For those who have been following the hip protector study published in JAMA in 2007, the final word has been released. The study, authored by a team headed by Harvard doctor Doug Kiel, led HipSaver President Ed Goodwin to file a lawsuit accusing Kiel of unfairly disparaging Goodwin’s product, because Kiel’s team concluded in its 2007 study that they could not find evidence that padded undergarments protected patients from fractures. The team did not study HipSaver Hip Protectors. 


Subsequently, the U.S. federal Office for Human Research Protections conducted a yearlong investigation into researchers at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston, the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Washington University School of Medicine and concluded that all of the research subjects must be notified of the risks they were exposed to when the research team failed to provide them with information discovered as the research progressed. This information may have led some participants to withdraw from the study had they or their families known.


With the study claiming hip protectors fail to protect now completely discredited, hopefully front line health care workers can rest easy knowing they have an clinically proven, effective intervention in HipSaver Hip Protectors. For all of our clinical and biomechanical test results, follow this link. 


For the entire article published in the Boston Globe follow this link. Keep your eye on JAMA which is expected to publish an official retraction as soon as possible.