A typical conflict of interest statement

I found this and thought it was worth publishing in full. It’s taken from a study on statin therapy in older people. It’s probably worth pointing out that the pharmaceutical industry is quite keen to have statin therapy widely adopted. In any case, to give some background, here’s what the study concluded:

“Statin therapy produces significant reductions in major vascular events irrespective of age, but there is less direct evidence of benefit among patients older than 75 years who do not already have evidence of occlusive vascular disease. This limitation is now being addressed by further trials.”

This paper was published in Volume 393, Issue 10170 of The Lancet in 2019. That’s a very high-impact journal. I haven’t read the study, because it’s not relevant to what I want to draw attention to. It was the conflict of interest statement that caught my eye, so I thought I would share it in full.

RO'C, EB, IF, CW, and JS have nothing to disclose. JF reports personal fees from Amgen, Bayer, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi, and AstraZeneca, outside the submitted work; and non-financial support from Amgen, Bayer, and Pfizer, outside the submitted work. BM reports grants from the Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, and the National Institute for Health Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre during the conduct of the study, and grants from Merck outside the submitted work. CR report grants from the Medical Research Council and British Heart Foundation during the conduct of the study; and grants from Merck, outside the submitted work. JE reports grants from the Medical Research Council and the British Heart Foundation during the conduct of the study, and a grant from Boehringer Ingelheim outside the submitted work. LB reports grants from the Medical Research Council and the British Heart Foundation during the conduct of the study. MK is an employee of a company that has received study grants and consulting fees from manufacturers of PCSK9 inhibitors and treatments for lipid disorders, outside the submitted work. AT reports personal fees from Amgen and Sanofi, outside the submitted work. PR reports a research grant from AstraZeneca during the conduct of the study; and research grants from Novartis, Pfizer, and Kowa, outside the submitted work. CP reports a grant from Merck, outside the submitted work; and personal fees from Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi, Amgen, and Daiichi-Sankyo, outside the submitted work. EL reports grants from AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Amgen, and Merck, outside the submitted work; and personal fees from Bayer, Amgen, Novartis, and Sanofi, outside the submitted work. WK reports grants and non-financial support from Roche, Beckmann, Singulex, and Abbott, outside the submitted work; and personal fees from AstraZeneca, Novartis, Pfizer, The Medicines Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Dalcor, Sanofi, Berlin-Chemie, Kowa, and Amgen, outside the submitted work. AG reports personal fees from Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Arisaph Pharmaceuticals, DuPont, Esperion Therapeutics, Kowa, Merck, Roche, Vatera Capital, ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Amgen, outside the submitted work. SY reports a grant from AstraZeneca, outside the submitted work. RC reports support from the Nuffield Department of Population Health, during the conduct of the study; grants from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Medical Research Council, Merck, National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust, outside the submitted work; personal fees from the British Heart Foundation and UK Biobank, outside the submitted work; other support from Pfizer to the Nuffield Department of Population Health (prize for independent research); and a patent for a statin-related myopathy genetic test licensed to University of Oxford from Boston Heart Diagnostics (RC has waived any personal reward). CB reports grants from the Medical Research Council and British Heart Foundation, during the conduct of the study; and grants from Pfizer, Merck, Novartis, and Boehringer Ingelheim, outside the submitted work. AK reports grants from Abbott and Mylan, outside the submitted work; and personal fees from Abbott, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Mylan, and Pfizer, outside the submitted work. LB reports grants from UK Medical Research Council and the British Heart Foundation during the conduct of the study.

Acknowledgments

Although individual trials that contributed data to these analyses were funded by research grants from the pharmaceutical industry, charities, and government organisations, the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists' Collaboration has not been funded by industry. This collaboration was jointly coordinated by the National Health and Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Centre (CTC) in Australia, and by the Medical Research Council Population Health Research Unit and Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU) in the UK. The current meta-analysis work at the CTC was supported by a programme grant from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and a grant from the National Heart Foundation, Australia; and at the CTSU was supported by the UK Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, and Cancer Research UK. BM acknowledges support from the National Institute for Health Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre.

This is fairly typical of “big impact” journal publications on medical interventions for heart disease and cardiology. Does this tell us something about the current state of affairs inside medical research? Is it possible to trust a system that, in practical terms, can be influenced by the introduction of personal, lecture and grant fees for all the key researchers?

Open thread. As ever, I don’t take money from any of those people, nor do I ever intend to. You can support my work with a subscription. Share’s very much appreciated.