Competing interests: PT has received travel and research support from pharmaceutical firms for over 30 years. This support has permitted research associates to work on methodological projects of no commercial interest, has supported students and fellows who otherwise wouldn't have been able to get an education, and has provided partial support for the planning and organisation of scientific meetings in which they had no say about subject matter, content, or speakers. His randomised trials of cyclosporine published in the Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine were funded in part but never in whole by pharmaceutical firms, who had no access to the emerging data, no control over whether or when the studies stopped, and no veto power over any publications or presentations.

PT is editor of the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Review Group, which has received unrestricted grants for staff support in carrying out systematic reviews, some of which failed to draw favourable conclusions about donor’s drugs.

While PT was Chair of Medicine at the University of Ottawa a policy was introduced to prohibit pharmaceutical firms from solo support of department educational rounds or from any say in content. He also enforced a policy of using generic names. PT has never received awards from pharmaceutical firms. When serving on the US Government National Science Panel examining the relationship between silicone breast implants and connective tissue disorders, PT was certified by a US District Court judge to be free of any industry influence.