Competing interests

1) Have you in the past five years accepted the following from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the results of your study or the conclusions of your review, editorial, or letter?

a) Reimbursement for attending a symposium?
No
b) A fee for speaking?
No
c) A fee for organising education?
Yes
d) Funds for research?
N/A
e) Funds for a member of staff?
N/A
f) Fees for consulting?
No

2) Have you in the past five years been employed by an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the results of your study or the conclusions of your review, editorial, or letter?

Yes at least in theory, it being a news gathering/publishing organisation working on many projects for many clients.

3) Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the results of your study or the conclusions of your review, editorial, or letter?
No

4) Have you acted as an expert witness on the subject of your study, review, editorial, or letter?
No

5) Do you have any other competing financial interests? If so, please specify.

Fabio Turone is partner and director of a science news agency (Agency Zoe, based in Milan, Italy) and in recent years, among many other activities, contributed directly or indirectly to:

• produce educational and editorial materials for Schering-Plough Italy (health information for the public to be published on the company’s corporate website);
• produce educational and editorial materials for the Italian Pfizer Foundation (health information for the public to be published on the Foundation’s website);
• produce and edit an encyclopaedia of prevention for the Umberto Veronesi Foundation to be sold in newsstands together with the daily “Il corriere della sera”;
• help a PR agency hold “media training” sessions for Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi-Aventis executives, and for the board of the Federation of Italian Practitioners (FIMMG);
• produce educational and editorial materials for the Istituto Clinico Humanitas in Rozzano (health information for the public to be published on the hospital’s website);
• produce the newsletter of the IFOM-IEO research campus;
• produce an educational project about pharmacology and drug discovery for secondary school teachers sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Education and the Italian Association of Pharmaceutical Industries, Farmindustria (also producing health information materials for the public to be published on the Association’s website).