Many surgeons fail to disclose their financial ties to orthopedics device companies, according to an article published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Co-author Dr. David Rothman of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession notes that close to 50 percent of surgeons who were paid $1 million or more by one of five device companies examined did not disclose such ties when publishing articles in various medical journals.
Rothman and his co-authors are of the mindset that both the journals and the contributing doctors likely are to blame for the predicament, but write that a more in-depth study is necessary to determine those roles. Overall, 41 individuals reportedly made at least $1 million off of device companies in 2007, of which 32 published articles relating to orthopedics between January 2008 and January 2009 (a total of 95 articles overall were reviewed). Forty-six percent of "first-, sole-, and senior-authored articles" and half of all articles related to payments demonstrated a failure to disclose those payments.
"[T]he lack of transparency we identified across journals and authors demonstrates the insufficiency of current practices," the authors write. "Looking forward, medical journals should consider several strategies to facilitate accurate and complete transparency. The growing body of company payment data provides the opportunity to ensure that readers and reviewers are fully alerted to researchers' financial ties to industry."
The five companies examined for the article were Biomet, DePuy Orthopedics, Smith & Nephew, Stryker and Zimmer.
The study's authors said that more research would be necessary to determine if the pattern found was representative of other similar groups and doctors.
To learn more:
- here's the Archives of Internal Medicine article