The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology released new guidelines for prescribing cholesterol-lowering medicines. The big winners are expected to be the drug makers that sell statins, since other types of pills were not recommended. Of the 15 panelists that authored these new guidelines, six reported having recent or current ties to drugmakers that already sell or are developing cholesterol medications. And among the half dozen who disclosed these relationships was one of the two panel co-chairs, which contradicts an Institute of Medicine suggestion about managing conflicts and leadership roles on such panels. To be specific, the Institute of Medicine wrote that, whenever possible, guideline development group members should not have conflicts of interest ... and the chair or co-chairs should not be a person(s) with conflicts of interest." The Institute of Medicine also wrote that members with conflicts should not represent a majority (here is the IOM report). "One of the reasons the IOM recently recommended eliminating rather than 'managing' financial conflicts of interest in guideline development groups is because of concerns about implicit bias," says Lisa Cosgrove ... at the University of Massachusetts. "When individuals have commercial ties they are vulnerable to developing subtle, but sometimes powerful, pro-industry ways of thinking. Transparency ... can actually worsen the problem, because some people think simply disclosing a tie relieves any moral concern."