The FDA says it stopped releasing details on conflicts because of concerns about violating the privacy rights of committee members, not because of the controversies. Financial conflicts include stock ownership, consulting fees, research grants, a spouse's employment and payments for speeches and travel. The conflict could be a tie to the company whose drug is under consideration or to a company that sells a competing drug. Advisory committees include many of the nation's leading researchers. However, the assignments are prestigious, and committee members, whose terms last four years, are in heavy demand as industry consultants.
Conflicts are most common on the committees that consider heart drugs.
Forty-eight percent of experts had financial conflicts when considering the worthiness of specific heart medicines. Packer is a good example. He is a leading figure in cardiovascular research and has helped pioneer the development of drugs to treat congestive heart failure. Last year, he led an effort by 150 leading cardiac researchers to establish consensus guidelines on how to treat congestive heart failure, which is suffered by 5 million Americans. But his work with pharmaceutical companies creates many financial conflicts.