Washington ? An advisory panel’s recommendation that the Food and Drug Administration allow two painkillers to stay on the market despite cardiac risks was marred by its members’ ties to drug makers, a senior lawmaker said Friday.

But two doctors who served on the panel suggested another explanation for close votes on the painkillers Bextra and Vioxx: a difference of perspective between groups of physicians on the committee.

They said some doctors who had treated arthritis patients wanted to keep open the option of prescribing so-called Cox-2 painkillers as a last resort. Other physicians, primarily concerned with broader questions of patient safety, viewed the risk of heart attacks and strokes as unacceptably high.

Late Friday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sent the FDA a detailed request for information on the industry ties of the 32 advisory panel members. Grassley is pursuing an overhaul of the FDA to strengthen safety monitoring of drugs after they have been approved for sale.

Grassley cited a New York Times report that 10 panel members had done consulting or other work for the companies that made the two drugs. The newspaper’s analysis showed the votes of these 10 members tipped the balance in favor of allowing Bextra and Vioxx to remain on the market.

The 10 members were not a factor in the case of Celebrex, a third drug in the same family, which received near-unanimous support to remain on the market.