Friday’s Wall Street Journal reported that Senator Charles Grassley contends that “A prominent spine surgeon and researcher at the University of Wisconsin received $19 million in payment over five years from Medtronic Inc., one of
the country’s largest makers of spinal devices...” According to the paper, “The surgeon, Thomas Zdeblick, received the payments while helping Medtronic develop and promote a number of spinal products. Medtronic’s $19 million in payments to Dr. Zdeblick from 2003 to 2007 went ‘greatly’ beyond what was evident in disclosures he made to the university.” Importantly, the paper reports, “The disclosures conform to school policies, which currently don’t require researchers to specify amounts received above $20,000.”

WSJ (subscription required to read full article)

Grassley letter

An article in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal discusses new voluntary guidelines from the North American Spine Society concerning disclosure by its 5,000 members of the nature of (and dollar amount) of payments from medical device companies. Although voluntary, failure to adhere to the guidelines can result in “sanctions” from the society, including dismissal and public letters of censure.

WSJ
Spine

great spelling

I am not involved in this situation nor am I an expert in any way but here is my interpretation of the scenario:

Dr. Zdeblick is an orthopedic spine surgeon at Wisconsin, not a neurosurgeon.  He holds numerous spinal device and method patents (http://www.google.com/patents?q=thomas+Zdeblick&btnG=Search+Patents), some of which Medtronic has licensed the use for commercial production and for which Dr. Zdeblick has been remunerated accordingly.  At first glance, as Dr. Zdeblick is a spine surgeon and Medtronic pays spine surgeons to speak highly of their spine devices, there may be a conflict of interest.  However, on closer analysis the payments to Dr. Zdeblick are likely for patent royalties.

From what I have gathered it is not so simple as patent royalties.  According to one surgeon, he has definitely been involved with pushing the rhBMP-2 for Medtronic.  Nobody knows for sure, but the fact that there is this much press means that it there is likely something more to the story.  Interestingly, he has two pubmed citations about ‘ethical’ relationships with industry.

1. Counterpoint: physician-industry relationships can be ethically established, and conflicts of interest can be ethically managed.
2. Relationships with industry: critical for new technology or an unnecessary evil?

Good thing for us he’s a orthopod…

Medicine has to work with the technology development business. I see no conflict here. The guy obviously spent time developing technology with Medtronic, which any free thinking individual should be able to do regardless of their relationship with academia…

If he falsified data or did something clearly dishonest, hang him.  Otherwise, I see no reason to act like there is some conspiracy because one guy was an excellent innovator and businessman.