Duality of Interest Disclosure for Speakers and Presenters

Policy

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (Academy) requires all persons speaking or making presentations at Academy programs to disclose any dualities of interest that might be perceived as affecting or influencing their presentations and ensures that such disclosures are made known to the attendees and audience for such programs.

Procedures

1. The Academy shall, in advance of any program, provide all speakers and presenters at such event a form* that requires the disclosure of all information that might tend to create a duality of interest. (*See Appendix A).
2. Each speaker or presenter shall be required to complete and submit the form at the time of confirming participation in the event to permit the Academy to assimilate the information accordingly. Any updates to the form must be provided no later than two weeks prior to the event.
3. Any speaker or presenter who fails to submit the form, or any updates, by the deadline set by the Academy will be precluded from participating in the event.
4. If the Academy should find that the form submitted by a speaker or presenter fails to disclose any material duality of interest, or contains any false or misleading information, the Academy shall proceed as follows:
   1. If prior to the event, the Academy shall promptly notify the speaker or presenter of the issue and give that person the opportunity to explain. The speaker or presenter's ability to participate in the event as scheduled shall be dependent on both the submission of an explanation of the error or omission that is satisfactory to convince the Academy that the error was innocent or inadvertent, and the correction of the error sufficiently in advance of the event.
   2. If after the event, the Academy shall give the speaker or presenter a reasonable period of time to explain the error or omission. As in the process prior to the event, the Academy shall have total discretion and authority to determine whether the error or omission was innocent or inadvertent.
   3. If, in either event, the Academy determines that the error or omission was not innocent or inadvertent, and that the information omitted or misstated was material, the Academy shall have the discretion to bar the offending individual from participating in any Academy symposia or programs for such amount of time as is deemed appropriate.
   4. Any action attributed to the Academy in these procedures may be performed by members of the Academy staff delegated or assigned to that task, except that the decision to impose any kind of sanction must be approved by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Academy.
5. Where the speaker or presenter has submitted the completed disclosure form in a timely matter, but where the form contains the disclosure of one or more material dualities of interest, the Academy shall first confirm that the disclosed duality does not constitute an absolute bar to the speaker or presenter's participation in the program, and then shall take steps to ensure that such information is disclosed to the audience or attendees.
6. The disclosure of dualities of interest to the audience or attendees, shall, where possible, be included in oral announcements and a speaker disclosure slide presented at the beginning of the educational event. Additionally, the disclosure must be included in any written/print materials that are distributed or made available to the attendees.
7. The disclosure of dualities of interest will be made available via print or electronic format upon request to any registered attendee.