A Retrospective Study of the Clinical Burden of Hospitalized All-Cause and Pneumococcal Pneumonia in Canada.

"Conflict of Interests: Shelly A. McNeil has received grant funding from Pfizer. Nawab Qizilbash is an employee of OXON Epidemiology Ltd. who performed the research described in this paper, funded by Pfizer. Jian Ye is a former employee of On Assignment Inc. and was contracted to Pfizer Inc., Collegeville, PA, USA. at the time of this study. Sharon Gray and Samantha Munson are employees of Pfizer Inc., Collegeville, PA, USA. Craig Laferriere is an employee of Pfizer, Canada, and Giovanni Zanotti is an employee of Pfizer Inc., New York, New York, USA. Nathalie Dartois is an employee of Pfizer France."

"This study was sponsored by Wyeth which was acquired by Pfizer in October 2009. The authors would like to thank the programmers at the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) for case data extraction from the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD). Parts of this material are based on data and information provided by the CIHI. However, the analyses, conclusions, opinions, and statements expressed herein are those of the authors, and not those of the CIHI. The authors would like to thank Dr. Ron Grossman (Trillium Health Partners, Mississauga, ON) for a critical review of the paper. The authors would also like to acknowledge helpful discussions with the following physicians: Tim Bood (Dartmouth General Hospital, Dartmouth, NS), Nicole LeSaux (CHEO Research Institute, Ottowa, ON), Mark Loeb (McMaster University, Hamilton, ON), Tom Marrie (Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS), Allison McGeer (Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, ON), Brian Ward (McGill University Health Centre, Pierrefonds, QC), and Karl Weiss (Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont, Université de Montréal, QC). Medical writing support was provided by Nancy Price, Ph.D., at Excerpta Medica, and Daniel E. McCallus, Ph.D., at Complete Healthcare Communications, Inc., both funded by Pfizer Inc."