More Evidence that Clinical Practice Guidelines are Bulllshit

I’ve blogged previously about how clinical practice guidelines are bullshit and that about half of them are based on little or  no evidence whatsoever. And now it is clear that most of the doctors who are writing these guidelines are on the payroll of the pharmaceutical industry. And that these guidelines are used for ‘follow the guidelines or you aren’t following the standard of care’ kind of bs.

Now we have more evidence that the guidelines really are just infomercials to promote utilization of prescription medications. An article in JAMA asserts that the entire process of the development of “expert guidelines” is problematic. They go on to state that:

Guidelines often have become marketing tools for device and pharmaceutical manufacturers. While the ACC and AHA receive no industry funding for guideline development, they do receive industry support to disseminate guideline products such as pocket guides. Financial ties between guideline panel members and industry are common. “Experts” on guideline panels are more likely to receive industry funding for research, consulting fees, and speakers’ honoraria.

Other news in JAMA this week is that physicians should be taught to be more conservative in their drug prescribing behavior. Something we have always advocated here at the Drug News and Health Safety Blog. Too often we wip out the prescription pad with the attitude that it “can’t hurt”. Well with 106,000 deaths each year related to prescription medications, I wouldn’t agree that this is the case.

Remember this guy?

Deaths from prescription medications, most commonly pain killers and benzodiazepines and other sedatives, are on the rise, and now more commonly result in death than the abuse of non-prescription drugs, like heroin and cocaine.

Hat tip to CDC mole.