A personal reflection on the prehistory of the Nordic Cochrane Centre I am delighted to have been asked to contribute to the 25th anniversary celebration of the Nordic Cochrane Centre. Congratulations and thanks to the Centre for its important contributions to the development of the Cochrane Collaboration. I am going to offer you a brief, […]

By Prof. Peter C. Gøtzsche, June 28, 2019. Mainstream psychiatry is built on myths that are harmful for patients. I described 10 of them in an article for a Danish newspaper on Jan. 6, 2014, which I published in English two weeks later on psychiatrist David Healy’s website as “Psychiatry Gone Astray” (1). On Jan.

By Professor Peter C. Gøtzsche, June 4, 2019. In some countries, including the United States, about 10% of the entire population is in treatment with depression pills. This is a tragedy. These drugs do not have relevant effects on depression; they increase the risk of suicide and violence; and they make it more difficult for

By Prof. Peter C. Gøtzsche, June 16, 2019. “Trust me, I’m a doctor” — One of my colleagues once turned up at a scientific meeting with a badge she had produced with this message. We were a group of people championing the new movement of evidence-based medicine where we make decisions about health care based

We have written this article for those of you who feel you have been prescribed psychiatric drugs on a dubious basis for a shorter or longer period of time and fear that you are stuck and risk lifelong treatment; perhaps even with many drugs at the same time and with the feeling that none of

The most important issue in having cancer is knowing when to say no to chemotherapy. The five pages below explains why it is prudent to decline chemotherapy for cancer most of the time it is offered. Erratum added 10 Dec 2019: ” The argument was that 5-year survival for breast cancer had risen from 12%

In Norway, the Ombudsman concluded in December 2018, with reference to the Psychiatry Act, that it violated the law to use forced treatment with an antipsychotic in a concrete case. According to Norwegian law, forced drugging can only be used when, with “high probability, it can lead to recovery or significant improvement in the patient’s

Cochrane reviews should be conducted by people that do not have financial conflicts of interest. Allowing almost half of the authors to receive financial support from the company whose product is being reviewed does not boost people’s confidence in Cochrane’s motto, “trusted evidence.” The Cochrane review of the HPV vaccines from May 2018 is illustrative.