Taken to task: what is and is not an appropriate response to an ERS guidelines task force? Guy Joos 1 , Andrew Bush 2 , Otto Chris Burghuber 3 , Carlos Robalo Cordeiro 4 , Mina Gaga 5 , G. John Gibson 6 , Christina Gratziou 7 , David Rigau 8 , Gernot Rohde 9 , Dan Smyth 10 , Daiana Stolz 11 , Thomy Tonia 12 , Jørgen Vestbo 13 , Tobias Welte 14 , Guy Brusselle 1 and Marc Miravitlles 15 Affiliations: 1 Ghent University Hospital, Dept of Respiratory Diseases, Ghent, Belgium. 2 National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK. 3 Otto Wagner Hospital Vienna, Vienna, Austria. 4 University Hospital of Coimbra, Dept of Pulmonology and Allergy, Coimbra, Portugal. 5 Athens Chest Hospital “Sotiria”, 7th Respiratory Medicine Dept, Athens, Greece. 6 Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. 7 Evgenidio Hospital, Smoking Cessation Centre, Pulmonary Dept, Athens University, Athens, Greece. 8 Iberoamerican Cochrane Centre, Barcelona, Spain. 9 Maastricht University Medical Center, Respiratory Medicine, Maastricht, The Netherlands. 10 European Lung Foundation. 11 University Hospital Basel, Pulmonary Care Division, Basel, Switzerland. 12 European Respiratory Society, Lausanne, Switzerland. 13 University of Manchester, Centre for Respiratory Medicine and Allergy, UHSM, Manchester, UK. 14 University of Hannover, Pulmonary Medicine, Hannover, Germany. 15 Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron, Pneumology Dept, Barcelona, Spain. Correspondence: A. Bush, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London and Respiratory Paediatrics, Sydney Street, London SW3 6NP, UK. E-mail: a.bush@imperial.ac.uk @ERSpublications Task forces use rigorous methodology, and the ERS will not tolerate interference with the processes by outsiders http://ow.ly/WwIe30cyhDO Cite this article as: Joos G, Bush A, Burghuber OC, et al. Taken to task: what is and is not an appropriate response to an ERS guidelines task force? Eur Respir J 2017; 50: 1700952 [https://doi.org/10.1183/ 13993003.00952-2017]. The European Respiratory Society (ERS) management group have discussed the worrying recent trend for outside interference by a small number of pharmaceutical and other companies in the Society’s processes for generating, publishing, disseminating and/or implementing clinical practice guidelines. Recently, some companies have targeted their unwanted attentions very aggressively on particular individuals who are chairs or members of task forces developing guidelines. This is unacceptable, and the purpose of this manuscript is to remind all concerned of our guideline procedures, the proper way of responding and expressing comments, and how the Society will regard any future attempts to manipulate outcomes. Clinical practice guidelines are generated by the Society only after a rigorous process. The task force proposal has to be approved by the ERS Science Council and Executive Committee, who also have to approve the chairs and task force members individually. Importantly, conflict of interest statements of all task force members are reported in a fully transparent manner and are managed appropriately. The actual process of generating the guideline is carefully monitored by independent methodologists, and recommendations for clinical practice are generated in accord with the pre-specified evidence-based methodology (using the GRADE approach [1]). Our guidelines meet most of the standards for trustworthy guidelines as described by the Institute of Medicine and fulfil the requirements for inclusion in the Received: May 09 2017 | Accepted: May 09 2017 Conflict of interest: D. Rigau and T. Tonia act as methodologists for the European Respiratory Society. All other disclosures can be found alongside this article at erj.ersjournals.com Copyright ©ERS 2017 https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.00952-2017 Eur Respir J 2017; 50: 1700952 | EDITORIAL ERS GUIDELINES WORKING GROUP