William Leslie, Helena Johansson: No conflicts of interest.

Neil Binkley: Nothing to declare for the context of this paper; research funding from Radius; consultant Amgen.

Eugene McCloskey: Nothing to declare for FRAX and the context of this paper, but numerous ad hoc consultancies/ speaking honoraria and/or research funding from Amgen, Bayer, General Electric, GSK, Hologic, Lilly, Merck Research Labs, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Nycomed, Ono, Pfizer, ProStrakan, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Servier,