How Do Financial Conflicts of Interest Affect Voting in FDA Advisory Committees?

With the implementation of the Sunshine Act this fall, information about gifts and payments to physicians and hospitals from pharmaceutical and medical device companies will be available in a federal database. This spotlight on physician-industry relationships inevitably raises questions about conflicts of interest and their impact on physician decision making. A study in the September issue of The Milbank Quarterly, examining the potential for financial conflicts of interest to influence advisory committee members of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the drug approval process, found that there seems to be a voting bias when experts have exclusive financial ties to firms but, surprisingly, not when they have multiple ties.