About the Authors

Aaron S. Kesselheim

akesselheim@partners.org

Affiliation Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Jessica A. Myers

Affiliation Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Daniel H. Solomon

Affiliations Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Wolfgang C. Winkelmayer

Affiliation Division of Nephrology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California, United States of America

Raisa Levin

Affiliation Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Jerry Avorn

Affiliation Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: DHS has received salary support from studies related to rheumatoid arthritis funded by Amgen and Abbott. DHS serves as an unpaid member of an analgesic trial's Executive Committee and as an unpaid member of a Data Safety Monitoring Board of a trial of a different analgesic. Both trials are funded by Pfizer. WCW has served as an advisor or consultant to AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Amgen, Astellas, Fibrogen, and Fresenius. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. 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: ASK DHS WCW JA. Performed the experiments: ASK JAM RL. Analyzed the data: ASK JAM DHS WCW RL JA. Wrote the paper: ASK JAM DHS WCW JA.