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Our correspondence with the World Health Organization about the hypertension guidelines
Prescrire International
|August 16, 2001
Insights
The World Health Organization (WHO) and International Society of Hypertension (ISH) guidelines for hypertension were criticized for conflicting with published data. This led to the withdrawal of plans to become a WHO collaborating centre.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Public Health Policy
Background:
- The World Health Organization (WHO) and International Society of Hypertension (ISH) released new hypertension guidelines.
- Concerns were raised regarding discrepancies between these guidelines and existing reliable data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To communicate critical feedback on the newly published hypertension guidelines.
- To address the conflict between WHO/ISH recommendations and established scientific evidence.
Main Methods:
- A letter was written to Dr Brundtland detailing criticisms of the hypertension guidelines.
- The process of becoming a WHO collaborating centre was halted due to dissatisfaction with the response.
Main Results:
- The initial communication highlighted significant conflicts with reliable published data.
- The response to the critique was deemed unsatisfactory, leading to the termination of the WHO collaborating centre application.
Conclusions:
- Disagreements over hypertension guideline recommendations led to a breakdown in collaboration.
- The authors withdrew from the WHO collaborating centre process due to unresolved issues with guideline critiques.
Abstract:
(1) Following publication of the hypertension guidelines by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Society of Hypertension (ISH) we wrote to Dr Brundtland, criticizing the recommendations that markedly conflicted with reliable published data. (2) We were not happy with Dr Brundtland's response to our letter, so we have stopped the process to become a WHO collaborating centre.