This past week, Medtronic confirmed that they paid $800,000 to Timothy Kuklo, an army doctor who consulted on a Medtronic’s bone morphogenic protein called Infuse, which induces the formation of bone. The "doctor" is not accused of fabricating those results.
Medtronic spokeswoman Marybeth Thorsgaard said the company put Kuklo on "inactive status" in May after the Army said the study was based on false information, and that Kuklo had forged signatures of purported co-authors of the study.
Kuklo trained doctors and provided educational services to Medtronic starting in 2001. He became a paid consultant in 2006.
She said payments were compensation for Kuklo’s work developing products for the company, training doctors and speaking at company events.
Payments were not connected to the study and Medtronic was not involved in any way with the report, Thorsgaard said.
She said none of the data in Kuklo’s study was used to win regulatory approval for the Infuse product.
The product has been used as a way to help people with broken bones quickly heal. I’ve understood it as electric simulation that stimulates the area and leads to a better fusion. But, was Dr. Timothy Kuklo paid to just make this stuff up?
Earlier this year Medronic announced that they would be disclosing their payments to doctors. Hopefully, there will also be an investigation of what happened here. It is vital that patients get the right information about the products that are being used.
