock in Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson.
Dr. Stone has received honoraria for educational lectures from Abbott, AstraZeneca,Bristol-Myers Squibb, Kos, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Novartis, Pfizer, Reliant, and Sankyo; he has served as a consultant for Abbott, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Pfizer, and Reliant.
Every company in bold is a statin manufacturer. This is outrageous! These are the people setting official government blood cholesterol target values for the entire country! Eight out of nine of them should be dismissed immediately, and replaced by people who can do a better job of pretending to be impartial!

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/conflict-of-interest.html

A view on a similar topic from my old mate phoenix!
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes-forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34006#p320164

Graham

4 comments:

Lowcarb team member said...

I see phoenix does not include her idol Hope Warshaw in her rant against people who write health related books. Highly understandable, as Hope pushes very high carb dietary information for diabetics, and describes lowcarb as the old dogma and drugs are the way forward mantra in her books. Music to a Carboholic and drug shills ears. It must be disheartening for phoenix, after fours years hard work trying to turn the forum members onto her way of control, and no one wants to know. Other than the lowcarb antis and the remnants of Kenny’s clique. Having said that every forum needs a Cruella De Vil.

Eddie

Lowcarb team member said...

Check out No Hope Warshaw and her books here.

http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2011/06/28/7199/type-2-diabetes-from-old-dogmas-to-new-realities---part-2/#commentpost

Read the comments !

http://www.hopewarshaw.com/books

Eddie

Anonymous said...

Eddie said
"Read the comments !"

Gave up after a few minutes. Were there any agreeing with her ?
As a Pisces (fish) I know all about swimming against the tide, but this woman beats me hands down !

Geoff

Anonymous said...

Re Hope Warshaw

Geoff,I too took some time to read the comments. There were so many that I have to confess I skimmed through them. But if there were any agreeing with her I must have missed them.
I cannot understand how she can call herself a dietician. Of course if it was her blog or web site I think the comments would have been deleted. Thank goodness it wasn't.
'Truth will out' as my Grandad used to say

Grace