A review of money paid over three years from orthopedic device manufacturers to orthopedic surgeons is an eye-opening manual of influence-peddling at best and conflict of interest at worst.
A study published in Archives of Internal Medicine concluded that once surgeons were required to disclose these payments, they declined in both total number and amount. Also notable was the increase in the proportion of consultants with academic affiliations.
The study was prompted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which in 2005 investigated payments to orthopedic surgeons by the five largest manufacturers of artificial hips and knees.
“There is ongoing discussion of physician relationships with the pharmaceutical industry and medical device manufacturers,” the study authors wrote. “Our objective was to use data made available by [the DOJ] lawsuit to describe the extent of orthopedic surgeons’ financial relationships with implant manufacturers.”
The study defined the number of surgeons receiving payments and the amounts paid, comparing that data in the years before, right after and a couple of years after the DOJ settlement with the manufacturers in 2007.
In 2007, the manufacturers paid 939 orthopedic surgeons more than $198 million. In 2008, they paid 526 surgeons more than $228 million, but this figure includes $109 million in royalty buyouts from one company.
When limiting analysis to only the three companies that reported data for all four years, the authors found that the average payment by device makers per surgeon was $212,740 in 2007, $193,943 in 2008, $246,867 in 2009 and $233,108 in 2010.
But the proportion of surgeons receiving payments who had academic affiliations increased from fewer than 4 in 10 in 2007 to more than 4 in 10 in 2008. A similar pattern was seen in 2009 and 2010 for the three companies that continued disclosing payments by choice.
Of course, without mandatory disclosure, who knows how much was paid to whom. The authors concluded, “There is a need for clearer specific requirements for disclosure to allow for meaningful long-term analyses to be performed.”
In an accompanying commentary titled “Industry Payments to Physicians,” Dr. Robert Steinbrook of the Yale School of Medicine analyzed the study findings. “Unfortunately, the public data provide no information about how the payments relate to research and device development, the choice of hip or knee implant or other aspects of patient care,” he said.
“The disclosure of industry payments should not divert attention from the real issues with regard to conflict of interest. These are the minimization or elimination of financial ties between physicians and industry in areas other than research support, bona fide consulting related to basic and clinical research, and legitimate payments related to intellectual property.”
“In the United States, the rules regarding the disclosure of industry payments are about to change,” Steinbrook notes. “With mandatory disclosure of payments and amounts imminent, there should be many new opportunities to better control conflicts of interest in medicine.”
Here, here.