Clinical medicine (London, England)
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We aimed to assess the frequency and nature of financial conflicts of interest among both the guideline committee authors and the authors of research studies used to support the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines. ⋯ The majority of the doctors that write clinical guidelines have a relevant financial conflict of interest. In addition, industry sponsorship of studies is frequent, and authors are often conflicted with the study funder. We propose that physicians that write clinical guidelines should be free of such financial conflicts of interest to maintain scientific integrity and independence in the clinical guidelines.