How big pharma buys guidelines

By WC Douglass M.D

It's the easiest billion dollars in the world: First, you invent a drug no one needs.

Then, you buy off a panel of "experts" to convince the world that EVERYONE needs your drug.

And no, this isn't some wild conspiracy theory. A recent study from the Archives of Internal Medicine proves (once again) that Big Pharma buys guideline panels the same way that the mafia buys juries.

Researchers looked at 17 major guidelines created by the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology between 2003 and 2008.

These are guidelines used by docs, insurance companies, and even the government. But don't expect them to be fair and balanced. As it turns out, 56 percent of the 498 doctors and experts who wrote those guidelines had financial conflicts of interest.

And if you think that's bad, wait until you see this: They also found that 81 percent of the leaders of the guideline-writing panels had a personal financial stake in the companies that would be impacted by those guidelines.

It's an absolute disgrace, but it's not exactly news -- I've told you about this little scam for years.

When it mattered most, the mainstream was silent... and now that all the major guidelines have already been signed, sealed and delivered, they're finally speaking up.

Talk about too little, too late!

And speaking of little and late, both the AHA and ACC are engaged in shoddy after-the-fact window-dressing: They say they've changed the rules, and that panel leaders must now be conflict-free, along with a majority of each panel.

C'mon, this isn't rocket science -- there's one simple way to ensure conflict-free guidelines: Just don't let anyone with a conflict on the panel, period.

There. Was that so hard?

Then, commission these conflict-free panels to start from scratch and rewrite all the guidelines.

But neither the AHA or ACC will consider that, and I'll bet it has something to do with their own conflicts: Both organizations rake in millions of dollars a year from Big Pharma.

No matter how you look at it, the deck is stacked -- and you're on the losing side.