conflicts of interest Tag

Joshua D. Wallach, MS, PhD Assistant Professor of Epidemiology (Environmental Health Sciences) Yale School of Public Health New Haven, CT

19 Mar Cannabidiol: Conflicts of Interest Among Authors of Published CBD Articles

Posted at 16:36h in Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Cannabis, Yale

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_53477" align="alignleft" width="200"]

Dr. Wallach[/caption] Joshua D. Wallach, MS, PhD Assistant Professor of Epidemiology (Environmental Health Sciences) Yale School of Public Health New Haven, CT MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Over the past few years, there has been growing interest in the potential health benefits of cannabidiol (CBD), a chemical compound in cannabis. Although only one CBD-derived prescription drug has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of epilepsy, I recently started seeing products containing CBD advertised and sold across the US (e.g. CBD in foods, beverages, dietary supplements, and cosmetics). I noticed that many of these products were being marketed with unproven claims to prevent, cure, and treat various conditions, and became interested in learning more about the research supporting the use of CBD, the potential for misleading claims, and impact that the CBD-industry may be having on research that is being generated and disseminated to the public. Research funding sources and other author conflicts of interests (e.g. consulting fees, honoraria, travel expenses) can influence the way that research is designed, conducted, and reported. Previous studies have consistently demonstrated associations between authors' conflicts of interest and proindustry conclusions in clinical research. Given the growing number of companies invested in CBD's commercial success, we decided to analyze the disclosed funding sources, conflicts of interest statements, author employment details, and CBD-related conclusions in a large sample of published articles on the characteristics, use, and therapeutic effects of cannabidiol.

27 Jan Free Sample Closets More Common in Smaller Primary Care Practices

Posted at 22:20h in Author Interviews, Dartmouth, JAMA, Pharmaceutical Companies, Primary Care

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_52969" align="alignleft" width="147"]

Steven Woloshin, MD, MS Professor of Medicine and Community and Family Medicine Professor, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice

Prof. Woloshin[/caption] Steven Woloshin, MD, MS Professor of Medicine and Community and Family Medicine Professor, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Industry spends more on detailing visits and free samples than any other form of prescription drug marketing. There is good evidence that these activities can lead to more use of expensive new drugs over equally effective cheaper options. Given these concerns there have been efforts by some hospitalls and practices to restrict these forms of marketing. We asked physicians in group practices delivering primary care about how often pharmaceutical reps visit their practice and whether they have a free sample closet.

Brian J. Piper, PhD, MS Department of Basic Sciences Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine Scranton, PA 18509

23 Jan Textbooks Used to Train Physicians Lack of Conflict of Interest Transparency

Posted at 16:34h in Author Interviews, Education

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_43644" align="alignleft" width="200"]

Dr. Piper[/caption] Brian Piper PhD Department of Medical Education Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine Center for Pharmacy Innovation & Outcomes Geisinger Precision Health Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Disclosure of funding sources is standard practice for journal articles and clinical practice guidelines in order to alert readers to potential conflicts of interest (CoI). However, CoI disclosure is uncommon for textbooks. A new edition of Goodman and Gilman’s Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics (GG-PBT) was recently published. This is affectionately known as “the blue bible of pharmacology” because it is widely used in the training of doctors, pharmacists, dentists, scientists, and nurses. This provided an opportunity to extend upon past research^2,3and determine whether the authors and editors had undisclosed CoIs.

Samir C. Grover MD, MEd, FRCPC Division of Gastroenterology Program Director Division of Gastroenterology Education Program University of Toronto

30 Oct More Than Half of Physician Guideline Authors for Expensive Medications Have Undeclared Conflicts of Interest

Posted at 13:15h in Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_45514" align="alignleft" width="200"]

Dr. Grover[/caption] Samir C. Grover MD, MEd, FRCPC Division of Gastroenterology Program Director Division of Gastroenterology Education Program University of Toronto MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We know that physician-industry interactions are commonplace. Because of this, there has been a movement to make the presence of these relationships more transparent. For clinical practice guidelines, this is especially important as these documents are meant to be objectively created, evidence based, and intended to guide clinical practice. The standard in the US come from the National Academy of Medicine report, "Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust", which suggests that guideline chairs should be free of conflicts of interest, less than half of the guideline committee should have conflicts, and that guideline panel members should declare conflicts transparently. Other studies, however, have shown that some guidelines don't adhere to this advice and have committee members who don't disclose all conflicts. We thought to look at this topic among medications that generate the most revenue, hypothesizing that undeclared conflicts would be especially prevalent in this setting. We found that, among 18 guidelines from 10 high revenue medications written by 160 authors, more than (57%) had a financial conflict of interest, meaning they received payments from pharmaceutical companies that make or market medications recommended in that guideline. About a quarter of authors also received, and didn't disclose payments from one of these companies. Almost all the guidelines did not adhere to National Academy of Medicine standards.

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Cole Wayant Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences ‐ Analytical and Institutional Research Tulsa, OK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: New FDA-approved oncology drugs are essential to oncology practice. These drugs may immediately change clinical care by offering better treatments for common, lethal forms of cancer. But, new FDA-approved oncology drugs are expensive and have been shown to have variable efficacy. Given the importance of new FDA-approved oncology drugs to patients and physicians, the trials that underpin the FDA-approval of these drugs must be free from bias and transparent. Therefore, we investigated the financial relationships between oncologist-authors of clinical trials that underpin FDA-approvals. MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report? Response: The key takeaway from our study is that oncologist-authors often do not fully disclose their financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies. Financial disclosures are important for the reasons of transparency and trust between physicians and other stakeholders, such as patients. Disclosing conflicts of interest helps readers interpret the findings of a research study, especially given the fact that drug companies finance their own drug trials. MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work? Response: In the future, beyond recommending that authors fully disclose all financial relationships with the sponsor of the trial, I recommend that journals use the Open Payments Database to verify the accuracy and completeness of author disclosure statements. Doing so is a small first step toward mitigating the potential for financial bias in the oncology literature.” Disclosures: I do not have anything else to add. None of the authors have conflicts of interest - financial or otherwise. Citation: Financial Conflicts of Interest Among Oncologist Authors of Reports of Clinical Drug Trials [wysija_form id="3"] [last-modified] The information on MedicalResearch.com is provided for educational purposes only, and is in no way intended to diagnose, cure, or treat any medical or other condition. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health and ask your doctor any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. In addition to all other limitations and disclaimers in this agreement, service provider and its third party providers disclaim any liability or loss in connection with the content provided on this website.

30 Aug Oncologist-Authors Often Do Not Fully Disclose Financial Relationships with Pharmaceutical Companies

Posted at 17:06h in Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Cost of Health Care, JAMA

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_44205" align="alignleft" width="142"] Cole Wayant[/caption]Cole Wayant BS Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences ‐ Analytical and Institutional Research Tulsa, OK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: New FDA-approved oncology drugs are essential to oncology practice. These drugs may immediately change clinical care...

01 Aug Medical Textbooks Riddled With Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest

Posted at 17:53h in Author Interviews, Education, Pharmaceutical Companies

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_43644" align="alignleft" width="200"]

Dr. Piper[/caption] Brian J. Piper, PhD, MS Department of Basic Sciences Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine Scranton, PA 18509 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The authors of this study are biomedical scientists, health care providers and educators who teach medical and pharmacy students. It is a standard practice in reputable medical journals like the New England Journal of Medicine to disclose conflicts of interest (CoI). Reputable sources like the Cochrane Library also disclose CoIs and analyze for their potential impact on the evidence base. Unfortunately, textbooks, which can be highly influential in the training of medical professionals, usually do not disclose their conflicts of interest. A prior study in this quantitative bioethics area found that more than one-quarter of a team-authored pharmacology textbook, Goodman and Gilman’s Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, had an undisclosed patent (PLoS One, 2015; 10: e0133261). The goal of this investigation was to determine whether there were undisclosed CoIs in textbooks used in the training and as a reference for allopathic physicians, osteopathic physicians, dentists, pharmacists, nurses and other allied healthcare providers.

19 Jan Financial Ties of Principal Investigators Associated With Positive Outcomes

Posted at 01:07h in Author Interviews, BMJ

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Salomeh Keyhani MD Associate professor of general internal medicine San Francisco VA Medical Center and University of California San Francisco, CA 94121, USA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Randomized controlled trials are the foundation of the evidence base. We examined the prevalence of financial ties in randomized controlled trials and also examined the relationship of financial ties of principal investigators (PI) with trial outcome. We defined a financial tie as the direct compensation (e.g., consulting fees) of a PI by the drug manufacturer of interest. Although there have been past studies that have examined this relationship, many did not separate financial ties from funding source for the trial and many were focused on one specialty, journal, or type of drug. This study identified a random sample of RCTs published in 2013 that were focused on assessing drug efficacy. Both the disclosure section of the paper and several online databases (Medline, Google, Propublica’s Dollars for Doctors, and the US Patent Office) were searched for evidence of financial ties. Principal investigators financial ties with industry were independently associated with positive study outcomes.

11 Mar Conflicts of Interest in Peer Review of Biomedical Research Funding Studied

Posted at 12:18h in Author Interviews, Outcomes & Safety

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Stephen Gallo, Ph.D. Technical Operations Manager American Institute of Biological Sciences Scientific Peer Advisory and Review Services Reston, VA 20191 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Gallo: Peer review is an evaluation process widely used to help research funders identify the best projects to support. A cornerstone of the process is the independence and integrity of the review panel, which includes a fair and non-conflicted evaluation of the proposed research. Despite the importance of the process, there are few research studies investigating the frequency and type of conflicts that occur, particularly with regard to the independent peer review of basic science research proposals. To improve our understanding of conflict of interest in the peer review process, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) conducted a retrospective analysis of conflict of interest data from the independent peer review of 282 biomedical research applications. The overall ‘conflicted-ness’ of these panels was significantly lower than that reported for regulatory review panels, which have been studied by others. This might be explained by the fact that no direct financial conflicts were identified; the majority of identified conflicts were institutional or collaborative in nature. The analysis revealed that 35 percent of conflicts were self-reported by review panel members. Importantly, peer review panel managers identified 65 percent of conflicts. These results underscore the important role administrators who organize review panels play in identifying conflicts of interest.