About the Authors

Douglas S. Goodin

douglas.goodin@ucsf.edu

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Jason Jones

Affiliation Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America

David Li

Affiliation University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Anthony Traboulsee

Affiliation University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Anthony T. Reder

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Karola Beckmann

Affiliation Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Berlin, Germany

Andreas Konieczny

Affiliation Lampe Konieczny & Company, Berlin, Germany

Volker Knappertz

Affiliation Bayer HealthCare, Montville, New Jersey, United States of America

and the 16-Year Long-Term Follow-up Study Investigators

For a list of the 16-Year Long-Term Follow-up Study Investigators please see the Acknowledgments section.

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: The 16-yr follow-up study was designed by the steering committee (DG, Dl, AT, AR) which also included the neurologist representative from Bayer HealthCare (VK). Data collection was done by the participating centers and was collated by the CRO (Parexl) overseen by the consultant (AK), both funded by Bayer HealthCare. The statistical analysis was performed by (JJ), a consultant paid by Bayer HealthCare and was independently confirmed by (KB), a statistician working in the department of Biostatistics at Bayer HealthCAre. The decision to publish was made by the steering committee members (DG, Dl, AT, AR). The primary manuscript was written by (DG), although this was modified substantially according to the input received from each member of the author panel. JJ and AK served as consultants to, and were paid by, Bayer HealthCare. Intermountain HealthCare has no relationship with Bayer Health Care. Lampe Konieczny & Company is a private consulting firm and was hired by Bayer HealthCare for the purpose of overseeing this study. This study was funded in its entirety by Bayer HealthCare. All study sites received compensation for participation. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: DSG JJ DL AT ATR KB AK VK. Performed the experiments: DSG JJ DL AT ATR KB AK VK. Analyzed the data: DSG JJ ATR KB AK VK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JJ KB AK VK. Wrote the paper: DSG JJ ATR KB DL AT AK VK. Performed the statistical analysis: JJ. Collection of data and, in some cases, review of the manuscript: 16-Year Long-Term Follow-Up Study Investigators.