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Senator Grassley scrutinizes another spine surgeon’s industry connections in ongoing inquiries
U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley’s recent efforts at clarifying relationships between orthopedic surgeons and industry is now focusing on research conducted by spine surgeon David W. Polly Jr., MD, chief of the spine service at the University of Minnesota.
Grassley, who hails from Iowa and is a ranking Republican member of the Senate Finance Committee, started to look more closely at Polly, a consultant to Medtronic, and found he failed to disclose in 2006 that Medtronic funded his travel to Washington. Polly appeared before a Senate committee on that trip to request funding for his research that involved using Medtronic’s Infuse bone graft substitute product to heal orthopedic injuries sustained by military personnel, according to a Wall Street Journal article.
Polly also told a university review committee that the only commercially available product was the Medtronic bone graft substitute, the article stated.
This week, University of Minnesota president Robert H. Bruininks received a letter from Grassley concerning the possible conflict of interest identified between Polly’s Department of Defense grant for using Infuse in his research and his consulting arrangement with Medtronic.
Grassley told Bruininks in the letter that Polly could have instead conducted his research with Stryker’s OP-1 implant, which was FDA-approved at the time but limited to humanitarian device exemption use.
Grassley also mentioned in his letter that Polly recently false or misleading statements relative to the situation, according to the article.
A University of Minnesota spokesperson confirmed that Bruininks received Grassley’s letter.
Medtronic’s Sept. 9 quarterly Form 10-Q filing stated Grassley wrote to the company beginning in 2007 requesting information regarding financial ties between the medical device industry and physicians, including those who use the Infuse bone graft product, and “certain communications regarding Infuse bone graft and the company’s clinical research projects with the U.S. military and compensation paid to physicians working for the U.S. military. The company has cooperated, and will continue to cooperate, with the Senator’s requests,” according to the filing.
Polly indicated in the 2009 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeon Annual Meeting proceedings that he receives royalties, research support and miscellaneous support from Medtronic Sofamor Danek and is a paid speaker and consultant for Medtronic. The Wall Street Journal said he received $1.14 million in consulting fees from Medtronic between 2004 and 2007.
Thomas A. Zdeblick, MD, of the University of Wisconsin, and Timothy R. Kulko, MD, at Washington University in St. Louis, are among the orthopedic surgeons Grassley has investigated for their consulting relationships with Medtronic.
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