Medtronic List Omits Name
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124282952830639467.html
MAY 21, 2009
by David Armstrong
U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley expressed concern that a list of consultants provided to him by Medtronic Inc. doesn’t include a doctor accused of falsifying data in a favorable study of the company’s Infuse bone-graft product.
The medical-device maker has said surgeon Timothy Kuklo was a consultant, but his name isn’t included on a list of 22 consultants provided to Sen. Grassley as part of a request for information he made in October.
“I am concerned that Medtronic did not include Dr. Timothy Kuklo in response to my written request,” Sen. Grassley wrote in a May 18 letter to Medtronic Chief Executive Bill Hawkins.
A Medtronic spokeswoman said the company is “cooperating with Senator Grassley’s request for information and will provide the necessary data to the committee.” She said Dr. Kuklo became a consultant for the company in August 2006 and that his work for Medtronic wasn’t related to the study now being questioned.
The spokeswoman added that “Dr. Kuklo provided consulting services to Medtronic until earlier this month, but he is no longer active as a consultant.”
Dr. Kuklo, who is on staff at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, was a surgeon at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
Walter Reed officials this month said the surgeon forged the signatures of purported co-authors on the study. The officials also said data in the study were based on “falsified information” and that the numbers in the study didn’t comport with its own numbers about soldiers’ wartime injuries.
Dr. Kuklo wasn’t available to comment, according to a person answering his phone.