TO THE EDITOR:
Guyatt and colleagues (1) group financial conflicts of interest with intellectual conflicts of interest. I find this puzzling. Financial conflicts of interest are of concern because they do not coincide with and are not accountable to research or clinical aims. But “intellectual conflicts of interest,” according to Guyatt and colleagues, are to be found in persons with substantive knowledge, engagement, or research investment in the question at issue (indeed, according to the authors' view, they themselves would be disqualified from primary authorship of any future expert guideline on intellectual conflicts of interest). But those are precisely the ...
References
- 1.
Guyatt G ,Akl EA ,Hirsh J ,Kearon C ,Crowther M ,Gutterman D ,et al . The vexing problem of guidelines and conflict of interest: a potential solution. Ann Intern Med. 2010;152:738-41. [PMID:20479011 ] LinkGoogle Scholar - 2.
Nagel T . The View From Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford Univ Pr; 1989. Google Scholar - 3.
Goldenberg MJ . On evidence and evidence-based medicine: lessons from the philosophy of science. Soc Sci Med. 2006;62:2621-32. [PMID:16384628 ] CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar
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From Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205.
Disclosures: None disclosed.

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