Editorial: Conflict of Interest and FAI

Abstract

The medical profession has been scrutinized more closely than ever over the last few years due to bad publicity regarding the validity of payments received by physicians from industry, or in one case falsification of data. Scott Rueben, MD, former chief of the Acute Pain Clinic at Bay State Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 6 months in prison, in addition to a fine, after pleading guilty to falsifying data presented in peerreviewed studies on the efficacy of Celebrex and Lyrica in the management of acute postoperative pain.More notable for the orthopaedic community, the Department of Justice reached settlement agreements with five major orthopaedic hip and knee implant manufacturers regarding financial information and consulting or other relationships with physicians. As a result of this settlement, five major orthopaedic implant manufacturers began publicly reporting all physician payments beginning in late 2007.When peer-reviewed papers are published, it is essential for the reviewers, editor, and readers to be aware of any conflicts of interest the authors may have had with any implant manufacturer or other entity which may have potentially influenced the content of the article. Foot & Ankle International (FAI) began publishing conflict of interest information with each article in June 2008. Each author group has subsequently been required to declare one of the following regarding their submitted manuscript: