AANS Joint Sponsorship Guidelines
Requirements for Disclosures and Resolving Conflicts of Interest
ACCME Standards for Commercial Support require anyone in a position to control the content of an educational activity or involved in the planning of the educational content including faculty, abstract reviewers, paper presenters/authors, planning committee members and the significant others of those mentioned to disclose all relevant financial relationships with commercial interests to the program participants prior to the start of the activity.
The disclosure forms should be collected by your organization and must be returned to the AANS prior to the activity.
Disclosure information is divided into two categories: *those with financial or other relationships to disclose; and *those with no significant relationships to disclose.
EXAMPLE
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Disclosure Information
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The AANS and (insert name of non-accredited sponsor) control the content and production of this CME activity and attempt to ensure the presentation of balanced, objective information. In accordance with the Standards for Commercial Support established by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), faculty, abstract reviewers, paper presenters/authors, planning committee members, staff and any others involved in planning the educational content and the significant others of those mentioned must disclose any relationship they or their co-authors have with commercial interests which may be related to their content. The ACCME defines "relevant financial relationships" as financial relationships in any amount occurring within the past 12 months that create a conflict of interest.
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Those who have disclosed a relationship* with commercial interests are listed below:
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| Name |
Disclosure |
Type of Relationship* |
| John Smith, MD |
ABC Instrumentation |
Consultants |
| Jane Smith, MD |
123 Drug Company |
Royalty |
*Relationship refers to receipt of royalties, consultantship, funding by research grant, receiving honoraria for educational services elsewhere, or any other relationship to a commercial interest that provides sufficient reason for disclosure. |
Those who have reported they do not have any relationships with commercial interests: |
Name: |
Failure or refusal to disclose or the inability to satisfactorily resolve the identified conflict will result in the withdrawal of the invitation to participate.
In addition, the second slide of each presentation should indicate the speaker’s disclosure(s).
Disclosure information must then be included in the front of the final program and must be printed in the following format:
For those who do report financial relationships with commercial interests, a Resolution of Conflict of Interest Form must be completed by someone other than the person with the disclosure (i.e. staff or physician CME contact) prior to the start of the activity. The completed forms must be returned to AANS.
Refer to the Updated Standards for Managing Conflicts of Interest for further information regarding disclosure and resolving conflicts of interest.
Verbal disclosures: For last minute replacement speakers, you must get a disclosure from the replacement speaker. In addition, if that person has something to disclose, you must resolve any conflict of interest by completing the AANS Resolution of Conflict of Interest form. Lastly, the speaker must verbally disclose to the audience even if he/she has nothing to disclose.
If the replacement speaker refuses to disclose, or if you cannot resolve the conflict of interest, then that person cannot be faculty.