Loss of an ideal: how politics and misinformed advocacy killed the Canadian Task Force

The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care’s (CTFPHC) mandate was to develop and disseminate evidence-based clinical practice guidelines to support primary care providers.1 Members were volunteers with the skills and knowledge to evaluate evidence using rigorous guideline development methodology and to balance potential benefits and harms in their recommendations. As the guidelines were aimed at primary care, at least half of the members were primary care clinicians.