Conflict of interest declarations are a joke

---at least in the way they are now perceived and handled. Dr. Wes pointed out a blatant example of this in a just released Annals of Internal Medicine article about the health care reform package. It's largely a propaganda piece by health care czars in the Obama administration. The point is that, although it's patently obvious to all but the most credulous reader that what you have here are Obamacare czars tooting their own horns with unsubstantiated claims, those affiliations were not listed in the formal conflict of interest declarations. The principle that financial interests are the only relevant conflicts is too narrow.

Please go read the entire post.