Sen. Chuck Grassley is continuing to raise questions about research done by orthopedic surgeon David W. Polly Jr., a Medtronic Inc. consultant and chief of the spine service at the University of Minnesota. This week the Iowa Republican wrote to the university’s president, Robert H. Bruininks, raising issues of possible conflict of interest on Dr. Polly’s part, in research on a Medtronic bone-growth product called Infuse. Dr. Polly did the research on a Defense Department grant, because the product can be used on wounded soldiers. Associated Press Sen. Chuck Grassley Sen. Grassley, who has been raising questions about doctors who also serve as consultants to drug companies and medical-device makers, raised in the letter the issue of whether Dr. Polly mightn’t have alternatively chosen to do his research on another bone-growth product made by a competitor. Dr. Polly was paid $1.14 million for consulting services by Medtronic between 2004 and 2007. In May 2006, Dr. Polly also urged a Senate committee to fund research into the severe arm, leg and spine injuries suffered by soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere, but didn’t disclose that his trip to Washington was paid for by Medtronic. According to the senator’s letter, Dr. Polly told a university review committee in 2006 that he couldn’t substitute any other company’s  bone-growth product

because Medtronic’s was “the only available [such product] on the market.” But Sen. Grassley noted that Stryker Corp. has a product called OP-1 that is available in limited fashion on the U.S. market through a Food and Drug Administration process called a “humanitarian device exemption.” Sen. Grassley wrote that OP-1 could have been used in either human or animal studies and that “Dr. Polly has made several statements that appear to be false and misleading” to the university committee and in a recent radio interview. John Lundquist, Dr. Polly’s lawyer, said, “ I can tell you that Dr. Polly advised the University committee that the Medtronic product was the only one that was generally commercially available.  The reason for bringing this up was that he wanted to study a product that would be generally available, rather than study a product that was not generally available to physicians and may or may not ever be.” Mr. Lundquist said Dr. Polly believes his comment was “accurate when made, and continues to be accurate.” Medtronic has said it didn’t know that Dr. Polly didn’t disclose his ties during the congressional testimony and that it is investigating his work for the company.

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Sen. Grassley Questions Research Done by Orthopedic Surgeon