CHICAGO — Should all U.S. children get tested for high cholesterol? Doctors are still debating that question months after a government-appointed panel recommended widespread screening that would lead to prescribing medicine for some kids.
Fresh criticism was published online Monday in Pediatrics by researchers at one university who say the guidelines are too aggressive and were influenced by panel members’ financial ties to drugmakers.
Eight of the 14 guidelines panel members disclosed industry ties when their advice was published in December. They contend in a rebuttal article in Pediatrics that company payments covered costs of evaluating whether the drugs are safe and effective but did not influence the recommendations.
It is not uncommon for experts in their fields to have received some consulting fees from drug companies.
Even so, the ties pose a conflict of interest that “undermines the credibility of both the guidelines and the process through which they were produced,” says the commentary by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco.
The authors are Dr. Thomas Newman, a researcher and former member of a Food and Drug Administration pediatrics advisory committee, and two heart disease researchers, Drs. Mark Pletcher and Stephen Hulley.
Other criticism was published this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That critique raised concerns about putting children on cholesterol drugs called statins, noting the medicine has been linked with a rare muscle-damaging condition in adults.
The dispute might leave parents wondering whether to have their kids screened.
Dr. Sarah De Ferranti, an American Academy of Pediatrics spokeswoman and director of preventive cardiology at Boston Children’s Hospital, said the question should be part of a conversation parents should have with their pediatrician about heart disease risks, including weight, blood pressure and lifestyle.
“Almost all of us could do better in that area,” she said.
