Press Statement

Joseph D. Zuckerman, MD and President of the AAOS Board of Directors in response to the NEJM Study, “Accuracy of Conflict of Interest Disclosures Reported by Physicians”

“The AAOS has, and will continue, to take steps to ensure that the presentation of information at our Annual Meetings, workshops and publications is free from commercial bias. Our policy is that our education committees properly manage, and participants disclose any conflicts of interest. All authors and presenters are asked to disclose ALL potential conflicts of interest. The process for reporting potential conflicts has been simplified and made electronic, allowing for year-round updates.

The AAOS believes that, when transparent, relationships between physicians and medical industry can create innovative medical advances that benefit patients, and improve both health care and people’s overall quality of life. These physician-industry relationships – and the responsible and complete reporting of these relationships – is a top priority, and a challenge across the U.S. healthcare system.

Since 2008, we have taken steps to make our process and emphasis on mandatory disclosure more robust, with steps including:

Launching an electronic disclosure process for members, which is housed online;
Requiring disclosure of all potential conflicts and all relationships regardless of whether it was related or the position or presentation;
Offering several member education opportunities to reiterate the importance of full disclosure and teach our members how to do so; and
Making the AAOS disclosure database a year-round topic, therefore removing the need for a surgeon to determine any conflict’s relevance.

The AAOS is committed to educating our members and will continue to thoroughly assess, evaluate and improve the disclosure process.”