End of the Joint National Committee Heritage?

Abstract

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) provides global leadership for a research, training, and education program to promote the prevention and treatment of heart, lung, and blood diseases and enhance the health of all individuals so that they can live longer and more fulfilling lives.1 One of the activities of NHLBI has been to appoint a Joint National Committee (JNC) to oversee the publication of reports for the prevention, detection, evaluation, and treatment of high blood pressure (BP). The first JNC report was published in 1976, with subsequent reports published every 4 to 6 years with the last one, JNC 7, being published in 2003.2 JNC 8 has been long awaited, having been variously dubbed JNC-late and JNC-wait. Well it has arrived, a decade after its predecessor, in the Journal of the American Association [ JAMA ],3 where it has been ushered in by no less than 3 editorials.4–6 But is this JNC 8? Is it the successor to JNC 7? If we read the title of the JAMA article carefully there is a clue to what may be described at best as subtle deception: “The 2014 Evidence-Based Guideline for the Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults: Report From the Panel Members Appointed to the Eighth Joint National Committee (JNC 8).”3 Compare this with the title of JNC 7, which was “National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure; National High Blood Pressure Education Program Coordinating Committee. The seventh report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure: the JNC 7 report.”2 All but the most skeptical readers would assume from the recent JAMA title that what they were about to …