A piece in the BMJ, “Ensuring the integrity of clinical practice guidelines: a tool for protecting patients,” lists:
Red flags that should raise substantial skepticism among guideline readers (and medical journals)
Sponsor(s) is a professional society that receives substantial industry funding;
Sponsor is a proprietary company, or is undeclared or hidden
Committee chair(s) have any financial conflict*
Multiple panel members have any financial conflict*
Any suggestion of committee stacking that would pre-ordain a recommendation regarding a controversial topic
No or limited involvement of an expert in methodology in the evaluation of evidence
No external review
No inclusion of non-physician experts/patient representative/community stakeholders
*Includes a panelist with either or both a financial relationship with a proprietary healthcare company and/or whose clinical practice/specialty depends on tests or interventions covered by the guideline
Journalist Jeanne Lenzer was one of the authors, and this work follows her earlier BMJ piece, “Why we can’t trust clinical guidelines.” In it, she concluded by writing:
“(numerous) guidelines continue to be followed despite concerns about bias, because as one lecturer told a meeting on geriatric care in the Virgin Islands earlier this year, “We like to stick within the standard of care, because when the shit hits the fan we all want to be able to say we were just doing what everyone else is doing—even if what everyone else is doing isn’t very good.”
———————
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
@sisskg Land of the free, and home of .....
Censorship by Public Information Officer.
This is a huge piece.
https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1243143047908659201?s=21
Federal health agencies block journalists’ access to COVID-19 experts & information. By Gary Schwitzer (USA) (@garyschwitzer) ➡️
https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2020/03/federal-health-agencies-block-reporters-access-to-covid-19-experts-information/
Comments (1)
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Comments are closed.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like