Deadly Medicines & Organised Crime

A BLOG ABOUT DRUGS

I n s t i t u t e fo r S c i e n t i � c F r e e d o m
Scienti�c freedom is under constant pressure. We therefore opened I n s t i t u t e f o r
S c i e n t i � c F r e e d o m on 9 March 2019 in Copenhagen in connection with an
international symposium. Videos of the presentations at the symposium can be
found h e r e .

Va c c i n e s : t r u t h , l i e s a n d c o n t r o v e r s y
Book review by Donald W Light. Ethics and the vaccine wars.

D e a t h o f a w h i s t l e b l o w e r a n d C o c h ra n e’s m o ra l co l l a p s e
Book review by Sami Timimi. History will recount this as the death of Cochrane
rather than the whistleblower

Book review by Ivar Mysterud. Cochrane is sinking!

Book review by John Abramson. What will the Cochrane brand stand for?

Book review by Pierre Biron et al. Medical science integrity has just been decapitated

Read Peter C. Gøtzsche’s book about the Cochrane Collaboration’s show trial against
one of its founding members that led to his illegal expulsion from Cochrane and
subsequent dismissal from his job in Copenhagen for no good reason.

October 2019 article, “What is the moral collapse in the Cochrane Collaboration
about?” Summarises the Cochrane show trial and and a subsequent totally
mendacious and libellous statement by an uncritical Cochrane supporter, Prof Trisha
Greenhalgh from Oxford, and her colleagues.

G ø t z s c h e’s co m p l a i n t t o t h e D a n i s h O m b u d s m a n
Read Peter C Gøtzsche’s complaint to the Danish Ombudsman over his unjusti�ed
�ring: First, I was expelled from the Cochrane Collaboration illegally, in a show trial.
Second, Cochrane’s CEO, journalist Mark Wilson, lied to the Danish Ministry of
Health and my employer, Rigshospitalet, to promote his own power politics
interests about the necessary conditions for the Nordic Cochrane Centre’s continued
existence. Third, the Ministry and Rigshospitalet failed to investigate whether
Wilson had told them the truth, even though I pointed out it was not true. Fourth, in
order to please Wilson and provide a �g leaf for my unjusti�ed dismissal, the
Ministry and Rigshospitalet fabricated a story that I had endangered the Centre’s
continued existence, which wasn’t true either. It was all about silencing a critical
voice, both in Cochrane and in Denmark whose biggest export is drugs.

Klage til Ombudsmanden over usaglig fyring af tjenestemand 21 juni 2019.

Appendices

1. Gøtzsche Referat af tjenstlig samtale 29. oktober 2018

2. Wilson’s emails demanding my removal from the centre

3. Poul Heidmann vedr Peter Gøtzsches høringssvar til Rigshospitalet

4. Gøtzsche partshøring til Rigshospitalet

5. Gøtzsches svar til Rigshospitalets indstilling til afskedigelse

6. Brev fra ministeriet til Rigshospitalet, 12. oktober

7. Gøtzsche Attempt at withdrawing the Nordic Cochrane Centre from the Cochrane
Collaboration

8. Rigshospitalets afgørelse om indstilling til afsked

9. Regionens afgørelse om afskedigelse

S u m m a r y o f C o c h ra n e’s s h o w t r i a l a n d i l l e g a l ex p u l s i o n o f
Pe t e r C G ø t z s c h e
Four people appear repeatedly in the documents:

Mark Wilson, Cochrane’s CEO (2012), journalist by education, with the Soviet Union
and the Balkans as special interests. He controls virtually everything in the Cochrane
Collaboration, including its Governing Board, although the Board is supposed to
control him.

Martin Burton, co-chair of the Cochrane Governing Board (September 2017) and
Director of the UK Cochrane Centre. He has a huge con�ict of interest because Wilson
is his line manager. He is therefore not likely to go against Wilson’s wishes in his
role as co-chair.

Marguerite Koster, co-chair of the Cochrane Governing Board (September 2018) and
Senior Manager at Kaiser Permanente in California.

Peter C. Gøtzsche, Director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre (1993), co-founder of the
Cochrane Collaboration (1993), and elected Cochrane Governing Board member
(January 2017). Expelled from the Board and as a member of Cochrane on 13
September 2018 in a show trial, after Cochrane’s hired Counsel had found no
evidence of wrong-doing.

Gøtzsche is the only Dane who has published over 70 papers in “the big �ve” (BMJ,
Lancet, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and New England Journal of Medicine).
His works have been cited over 40,000 times. His books, “Deadly medicines and
organised crime: How big pharma has corrupted health care” and “Deadly
psychiatry and organised denial” have been translated into many languages and
have been much appreciated by the patients, but not by the Cochrane leadership,
which has denounced them publicly.

Before we begin, a bit of humour about the whole ordeal: Gøtzsche is not there so
whom can I trust.

The most important documents

• 2015. The Spokesperson Policy.

This has been used by CEO Mark Wilson to introduce scienti�c censorship in
Cochrane and to persecute Gøtzsche for over four years, for no good reason. And
Wilson exonerated his own member of sta� when he did the same as Wilson has
punished me for doing.

• January 2017. Collaboration Agreement between the Cochrane

Collaboration and the Nordic Cochrane Centre.

• 30 August. Peter C. Gøtzsche: My submission to Counsel.

I demonstrated serious mismanagement on the part of the CEO and his sta� and
the co-chairs of the Board, which included tampering with meeting minutes and
other important evidence, in my submission to Cochrane’s hired law �rm.

• 12 September. Counsel’s report.

Counsel exonerated me from all allegations raised against me. The next day, I
was nevertheless expelled from the Board and from Cochrane, based on charges
invented on the spot, and four of the 13 Board members resigned in protest over
this unjusti�ed decision.

• 20 September C. Peter C. Gøtzsche: My appeal to the Board of its

 expulsion of me where I asked for a due and fair process, which was
denied.

• 9 October. Peter C. Gøtzsche: My complaint to the Charity Commission

for England and Wales about serious mismanagement in the charity.

• 10 October B. Resigned Board member David Hammerstein: Regenerate

Cochrane to strengthen the production of trusted evidence for the
common good of public health.

• 11 October. Science journalist Robert Whitaker: The Cochrane

Collaboration Has Failed Us All.

• 6 December. John Ioannidis: Cochrane crisis: secrecy, intolerance, and

evidence-based values

• 11 December. Peter C Gøtzsche: My dismissal is scienti�c judicial murder

Timeline
• 18 September 2015. “Statement by Cochrane”

On the Cochrane website, the Cochrane leadership denounces my evidence-

based statements in an article in MailOnline about the dangers of psychiatric
drugs.

• 16 February. Gøtzsche’s letter to a US funder

I asked for missing numbers of deaths and causes of death in a study of patients
with schizophrenia treated with neuroleptics.

• February. Announcement of a seminar about withdrawal of psychiatric

drugs

The seminar was for psychiatrists and it was announced in the Journal of the
Danish Medical Association.

• 8 March. Tweet related to a seminar Gøtzsche held

Same seminar as just above.

• 15 March. Wilson opines that Gøtzsche broke the Cochrane Spokesperson

Policy

In relation to the letter he wrote to a US funder asking for missing numbers of

deaths and causes of death in a study of patients with schizophrenia treated with
neuroleptics. See the letter above under 16 February. Wilson also refers to a
tweet related to the seminar Gøtzsche held, see under February above.
• 18 March. Gøtzsche’s suggested replies

To the US psychiatrist and to the tweet.

• 19 March. The second complaint

This was related to to a Dutch homicide trial where Gøtzsche was an expert
witness.

• 11 April A. Wilson writes to Gøtzsche

About the complaint and the tweet, and the second complaint. Wilson opines
that Gøtzsche broke the Cochrane Spokesperson Policy in relation to both
complaints; gives a two-day deadline; and threatens to close the Nordic
Cochrane Centre.

• 11 April B. Gøtzsche’s mail to Governing Board

About Wilson’s threat of closing the Nordic Cochrane Centre for no good reason.

• 18 April A. Gøtzsche’s comments on Wilson’s opinions

Comments on Wilson’s email from 11 April.

• 18 April B. Gøtzsche’s comments on Wilson’s draft response

To the US psychiatrist, see under 11 April above.

• 18 April C. Gøtzsche’s comments on Wilson’s draft response

To tweet from 11 April.

• 26 April. Gøtzsche’s reply to Board co-chairs’ proposal

About engaging an independent person to undertake a review and to prepare a

con�dential report for the Board. Gøtzsche rejects this plan because it is not
impartial and asks the Board to adhere to the established procedure for
disagreements between the CEO and a centre director.

• 13 June. Minutes from Board teleconference

It was decided with a majority vote to get a legal review of the issues.

• 23 July. Letter from Cochrane’s Lawyer

With minutes from the 13 June Board teleconference, but the names of those who
voted yes or no to instituting the review were removed, in contrast to the rules.

• 23 August. Mark Wilson’s submission to Counsel with Gøtzsche’s

comments.

• 30 August. Gøtzsche’s 66-page report submitted to Cochrane’s law �rm

 30 August.

The dispute between Cochrane’s CEO, Mark Wilson, and me concerned the
interpretation of the Cochrane Spokesperson Policy related to two recent cases.
The mismanagement of Cochrane is also described in detail in this report, and
the most important issues are repeated in my complaint to the Charity
Commission on 9 October (see below).

A p p e n d i c e s : Appendix 1, Appendix 2, Appendix 3, Appendix 4, Appendix

5, Appendix 6, Appendix 7.

Instructions to Council in the Matter of The Cochrane Collaboration.

T a b s : Index to Counsel’s Papers, Tab 1, Tab 2, Tab 3, Tab 4, Tab 5, Tab 6, Tab
7, Tab 8, Tab 9, Tab 10, Tab 11, Tab 12, Tab 13, Tab 14, Tab 15, Tab 16, Tab 17, Tab
18, Tab 19, Tab 20, Tab 21, Tab 22.

• 12 September A. Co-chair of the Governing Board, Martin Burton, wrote

to the Board:

“Counsel’s report … is con�dential … We are seeking advice from our lawyers as

to whether or not the con�dentiality extends to (a) the fact that the review was
undertaken, and (b) the existence of the Report, or not.”

Cochrane prides itself for being an open, transparent and accountable charity.
Secret processes should not occur in Cochrane.

• 12 September B. Counsel’s report, which exonerates Gøtzsche from all

charges.

It is hardly a coincidence that Cochrane wanted to keep Counsel’s report from 12

September out of public view. I have made it accessible, as the public interest in
this report overrides any attempts at keeping it secret by people who have
exposed me to a show trial.

• 13 September. Bente Bundgaard: Blegner stråleglansen om Cochrane? [Is

the aura around Cochrane fading?]. Ugeskr Læger 2018; 13 Sept.

• 14 September A. Peter Gøtzsche: A moral governance crisis: the growing

lack of democratic collaboration and scienti�c pluralism in Cochrane.

I informed people that I had been expelled from Cochrane and that no clear
justi�cation was given for my expulsion. The growing top-down authoritarian
culture and an increasingly commercial business model that have been
manifested within the Cochrane leadership over the past few years threaten the
scienti�c, moral and social objectives of the organization. Many Cochrane
centres have sustained negative pressure and a lack of productive dialogue with
 the CEO of the central o�ce. Upon alerting the Cochrane leadership of these
worrisome tendencies that negatively a�ect the operability and social
perception of our scienti�c work, the Nordic Cochrane Centre has received a
number of threats to its existence and �nancing.

• 14 September B. Nigel Hawkes: Cochrane HPV vaccine review: BMJ journal

defends “inconvenient criticisms”. BMJ 2018;362:k3927.

From rapid responses to Hawkes’ article:

J K A n a n d : The credibility of Cochrane Collaboration is in tatters. The whole

team should be wound up. Thank you, Prof Gøtzsche and your �ve colleagues,
for showing that intellectual honesty is still alive.

M i c h a e l B a u m : I have always admired the work of the Cochrane collaboration

and have very high regard for Peter Gøtzsche, whom I know very well. Yes, he
can be very abrasive in his manner and, yes, he can be provocative, but these are
the qualities required by someone with intact scienti�c integrity who has
su�cient courage of speaking truth to power. I believe that Peter is a luminary
of the Cochrane collaboration and adds to the credibility of the organisation.
Without Professor Gøtzsche we might be minded to cease collaboration with
Cochrane. I would therefore like to suggest that if Peter and the other board
members who resigned in protest, are not re-instated we will withdraw our
support and challenge their right to make use of our data sets that have been
collected for decades as a result of �nancially unrewarded e�orts by clinical
scientists all over the world.

J e a n n e L e n z e r : This is deeply, deeply disturbing. The scienti�c process

advances through vigorous examination of con�icting evidence and claims. To
silence one side undermines this process. Cochrane’s action in expelling Peter
Gøtzsche is an ugly stain on Cochrane that will remain for many years to come. It
reduces my trust. Shame on Cochrane.

• 15 September. Letter from the four Board members who resigned in

protest over Gøtzsche’s expulsion.

Dear Cochrane Colleagues,

This week, the Cochrane Governing Board decided with a vote of 6 in favour, 5
opposed, and one abstention, to expel Peter Gøtzsche from his membership in
Cochrane because he has been “causing disrepute” to Cochrane.

Four of us who opposed this decision have resigned from the Board as a result.
We consider the Boards use of its authority to expel Peter from Cochrane to be
disproportionate. The general public, consumers, students, and researchers
 involved in Cochrane value the plurality of opinions, views, and perspectives
Cochrane has worked hard to give voice to since its foundation. We believe that
the expulsion of inconvenient members from the Collaboration goes against
Cochrane ethos and neither re�ects its founding spirit nor promotes the
Collaborations best interests. We are concerned that these actions might cause
great damage to the reputation of the Collaboration.

Governing Board members are expected to publicly uphold and defend all
decisions taken. We could not adhere to this obligation in this case in good
conscience. We also believe that those of you, who placed your trust in us to
represent you on the Board, would not wish us to do so. For this reason, we have
unfortunately felt the need to resign from the Cochrane Governing Board and
have done so the day after the decision was taken.

It is our hope and deepest desire that this event will encourage all Cochrane
members and the wider community to re�ect upon where we currently �nd
ourselves and give serious consideration to what we want for the future of
Cochrane and its principles, objectives, and ethos.

Gerald Gartlehner, David Hammerstein, Joerg Meerpohl, Nancy Santesso

• 16 September A. Martin Enserink: Evidence-based medicine group in

turmoil after expulsion of co-founder. Science 2018; 16 Sept.

• 16 September B. Maryanne Demasi: Cochrane – A sinking ship?

There are concerns that Cochrane has become preoccupied with “brand
promotion” and “commercial interests”, placing less importance on
transparency. At the Board meeting where Gøtzsche was expelled, co-chair,
Marguerite Koster, allowed Gøtzsche ‘�ve minutes’ to state his case. Witnesses
in the room say Gøtzsche was constantly interrupted before being asked to leave
the room while the other Board members discussed the situation.

“The contention that Cochrane has been publishing reviews that are mainly
bene�cial to the sponsors of these interventions is probably a fact,” says
Je�erson. “If your review is made up of studies which are biased and in some
cases are ghost written or the studies are cherry picked and you don’t take that
into account in your review, then its garbage in and garbage out – its just that
the ‘garbage out’ is systematically synthesised with a nice little Cochrane logo
on it”.

“Cochrane has become too sensitive to criticism of the pharmaceutical

industry”, says one board member. ”They don’t believe in democratic plural
science”, said one outgoing board member. “Good governance of science always
requires open debates. The prestige of a scienti�c institution has to do with its
 ability to manage critical debates, not censor them”.

• 17 September A. Peter Gøtzsche. Peter C. Gøtzsche’s comments on:

Statement from the Cochrane Governing Board about alleged bad
behaviour of “one individual”.

The authorship of this statement is false and therefore constitutes scienti�c

misconduct committed by the Board. The Cochrane statement is strongly
defamatory for me and also strongly misleading, which serves to underline that
Cochrane is in free moral fall under its current leadership.

• 17 September B. Statement from the Cochrane Governing Board.

The Cochrane statement is also misleading in its description of the letter from 15
September by the four Board members who resigned in protest over Gøtzsche’s
expulsion (see above). It stated falsely that the four Board members have
actively disseminated an incomplete and misleading account of events.

• 17 September C. Inga Vesper: Mass resignation guts board of prestigious

Cochrane Collaboration. Nature 2018; 17 Sept.

• 17 September D. Nigel Hawkes: Cochrane director’s expulsion results in

four board members resigning. BMJ 2018;362:k3945.

From rapid responses to Hawkes’ article:

S h y a n G o h : I do not think that Archibald Leman Cochrane would have expected

the massive catastrophic breakdown of trust and transparency … Unresolved
serious issues involving potential con�ict of interests, personality clashes and
backroom maneuvering to expel dissenting or inconvenient members of the
governing board should not be allowed.

D i c k B i j l : We believe this crisis is a good opportunity to �x a big problem raised

by Peter Gøtzsche and others about Cochrane’s con�ict of interest policy.
Currently, Cochrane allows some authors of its reviews to have con�icts of
interest with drug companies, a policy that is widely criticized by insiders, and
largely unknown to the public. Cochrane’s credibility and trust are largely at
stake if they do not adequately deal with this issue immediately.

H a z e l T h o r n t o n : When a new executive moves to establish a business takeover,

dropping the word `Collaboration` from its communications, and steadily
changing the Collaboration`s founding ethos which is based on collaboration
and engages voluntary, enthusiastic contributions, they are likely to �nd that
the support and membership will drop away rapidly. Productive, democratic
teamwork cannot thrive under autocratic executive direction. Altruism does not
sit well with a business model; trust once lost is di�cult to regain.
• 17 September E. David Healy: Cochrane Cock-up.

As it grew, Cochrane recruited managers to run the organization who began to

focus on the brand and policies and protocols with a tin ear for the nature of the
enterprise being managed. The former Cochrane Collaboration – now Cochrane
Dictatorship – are almost certainly wrong on the occasion of the breach, a
Cochrane review that gave HPV vaccines a clean bill of health. The review was
wrong technically in that it breached Cochrane procedures.

• 17 September F. The controversy related to the Cochrane review of the

HPV vaccines.

Although the Board denies this, our criticism of the Cochrane HPV vaccines
review played a key role for my expulsion. We have a unique knowledge about
these trials because we have worked with the clinical study reports obtained
from the European Medicines Agency. In early September, letters of complaint
were sent to co-chair Martin Burton, which he might have orchestrated himself.
These letters, two of which were from previous co-chairs, argued for scienti�c
censorship and for my expulsion from the Board because I had criticised a
Cochrane review publicly. However, our Spokesperson Policy encourages this,
and we also have an annual prize for it. We should not have double standards in
Cochrane.

• 18 September. Bente Bundgaard: Magtkampen i Cochrane afgjort – for nu

[Power struggle in Cochrane is over – for now]. Ugeskr Læger 2018; 18
Sept.

• 19 September. Bente Bundgaard: Liselott Blixt: ”Vigtigt med uafhængige

stemmer” [Important with independent voices]. Ugeskr Læger 2018; 19
Sept.

• 19 September. Tom Je�erson: The Cruci�xion of Brother Peter.

• 20 September A. Nigel Hawkes: Cochrane director says his sacking was

�awed and came after “show trial”. BMJ 2018;362:k4008.

• 20 September B. Fiona Godlee, BMJ’s Editor in Chief: Reinvigorating

Cochrane.

Gøtzsche calls for a ban on �nancial con�icts of interest among Cochrane

reviewers. The BMJ supports this call. It would mean fewer but better systematic
reviews.

From rapid responses to Godlee’s article:

J e � r e y K A r o n s o n : The Board of Cochrane must act quickly, to show that they

 are not out of touch. They have two choices: either to publicly acknowledge the
validity of scienti�c debate, swallow their pride, apologise to Peter Gøtzsche and
his colleagues, and reinstate him; or to resign en masse and allow a new board to
take things forward..

A l a s t a i r M a t h e s o n : Everybody wishes Cochrane well. The organization needs

to rea�rm itself as a scienti�c, not a corporate endeavour. I can’t comment on
the nitty-gritty of the dispute with Peter Gøtzsche, but would like to see a
solution in which he is reinstated.

D o n a l d N i c o l s o n : I examined the dynamics and processes around the con�icts

of interest debate at the 2003 Cochrane Colloquium in Barcelona. I am not
surprised that con�icts of interest remain unresolved. Cochrane were slow in
addressing the con�icts.

• 20 September C. My appeal to the Cochrane Governing Board.

Please read it. It is fundamental for understanding the current moral crisis in the
Cochrane leadership, which includes gross injustice.

• 25 September. Tweet from the Nordic Cochrane Centre

Our criticism of the @Cochranecollab HPV vaccines review is appropriate and

has been strengthened. Many patients and harms were missing and Cochrane
needs to address the primary author’s COIs, which its policy does not allow
@DavidTovey @KarlaWeiser

• 26 September A at noon.

I received information that I had been unsubscribed from all Cochrane mailing
lists, even the ones for authors, although I am an author of 17 Cochrane reviews,
and that my appeal had been rejected. The two co-chairs of the Board wrote that
the Board had carefully considered my appeal, which is di�cult to understand,
as it is very convincing. In reality, they just continued the Board’s gross
injustice. As before, the Board gave no reasons. Cochrane’s own law �rm had
exonerated me on all counts. The show trial was over.

• 26 September B. Gøtzsche’s comments on Statement from Cochrane’s

Governing Board about why his appeal was rejected.

The Cochrane Governing Board distorts the evidence, suppresses it, or lies
blatantly about it and issues defamatory statements. At no point has Cochrane
demonstrated to me, or Counsel, that I have damaged the “the charity’s work,
reputation and members”. In fact, I have done the opposite. The world has
revered Cochrane, partly because of the scienti�c contributions from my Centre.
To claim that I have undermined Cochrane is both o�ensive and mendacious.
The Board instituted a legal review because of disputes between Cochrane’s CEO
and me about the interpretation of the Cochrane Spokesperson Policy. It had
absolutely nothing to do with “disruptive and inappropriate behaviour.” This
excuse was only invented after Counsel had exonerated me.

It is not true that I repeatedly represented my personal views as those of

Cochrane, and it was clearly stated by Cochrane’s Counsel that these allegations
could not be substantiated. Quizzically, Cochrane’s CEO and Editor in Chief
recently exonerated a member of their own sta� for doing precisely what Wilson
accused me of doing (see my appeal from 20 September above).

The Board misleads everyone into believing that Cochrane’s legal investigation
was about an assessment of my ‘repeatedly, seriously bad behaviour’. This is a
complete fabrication. The only complaints about me have been in response to
my scienti�c critiques, often by those whose science I have disagreed with.
Simply disagreeing with someone’s science is hardly a basis for complaint about
my ‘behaviour’.

The Board conveniently ignored Counsel’s report (paid by Cochrane), which

exonerated me, and other crucial evidence. The Board members were only
allowed 1.5 days to read and thoroughly assess over 700 pages of documents
before I was expelled at the Board meeting of 13 September, a period of time
which was grossly inadequate. I was given 5 minutes for an oral defense. Co-
chair Marguerite Koster interrupted me several times before she asked me to
leave the room. Lastly, the co-chairs refused to take highly relevant evidence
into consideration when presenting documents to the Board. It was clear that a
decision to oust me from the Board was predetermined by a minority and that no
�nding from its Counsel would divert them from their objective. A lot was said
during the 5 hours of the Board meeting where I was not allowed to participate
that was wrong or misleading, but I was denied the possibility to defend myself.

The Board writes that 11 members of the Board voted that I had breached the
Trustees’ Code of Conduct as a result of my ’behaviours.’ According to
information I have, this is totally false. The Board knew that I had not breached
the code of conduct and the Board could therefore not expel me from my
democratically elected position as Trustee. Co-chair Martin Burton therefore
tried to convince the Board that they should ask me to resign voluntarily. This
was what the Board voted about. The Board also realised at some point that the
only way they could kick me out of the Board was to expel me as a member of
Cochrane.

In my appeal, I provided very strong evidence and arguments that the Board
needed to reverse its decision about my expulsion. I also asked for a fair process.
 Burton and several other Board members were severely con�icted and should
not have been allowed to vote.

In summary, my appeal was:

– to set up an independent committee of people who have had nothing to do

with Cochrane, but who have experience in mediation, law, medical science and
medical editing, who should judge my case, with no time constraints;

– alternatively, to simply reinstitute my membership of the Cochrane

Collaboration, acknowledging the gross injustice and defamation I have been
exposed to.

in any case, I must be given the opportunity to participate in any oral

deliberations, like in a court case, and to contest any explicit reasons for my
expulsion on 13 September.

The Board opines that I breached my obligations of con�dentiality as a trustee

and continued the pattern of behaviours which led to the Board’s initial decision.
However, it was only after my expulsion that I made public statements about
this process because it was the only way to shine a light on the gross injustice I
su�ered after being expelled on 13 September, and after Martin Burton had read
aloud a seriously defamatory and misleading ‘hate speech’ at the Annual General
Meeting on 17 September. Therefore, I made it clear that I waived my right to
con�dentiality. I must be allowed to defend myself against defamation,
mendacious allegations and insinuations, and I have documented how
misleading the Cochrane Board Statement from 17 September is.

• 27 September A. Moralsk ledelseskrise i Cochrane-samarbejdet.

Kronik bragt i Politiken.

• 27 September B. Moral leadership crisis in the Cochrane Collaboration.

Newspaper article in Politiken 27 September 2018.

• 28 September A. Changes made to the website of the Nordic Cochrane

Centre without our knowledge.

On 26 September, Cochrane headquarters in London took forcible control over

our website without our permission, consultation or knowledge. Cochrane
blocked our communications consultant from being able to carry out
administration duties on our own website. A journalist informed me that I no
longer appear listed as a sta� member of the Nordic Cochrane Centre on our
website, which led her to believe that I had been �red from the centre. This is not
true. I am head of department and that department is the Nordic Cochrane
Centre.
 Headquarters uploaded secretly on the front page the statement from 26
September by the Cochrane Governing Board, which is strongly misleading and
defamatory for me. See here the front page from 25 September, and how it
looked after Cochrane headquarters had tampered with it.

Headquarters removed from the front page our tweet column, which mentioned
our published criticisms of two Cochrane reviews. We perceive this action to be
akin to scienti�c censorship, which goes directly against the o�cially declared
values of the Cochrane Collaboration.

Headquarters removed from the front page my much appreciated article that
focuses on the essential problems in the current Cochrane leadership, which are
harmful for the charity and therefore also for public health.

The fact that Cochrane headquarters has censored our website without our
knowledge reinforces my concerns about the Cochrane leadership and its lack of
democracy. It is a poor re�ection on Cochrane and it is immensely damaging to
its reputation, as reported in The Lancet.

Totalitarian actions like this only serve to humiliate and demoralise our sta�
members at the Nordic Cochrane Centre.

• 28 September B. I tried to withdraw the Nordic Cochrane Centre from the

Cochrane Collaboration.

I tried to do this when I discovered that Cochrane’s headquarters had tampered

with our website behind our backs, see previous post. It turned out later that CEO
Mark Wilson had not accepted my attempt at withdrawal, arguing that I could
not do this, as I was no longer Centre Director.

The current leadership of the Cochrane Collaboration does not honour the basic
values upon which the Collaboration was built 25 years ago: collaboration, free
scienti�c debates, transparency, openness and accountability. We also �nd it
unacceptable that �nancial con�icts of interest related to commercial products
that are being assessed in Cochrane systematic reviews are allowed.

There is widespread dissatisfaction among Cochrane centres with the current

Cochrane leadership. Nine of the 12 oldest Cochrane centres have expressed such
sentiments and the US Cochrane Center closed in the spring because its directors
felt they could no longer co-operate with Cochrane’s CEO.

• 28 September C. Erroneous and mendacious statements by the Cochrane

Governing Board.

Gøtzsche comments on Hawkes’ BMJ article “Cochrane board con�rms

dismissal of director at appeal“.
• 1 October A. Rthorat: Some thoughts on the Cochrane mess (about 5,000
words).

This is a brilliant analysis of the Cochrane moral downfall by an American. The

modi�cation of our website without our permission was a blatant violation of
the collaboration agreement between the centre and Cochrane and sent a clear
message: We have total authority and will do as we please.

The CEO brought a dictatorial mindset to Cochrane. Not being a scientist, he has
no recognition that the work I do IS the brand. The ideal is someone who
thoroughly vets the science being produced and is willing to challenge
corruption at great personal risk.

That process failed, but leadership went ahead with the expulsion anyway,
trampling all sorts of rules and agreements to get its way. And misleading
Cochrane’s members about what it had done.

This new management had no moral authority, yet told the centres how best to
build the brand they already built. While at the same time providing almost
nothing back to the centres. I think the centres see the relationship as parasitic
and one-sided.

A corporate power structure does not work for a scienti�c organization like
Cochrane. For one thing, corporations operate more like dictatorships than
democracies. Dissenting voices are squeezed out, not respected. A corporate
structure is exactly what powerful interests like pharmaceutical companies want
at Cochrane. Eventually you are left with subservient people who �ll out the
forms and publish the work without asking the di�cult questions about the
studies.

• 1 October B. Excerpts from Rthorat: Some thoughts on the Cochrane mess

(about 2,100 words).

• 1 October C. Uddrag fra Rthorat: Nogle tanker om roderiet i Cochrane (ca.

2100 ord).

Dette er en brilliant analyse af Cochranes moralske forfald, skrevet af en

amerikaner. Ændringen af vores hjemmeside uden vores tilladelse var en åbenlys
krænkelse af samarbejdsaftalen mellem centret og Cochrane, som sendte en klar
besked: Vi har total autoritet og gør, som det passer os.

Den administrerende direktør for Cochrane medbragte en diktatorisk tankegang

til Cochrane. Idet han ikke er forsker, har han ingen erkendelse af, at det arbejde,
jeg gør, ER ”brandet”. Idealet er en person, der grundigt dyrker den videnskab,
der laves, og som er villig til at udfordre korruptionen under stor personlig
 risiko.

Proces faldt til jorden, men ledelsen fortsatte med bortvisningen alligevel, og
trampede alle mulige regler og aftaler for fode for at få sin vilje. Og vildledte
Cochranes medlemmer om, hvad de havde gjort.

Den nye ledelse havde ingen moralsk autoritet, men fortalte alligevel centrene,
hvordan de bedst kunne opbygge det ”brand”, de allerede havde skabt. Samtidig
giver ledelsen næsten ingenting tilbage til centrene. Jeg tror, at centrene ser
forholdet som parasitært og ensidigt.

En ”corporate” magtstruktur dur ikke for en videnskabelig organisation som

Cochrane. For det første opererer virksomheder mere som diktaturer end
demokratier. Afvigende stemmer bliver presset ud, ikke respekteret. En
virksomhedsstruktur er præcis det, stærke interesser som farmaceutiske
virksomheder ønsker for Cochrane. Til sidst sidder man tilbage med ja-sigerne,
der udfylder formularer og publicerer forskningen uden at stille besværlige
spørgsmål om studierne.

• 2 October. Statement of Cochrane Work Review Group Editorial Base on

recent developments in Cochrane.

No attempt has been taken to try to solve this workplace con�ict in other ways
than by voting on whether to expel Gøtzsche. We strongly believe that if engaged
at an early stage, mediation, instead of legal action, could have given a di�erent
course to this con�ict and could have limited the damage.

It would have been wise if the remaining members would have stepped down.
New elections would then have enabled a new start.

It seems that Gøtzsche’s views on the Cochrane HPV vaccine review did play a
role in the con�ict.

Peter Gøtzsche is the director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre which to our
knowledge contributes substantially to the daily activities of the collaboration.
As the NCC is an independent unit funded by the Danish government and not by
Cochrane, the Cochrane Governing Board does not actually have jurisdiction to
�re Prof Gøtzsche from his post as director, which they claim to have done. So,
there is also an element of the absurd here.

• 3 October. The Cochrane Governing Board’s o�cial reasons for expelling

me.

• 4 October. German EBM Network letter to Cochrane.

• 8 October. Letter to the Cochrane leadership from 31 centre directors in

Spain and Latin America.
On 4 October in the morning, 27 out of 31 Centre Directors in Spain and Latin
America sent an important letter to Cochrane’s CEO and the Governing Board. As
of 8 October, all 31 Directors have signed, which is the version shown in the
above link. This letter called for an independent investigation of the process
around my expulsion:

We have doubts that the process has been su�ciently appropriate and coherent
with the principles of Cochrane … Any entity (e.g. a political party, a trade union,
a religious organisation, the university) have well-established internal
mechanisms that guarantee an objective analysis of the accusations and
defences, as well as the right to appeal with the necessary guarantees to a
neutral group or commission di�erent from the one involved in the con�ict.
These mechanisms and the associated processes should be transparent and
auditable … Expelling a member from an organisation can never become … a
summary process that lacks the necessary transparency, and this is … how we
and many other people in our organisation and outside of it have perceived the
resolution of this con�ict … We do not want Cochrane to become an organisation
that passively accepts the decisions made by its leaders … without enough
collective mechanisms for discussion, contrast and control … We propose the
following 3 measures:

1 That the Governing Board calls immediate elections to renew the set of vacant
positions in the Board, and thus give the opportunity to incorporate other
perspectives and sensitivities to the government of the organisation, and
particularly, to the management of this issue.

2 That the new Board appoints an ad-hoc commission, without the participation
of any person who has been directly involved in the con�ict, so that it
independently reviews all the actions related to this con�ict and establishes the
possible responsibilities that will then be assumed consequently.

3 That the report of the mentioned commission is known and discussed by the
di�erent Cochrane members and entities, so that the conclusions derived from
this discussion can be incorporated into the regulations and processes of the
organisation: guarantees and rules to objectively assess possible faults and
respect the presumption of innocence, the right to defence, the equality of
opportunities, and the impartiality of those who qualify the alleged faults and
apply proportional sanctions to the infractions, if any.

We would appreciate that you consider it and share with as many people as you
feel appropriate.

It is noteworthy that this letter comes from Cochrane directors in Latin America.
During the Annual General Meeting on 17 September, Jos Verbeek asked twice
 what my alleged bad behaviour was about but did not get a reply. Burton said
that “We know bad behaviour when we see it.” In Latin America, they know a
dictatorship when they see it.

Later, the same day, on 4 October, Cochrane’s CEO and Governing Board held
three webinars for Cochrane members where they tried to explain why I had
been expelled. The centre directors’ statement was not mentioned at all during
the webinars. The leadership of Cochrane has stopped listening to other people.

• 9 October. Gøtzsche’s complaint to the Charity Commission about serious

mismanagement of the Cochrane Collaboration.

I explain that the Cochrane Collaboration is experiencing a moral meltdown

caused by poor leadership and ask the UK Charity Commission to intervene
urgently, as the serious abuse and mismanagement over several years has
harmed the charity’s services, bene�ciaries and reputation. I also explain that,
in a letter from 3 October, marked Addressee Only. Strictly Private & Con�dential
and NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISSEMINATION, the co-chairs admit, for the
�rst and only time, that I have not broken the Spokesperson Policy, and that
there is therefore no basis for the Board’s expulsion of me from the Board and
from Cochrane.

The real reasons why Cochranes CEO, Mark Wilson, and his close ally, co-chair
Martin Burton orchestrated my expulsion are that I challenged Cochrane’s
business model, with its focus on “brand” and “our product,” with too little
attention to getting the science right and keeping the drug industry at arm’s
length. Clearly, my very visible advocacy in the �elds of science, policy and
medical ethics, exposing the unethical practices by the pharmaceutical industry,
the harms and overuse of psychiatric drugs, the deadly e�ects of many drugs,
the dangers of overdiagnosis caused by mammography screening, the
concealment of clinical trial data, the gross inadequacy of drug regulation, and
the harmful e�ects of patents on public health, among other issues, have many
times caused great discomfort to Cochrane´s leadership.

I demonstrate in my complaint that virtually everything the CEO and the Board
presented during a webinar on 4 October about the reasons for my expulsion was
mendacious or seriously misleading.

The most important issues I summarise in my complaint are:

1) Serious acts of tampering with evidence to the detriment of the public we aim
to serve.

2) Serious mismanagement in Cochrane, committed by its CEO and the co-chairs

of the Governing Board.
3) Numerous violations of rules for charities and for Cochrane by the CEO and
the co-chairs.

4) Lack of collaborative, democratic, transparent and accountable leadership in

Cochrane.

5) Management by fear and bullying by the CEO.

6) An almost total lack of due processes in Cochrane, in stark contrast to other

organisations.

7) Fierce resistance from Cochrane’s CEO towards introducing due processes.

8) Favouritism: other rules apply to CEO sta� than to Cochrane collaborators.

9) Serious selection bias in the 400-page material sent by co-chair Martin

Burton to Cochrane’s law �rm, which favours his line manager, CEO Mark
Wilson.

10) Serious con�icts of interest.

11) Repeated and serious violations of Cochrane’s core principles of openness,

transparency, honesty and fairness by the CEO and the co-chairs.

12) Scienti�c censorship in Cochrane, although it is a scienti�c organisation

whose whole justi�cation is that the public can trust it, which is even part of
Cochrane’s motto: “Trusted evidence.”

13) Repeated, very harmful actions by Cochrane’s CEO, which have favoured
industry and guild interests.

14) A show trial against me, where none of the evidence in my favour that I, or
Cochrane’s own hired Counsel provided, was taken into account; where I was
denied the possibility to present crucial evidence that would have exonerated
me; where the charges raised against me were changed on the spot when a
report from Cochrane’s law �rm had exonerated me; and where I was given �ve
minutes to defend myself, after which the Board deliberated for �ve hours. The
CEO’s and the Board’s total disregard for the evidence is particularly grave for
Cochrane because this is an organisation that prides itself for basing its
conclusions on “the best available evidence.”

15) Scienti�c misconduct.

It is not surprising that a growing number of people and organisations, both in-
and outside the Collaboration, have come to the conclusion that the CEO and the
Board should resign, and that if they are unwilling to do this, it is proof that they
are not �t for o�ce.
 A p p e n d i c e s : Appendix 1, Appendix 2, Appendix 3, Appendix 4, Appendix 5,
Appendix 6, Appendix 7, Appendix 8, Appendix 9, Appendix 10, Appendix 11,
Appendix 12, Appendix 13, Appendix 14, Appendix 15, Appendix 16, Appendix 17,
Appendix 18.
Gøtzsche’s 66-page report to Cochrane’s law �rm from 30 August.

• 10 October A. Cochrane leadership in moral meltdown: miscarriage of

justice and lies about the evidence in journal article.

Co-chair of the Cochrane Governing Board, Marguerite Koster, propagates

mendacious or seriously misleading statements in an article in STAT and
Retraction Watch.

• 10 October B. David Hammerstein. The crisis in the Cochrane

Collaboration and how to �x it.

David Hammerstein is one of the four Cochrane Governing Board members who
resigned in protest after the unwarranted expulsion of me. Hammerstein is a
former Member of the European Parliament for Spain and has headed large
consumer organisations. He is currently Director for the Commons Network.

Here is a summary of Hammerstein’s brilliant analysis of the current crisis in

the Cochrane Collaboration and his suggestions for a better future.

The crisis is about credibility. The focus on one individual´s behaviour is being
used to avoid a serious debate on the future strategy and policies of the
organization. What has moved the Cochrane leadership to take the exceptional
decision to expel Peter Gøtzsche are his very visible actions in the �elds of
science, policy and medical ethics. The deliberate confusion of a�liation with
representation has been used by the Cochrane leadership to attack and try to
erode Gøtzsche’s prestige related to his scienti�c and policy positions.

The paradigm held by the CEO and a small majority of the Governing Board
deems that the preservation of a uni�ed “brand” and a more centralized and
authoritarian “corporate image” is of the utmost importance for the �nancial
growth and stability of the Cochrane central o�ce. In this context the scienti�c,
�nancial and policy independence of Cochrane centres outside of the UK could
pose a threat to the consolidation of this common “brand”. The present
executive team and Governing Board presidency are openly reticent of contact
with most public health NGOs and against any visible Cochrane leaders taking
clear public positions on transparency, open data, open science or medical
innovation policies.

The other paradigm stresses support for much stronger policies to avoid biases
and con�icts of interest in Cochrane reviews, and much greater visibility of
Cochrane in policy debates. What is essential for this group is where the
“evidence” comes from, who pays for it, and if all the clinical evidence is
publicly available or not.

The big winner in this con�ict has been the pharmaceutical industry,
having succeeded in weakening the voice of one of its greatest critics and
having consolidated a Cochrane leadership closer to industrial interests
with fewer audible critical voices.

The Cochrane leadership has often shown disdain and impatience with any
criticism of their work or proposals. What is especially grievous is that the
Governing Board does not govern. It seems to be considered by the central
executive team to be a mere rubber-stamp for their decisions. Only the two co-
chairs of the Governing Board seem to have some �uid input into the decision-
making process. They have never had a public word of discrepancy with
anything presented to the Board by the CEO.

Another example of this top-down control obsession of the Cochrane leadership

is the “webinar” organized last week to “explain” the current crisis sparked by
the expulsion of Peter Gøtzsche. No convincing evidence was provided. All the
microphones of the participants were muted. They were not allowed to speak,
only to listen passively, and even their written questions sent to the CEO and the
co-Chairs were “re-interpreted” and formulated in di�erent terms.

The whole process against Gøtzsche has been anti-democratic and none of the
basic tenets of due process, fairness and transparency have been upheld. There
has been no attempt at seeking outside neutral arbitration nor the use of
techniques of con�ict resolution with the aim of reaching a friendly agreement.
No time has been given to establish an independent committee of con�ict made
up of people from outside of Cochrane´s main institutions. Every step of
democratic guarantees that is common in most large organizations has been
ignored in this case with the objective of the rapid exclusion and tarnishing of
Peter Gøtzsche. Any future independent investigation of this question should be
centered on the violation of democratic processes by the CEO and the co-chairs
of the Governing Board.

Peter Gøtzsche has had no chance to defend himself in person before the Board.
He was expelled without even knowing what he was accused of, aside from the
generic accusation of causing “disrepute” to Cochrane. The only accusation that
had been made clearly, that he had violated the spokesperson policy, was not at
all con�rmed by the so-called “independent counsel” that found the
spokesperson policy “ambiguous” and “open to di�erent interpretations”. In
fact, the so-called “independent counsel” did not reach any clear conclusions
nor did it make any recommendations for disciplinary action against Gøtzsche
despite this being requested from the Cochrane leadership. The ambiguous
phrase used publicly by the Cochrane leadership that the open-ended counsel
report – “did not exonerate”- falsely insinuated that Gøtzsche was found guilty
of wrongdoing on the part of the Counsel, but that did not happen. It is
disgraceful that the Cochrane leadership has used such personal defamation
tactics without any proof nor transparency.

What is totally unacceptable and probably illegal is that dark and ominous
insinuations have been made about Peter Gøtzsche, backed up with absolutely
no evidence. Concerning his personal “behaviour”, the Cochrane leadership has
publicly and privately used the language of the “me-too” movement and “zero-
tolerance” of sexual harassment and abuse.

The exclusion of Peter Gøtzsche and the “suggested” resignation of another four
members of the Board was a well-planned, pre-determined operation for the
elimination of all the critical voices from the Governing Board. Shortly before
the Governing Board vote that expelled Gøtzsche, one of the six members of the
Board that voted in favour of the expulsion, stated that all the members of the
Board were obliged to publicly defend the decision and not reveal the details of
the close vote that was about to take place. What was also sought by the
Cochrane leadership was a concealment of what had happened in the process,
debate and vote.

At the Governing Board meeting a year ago, in September 2017, Peter Gøtzsche
proposed a text, with the support of a number of other members of the Board, to
substantially strengthen Cochrane´s con�ict of interest policy which
today allows up to half of the authors of reviews to have con�icts of
interests with the company that makes the product they are evaluating.
This proposal was met with considerable resistance and outright discomfort
from the Cochrane leadership, one of the Governing Board leaders even said that
“without con�icted reviewers we´ll �nd no-one to do our reviews”. Over the
next year no progress was made on this con�ict of interest proposal and a long,
torturous bureaucratically procedure was suggested by the co-chairs with the
intention of burying the whole issue.

It is no coincidence that Peter Gøtzsche’s expulsion took place when he had been
insisting for over a year on a new, much stricter con�ict of interest policy for
Cochrane.

Over the past year, the CEO has insisted that they “are not ready” for taking
public positions, that it is not a present priority and he expressed in a written
reply the need to plan advocacy carefully based on the “products” (systematic
reviews) Cochrane develops. When one top member of the Cochrane team was
asked about Cochrane´s relationship with the major public health NGOs that
often present proposals for access to medicines and new open innovation
models before the World Health Organization, he/she said that these
organizations held viewpoints “too radical” for Cochrane.

What is evident to any observer is that over the past few years Cochrane has not
considered it important to in�uence public policy in areas extremely relevant
and necessary for the production of “better evidence”. Apparently, there is a
divergent viewpoint over what kind of public advocacy, if any, is based on the
needs of its “products”.

As John Ioannidis has said ““evidence-based medicine” is misused and abused

by eminence-based experts and con�icted stakeholders who want to support
their views and their products, without caring much about the integrity,
transparency, and unbiasedness of science. Some observers feel that many
Cochrane reviews are being “misused and abused” in this very manner by the
pharmaceutical industry. Especially criticized is the production of many
Cochrane reviews based on journal articles without attention given to much of
the clinical data which is often either hidden, censored or manipulated by the
industry sponsors of the trials.

Tom Je�erson considers much of the raw material used in Cochrane systematic
reviews as “garbage”. He suggests alternatives to focussing on unreliable
journal articles.

It has become evident that the present Cochrane leadership has sometimes
chosen to ignore overt industry manipulation of clinical evidence and has
occasionally even fallen in the trap of serving as “an industry advertisement
tool” with a shiny Cochrane stamp on it that lends this publicity “independent”
credibility.

Peter Gøtzsche and others in Cochrane have defended t h e i d e a t h a t e v i d e n c e

generated by companies with a vested �nancial interest in the marketing
of the “reliability” of that evidence is a great problem for medical
r e s e a r c h e r s a n d t h e c a r r y i n g o u t o f s y s t e m a t i c r e v i e w s . Most of the
Cochrane leadership thinks and acts otherwise in the way it treats the evidence
usually used as the “raw material” for systematic reviews. If that is added to the
fact of a weak con�ict of interest policy that allows up to half of reviewers to
have con�icts of interest, Cochrane has a growing credibility problem.

The people who have actively participated in this con�ict, principally the CEO
and the co-chairs of the Governing Board, are not credible organizers of a fair
 and transparent electoral process of new members of the Board and much less
the establishing of the terms of reference and objectives of an investigative
commission.

It is neither sensible nor appropriate that elections be held to only �ll the
vacant positions of the Governing Board, when the coherent and logical
approach in these exceptional circumstances would be the complete
renewal of the Governing Board.

An independent commission must be created speci�cally in charge of

guaranteeing the election process. The members must enjoy maximum
independence and must be elected by a joint meeting of the Council, the
Governing Board and the centre directors. The electoral commission for the
electoral process must assure a public and transparent census of the members of
Cochrane. The legitimacy and validity of the voting process and candidacies
must be established from the census of Cochrane members existing prior to the
current crisis that started in June 2018. The electoral commission created must
establish su�cient time periods and open forums of debate to provide for a
democratic campaign and debate.

Any proposal to create a commission of inquiry that is appointed and oriented in

its tasks by the current leadership of Cochrane, including the remaining
Governing Board (6 out of 13) or the executive team, does not o�er guarantees of
impartiality. M o r e o v e r , t h i s i n q u i r y c o m m i s s i o n s h o u l d i n t e g r a t e b r o a d e r
objectives beyond the reasons for Gøtzsche’s expulsion and also consider
the organizational, democratic and strategic issues that are substantially
involved in the current con�ict.

• 11 October. Robert Whitaker. The Cochrane Collaboration Has Failed Us

All.

Robert Whitaker is an American journalist and author who has won numerous
awards as a journalist and book author covering medicine and science, in
particular psychiatry. He is the publisher of www.madinamerica.com, which has
3 million visitors annually.

The reason for my con�dence that Gøtzsche would survive the turmoil was that
the Cochrane Collaboration had a reputation for publishing systematic reviews
that challenged conventional wisdom and practices. That would, I thought,
ultimately make it protective of Gøtzsche.

If you read Counsel’s report, it’s clear that the complaints about Gøtzsche’s
“behavior” were very much tied to his vocal criticisms of psychiatry.

Gøtzsche’s ouster is a betrayal of the scienti�c enterprise, which is a collective

social good. By failing to resolve this dispute in some other way, Cochrane failed
in its mission to serve as a collaboration of scientists that would dare to
challenge conventional medical wisdom.

The expulsion had nothing to do with Gøtzsche’s work as a scientist. Counsel

praises Gøtzsche for the “rigour and quality of his academic work,” and as an
“academic of very considerable eminence.” This is to say that his scienti�c work
is of the very kind that burnishes the image of the Cochrane Collaboration as a
�rst-rate scienti�c organization.

The most “recent issue” related to psychiatry was a complaint from psychiatrist
E. Fuller Torrey. Gøtzsche had written to Torrey requesting information about
deaths in a study, and Torrey responded by �ling a formal complaint against
Gøtzsche.

The complaint is revealing, for it highlights this dynamic within psychiatry: You
can be a leading �gure who makes public statements that are belied by science
but consistent with psychiatry’s disease model ideology, and you will su�er no
harm or consequences; yet psychiatrists and other medical professionals who
publicly prick holes in that story do so at great professional risk.

Gøtzsche wrote: “We believe funders have an ethical obligation to ensure that
information, which is of great importance for public health, and which has been
collected in the funded study, gets published. That would be a great service to
psychiatry, the patients, and everyone else with an interest in this vitally
important issue. When young people who are receiving antipsychotics die, we
need to know why they died in order to reduce the risk of death in the future.”

Torrey responded not by providing such information, which would be the

expected thing to do if you were following the dictates of good science, but by
making a “complaint” about Gøtzsche to Cochrane CEO Mark Wilson. He said
that Gøtzsche had identi�ed himself as the Director of the Nordic Cochrane
Center and as the “Protector of the Hearing Voices Network in Denmark.” The
fact that Gøtzsche had a relationship with a group that promoted such ideas,
Torrey wrote, showed a “clear lack of objectivity” by Gøtzsche, and for that
reason he “personally would not �nd any Cochrane publication on mental
illness to be credible.”

Torrey’s letter was clearly unhinged, and hardly one that the CEO of the
Cochrane Collaboration could be expected to treat as serious, but Wilson, in a
letter to Torrey dated March 2, 2018, basically threw Gøtzsche under the bus.

This is the moment in this dispute that perhaps is the most embarrassing of all
for the Cochrane Collaboration. A director of the Cochrane Center wants to �nd
 out more about the deaths in a long-term study of psychotic patients, and the
CEO of the Collaboration, rather than �nding that pursuit worthwhile, �nds
reason to think it might provide cause to expel the director from the
collaboration, and all because he receives a letter from an American psychiatrist
that, even if one viewed it charitably, could best be described as disrespectful
toward a users’ group, ignorant of the science, and silly in its threat to now see
all Cochrane reviews related to psychiatry as lacking “credibility.”

You would think that all members of the Cochrane Collaboration would be red-
faced upon knowing of this exchange.

I am sure Gøtzsche will continue to speak his mind about psychiatric drugs, and
will �nd a way to continue to research this topic. He is not going to disappear.

The future of the Cochrane Collaboration is not clear. Its reputation as an

organization that fosters critical thinking is now stained, and that is the public’s
loss. The medical literature—and this is particularly true of the literature in
psychiatry—is already seen as corrupted and biased due to the in�uence of
pharmaceutical money and guild interests, and now the public will have reason
to question whether the work of the Cochrane Collaboration is similarly
untrustworthy.

The public needs a collaboration that will provide a home for the “scienti�c”
heretic, and this decision to oust Gøtzsche betrays that value. The Cochrane
Collaboration needs to remember that it serves the public, and this decision to
oust Gøtzsche fails to ful�l that obligation.

• 12 October. Cochrane Iberoamerican Network reply.

• 15 October A. Gøtzsche’s comments on Governing Board letter to 31

centre directors from Spain and Latin America.

In its reply to the 31 centre directors from Spain and Latin America, which called
for an independent investigation of the process that led to my expulsion from
Cochrane, the Cochrane Governing Board writes:

”We believe it is not in the charity’s best interests to undertake another

independent review.”

There never was an independent investigation, let alone any due and fair
p r o c e s s . The Cochrane directors asked for justice, and the Board denies them
this. Cochrane Centres and Cochrane members will need to decide whether this
is an organisation to which they want to belong. The Board broke the rules for
charities and for Cochrane numerous times in its show trial against me.

”The Trustees wanted the process to be as transparent as possible while

 respecting the privacy and con�dentiality of all those involved.”

This is false. Cochrane did everything it could to keep the entire investigation
”con�dential” and control the public message by issuing false and misleading
statements. There was no transparency before I released Counsel’s report and
other essential documents on my website. Con�dentiality needs to be broken
when serious injustice has occurred: ”If you are neutral in situations of injustice,
you have chosen the side of the oppressor” (Desmond Tutu).

”We believe that Cochrane’s willingness to tackle problems of this nature are
re�ective of an organization that really ’lives up to its values’, makes it more
attractive to individuals to join and stay, and to funders to support, rather than
less so.”

It is tragic that the Board is out of touch with its members and with reality. Even
in the face of international criticism about how it handled this latest scandal, the
Board continues to congratulate itself with blind enthusiasm.

”This is especially true of the next generation of younger people whom Cochrane
seeks to attract, and who are put o� by out-dated and inappropriate patterns of
behaviour that may have been tolerated 20 years ago in academia but no longer.”

Cochrane’s CEO, Mark Wilson, has introduced scienti�c censorship. The Board
believes that this will attract young people. The opposite is true. Cochrane has
demonstrated that any young person who wants to challenge vested interests
and call out bad science, will not be supported by the organisation and might be
reprimanded or expelled for not ’towing the party line’.

The Board and Cochrane’s CEO have disquali�ed themselves and harmed the
Cochrane Collaboration to such a degree that the only honourable thing for them
to do is to admit their injustice and other failures and resign, so that we can get
the Cochrane Collaboration back to its core values.

A genuinely independent commission needs to be established to investigate

what happened in relation to my expulsion. The CEO and the Board know
perfectly well that they would not survive such an investigation, which is why
they refuse to approve it. I very much hope the Charity Commission will grant
my request to open a statutory inquiry. If not, Cochrane might disintegrate
further and ultimately disappear.

• 15 October B. Gøtzsche’s comments on Governing Board letter to German

EBM network.

In their reply from 12 October, the co-chairs of the Cochrane Governing Board,
Marguerite Koster and Martin Burton, repeat many falsehoods they have
propagated previously.

“Your letter contains a number of inaccuracies. It also draws conclusions on the

basis of limited, biased evidence. Given your network’s position in promoting
the teaching and practice of evidence-based medicine we hope that, moving
forward, you will consider the entire body of evidence pertaining to this matter.”

There are no inaccuracies in the network’s letter, which highlights the

signi�cant lack of transparency in the process. It also points out the ambiguity
of my alleged “bad behaviour” and the di�culty in understanding the Board’s
“reason to expel one of the most respected scientists and Cochrane founders”.
This esteemed group of scientists is deeply concerned about the democratic
basis for this decision, it strongly recommends a ‘rethink’ of the decision and
asks the Board to transparently unveil all arguments which have guided the
Board’s decision.

It is the Board that has deliberately disseminated incomplete and biased

i n f o r m a t i o n . I have tried to correct the misinformation by publishing the
documents on my website, and the German EBM network therefore had access to
unbiased information.

“Many of his behaviours were beyond explanation by academic or cultural

di�erences.”

It seems that Cochrane has introduced a kind of thought and behaviour police, as
we know it from certain dictatorship states. George Orwell’s 1984 comes to mind
here. Whatever one might think of my behaviour, the behaviour displayed by
Cochrane’s CEO and the two co-chairs of the Board is much, much worse.

“It appears that you condone the behaviour of Professor Peter Gøtzsche. We
respectfully suggest that the behaviours he demonstrated both before 13th
September 2018, when our Board �rst considered them, and especially
subsequently (he has continued to disseminate shockingly defamatory
materials) are not behaviours that would be found acceptable to the
Universitåtsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Universität Witten, Universitåt
Hamburg, Martin Luther University, or other esteemed institutions. We should
like to understand why then would they be acceptable to the EBM Netzwerk?”

My so-called behaviours have always been accepted at the University of

Copenhagen and at Rigshospitalet where I work. In contrast to Cochrane, these
institutions appreciate scienti�c criticism and do not accept scienti�c
censorship.

“We are disappointed if your organization, and those who fund you, believe that
high esteem is more important than respectful, collaborative behaviour that
 clearly serves the best interests of Cochrane.”

This comment is interesting, as there has been absolutely no “respectful,

collaborative behaviour that clearly serves the best interests of Cochrane” on the
part of Cochrane’s CEO, the two Board co-chairs and the remaining four
members of the Board.

• 24 October. Rthorat: Authoritarianism at Cochrane

Brilliant analysis. Some extracts:

The Cochrane Governing Board has not said a lot about their expulsion of Peter
Gøtzsche. Perhaps because when they do speak, they tend to make things worse.
The Board appears to have no sense of irony. They must challenge decisions and
make sure decisions are not being driven by one person. That is precisely what
has happened.

The directive to “comply” with decisions does not mean you have to publicly
defend decisions, as the Board has implied or stated. Much like a legislator who
votes against a law must comply with the law when it passes, but is still free to
criticize the law and the process that led to its passage.

It is not correct to say that board members do not represent the interests of
those who voted for them. Members act in the interests of the charity as a whole
by representing the interests and philosophy of their constituents.

A charity with Cochrane’s history and structure should probably not have any
unelected board members. You can see the end result of appointed members
right now. Concentration of power in the central executive sta�.

Trustees must … Not much to say about these statements, other than the current
Board does not follow them.

Authoritarian systems silence dissenting voices because they fear if dissenting

voices are heard, people will lose con�dence in the decisions of the authority.
They seek to control information because information is power. By withholding
information about the decision making process, they minimize questions about
their decision. The only information people receive is that which the authority
wants them to receive.

The Board has sought to control information on the Gøtzsche expulsion since
the beginning. The Board has further used the concept of privacy to maintain
control over information. That is an increasingly common trick when
democratic leaders do not want to be transparent.

Even sillier, the Board has then used Gøtzsche’s transparency on his own
website as some further vague evidence against him. The legal principle here is
 simple: When you are the subject of a public smear campaign, you are entitled to
release information to defend yourself.

That this information has been made public is entirely the fault of the Cochrane
Board. Their expulsion directly led to the exposure of this information. When
Gøtzsche was expelled, he no longer owed a duty to maintain privacy in these
matters, particularly when his rights are so adversely a�ected. Note that before
he was expelled Gøtzsche did keep these matters private.

The Board went even further and urged the minority members to resign. When a
Board member resigns in protest, it indicates a potentially serious issue with
governance. When four resign in protest, it indicates the governance process is
fundamentally broken.

This suggestion to resign resembles the way communist parties operate. When
one faction gains control of the party, competing factions are asked to resign or
forced out of the party. Do we want a scienti�c organization like Cochrane
operating in the same manner as communist leaders?

The Board’s authoritarian disposition and their push for more power to be
centralized at Cochrane should scare every member, particularly the
collaborating centers, who the Board clearly no longer sees as collaborators, but
as subordinates.

The Board have removed a dissenting voice in an absurd process and used that
process to purge the Board of all other dissenting votes. They have told members
and centers concerned over their actions to stu� a sock in it and get over it.

Clearly, there will be no backing down or admission of error by this Board.

Members and centers must take drastic action to force the Board and executive
sta� to resign. The time for half measures is over. This Board will not approve
any investigation into its actions. Authoritarians never do.

• 30 October. German Network for Evidence-based Medicine: Second letter

to Cochrane

Open letter to Cochrane’s CEO Mark Wilson:

“We have received a response by Marguerite Koster and Martin Burton to our
letter, but this response does not answer our questions at all. We are still or even
more disappointed because the response does not contain any facts, but keeps
repeating the nebulous intimations regarding Peter Gøtzsche’s “behaviour”
without presenting any evidence.

This does not go along well with the quite impertinent incrimination of the
German Network of Evidence-based Medicine and us as Board members in this
 response. Ms. Koster and Mr. Burton accuse us of being inaccurate and drawing
conclusions on the basis of limited, biased evidence. From our point of view, it is
quite evident that the governing board is not presenting any evidence for its
accusations but keeps reiterating intransparent and incomprehensible
statements which endanger the trustworthiness of Cochrane and damage the
reputation of the organisation. Once more, the spirit of Cochrane and its
excellent standing require open communication and disclosure of the reasons
why Peter Gøtzsche has been expelled from the Cochrane Governing Board, and
furthermore why the other board members have not yet resigned to open up the
opportunity for new elections and strengthen the democratic basis of Cochrane.

We completely miss the spirit of Cochrane in the handling of this a�air. We fear
that Cochrane’s reputation is at risk of severe damage, not only among the
German scienti�c community but on an international level.”

• 6 December. John Ioannidis: Cochrane crisis: secrecy, intolerance, and

evidence-based values

The world’s most cited medical researcher, Professor John Ioannidis from
Stanford, has provided a brilliant analysis of what is wrong with the current
leadership of the Cochrane Collaboration; why it was wrong that it expelled Peter
C Gøtzsche; and why it is wrong that his hospital now plans to �re him. Emails
Gøtzsche’s lawyer has obtained via the Freedom of Information Act show that
Cochrane’s CEO Mark Wilson has required Gøtzsche’s dismissal, although he has
no authority to intervene in this way in another country’s internal a�airs.

Extracts from Ioannidis’ article (read the full article here):

Some 9,000 people signed a petition complaining �ercely against the decision
and many (including myself) have written their own additional letters to the
minister to support PG. The full details of what drove these events unfortunately
remain opaque. Secrecy is perhaps the most damaging part of this sad story.

Despite the statement of the Cochrane Governing Board that what has happened
is not about freedom of speech, scienti�c debate, tolerance, dissent, or criticism,
it is precisely these issues that unavoidably surface in this clash.

Anyone can and will unavoidably wonder: under its recent CEO leadership, is
Cochrane silencing scientists? Is it being subverted by commercialization? Is it
paralyzed? Has it been hijacked?

Expelling an elected member of the Board who expresses a di�erent viewpoint

with some vague excuse that cannot even be disclosed does not be�t a scienti�c
organization.
The dismissal of PG from his main job seems even more traumatic to freedom of
thought and human dignity. It enforces the message that if one is not aligned
with some majority (or what some people claim is a majority), one can be �red.

It is inappropriate to silence opponents with administrative machinations.

Conversely, it is essential in science to respect and to o�er to opponents a
maximal opportunity to defend their positions. Criticism from PG and other
critics should be welcome even when their attack is targeting our own work.
When PG wrote to me that he will attack one of my own meta-analyses, I wrote
back to him to thank him and to urge him to do it with all his force, data and
evidence. Science needs freedom of thought, freedom of criticism, and tolerance
of contrarian evidence.

This brouhaha exposes a crisis at the core of the Cochrane leadership and its core
values. It is worrisome that neither the remaining Board members nor the
Cochrane CEO have a particularly strong track record in what Cochrane became
famous for: evidence-based medicine and high-quality, independent systematic
reviews. None of them have published as key authors any pivotal, highly
in�uential paper on systematic reviews and evidence-based medicine methods.
Several of
them seem to have major academic, directorship or policy power, e.g. being
involved in shaping recommendations and guidelines in their countries or in
huge organizations like Kaiser Permanente. However, this means very little.
Despite valiant e�orts to make them more evidence-based, guidelines,
recommendations, and exercise of policy power unfortunately remain among
the least evidence-based activities, impregnable strongholds of expert-based
insolence and eminence-based innumeracy.

Focusing on the big picture, Cochrane needs to keep itself more than just an
arm’s length both from uninspiring bureaucracy and from the industry.

Now this collaboration apparently seems to get hijacked primarily by marginal

bureaucracy without vision, not necessarily by con�icts. Nevertheless, there is a
threat that, so weakened, it will then also be easily hijacked at scale by �nancial
or other con�icts, e.g. if con�ict of interest policies become inappropriately
relaxed for systematic review authors and reviewers. These policies need to be
reinforced, not weakened.

Cochrane is a charity and it started as a collaboration. Even though the name

Cochrane Collaboration remains the o�cial name, it is perhaps ominous that,
once a CEO was hired, its name in usage has become plain Cochrane.

Expulsion of dissenters, intolerance, secrecy, and emphasis on resolution of

debates with administrative intrigue and vague, unsupported proclamations
 rather than by data creates serious damage. Repeated use of strong language and
using words written in bold letters cannot replace disclosure of facts and
evidence.

The Cochrane leadership, including its CEO and the remaining Board members
need to assume responsibility for this fracas and be proactive in correcting the
damage. This has become indeed a matter of integrity, accountability, and
leadership: at this point, it is primarily their own integrity, accountability, and
leadership that is at stake. The position that the alleged bad behavior needs to
remain undisclosed has become entirely untenable, given this evolution.
Without su�cient documentation and open explanation of their unusual and
suspect actions, the behaviour of the remnants of Cochrane leadership cannot be
easily di�erentiated from a combination of slander, administrative
incompetence, and character assassination. If they have solid evidence against
PG, they should be transparent about declaring it. Moreover, even if it is proven
that they have acted with the utmost of responsibility, at a minimum they
should safeguard their integrity, accountability, and leadership by resigning, as
soon as the 5 replacements of the Cochrane Board have been voted in.

I trust that everyone would then applaud their sel�essness. This may allow
Cochrane to have a fresh start in defending its ideals that have led to such great
accomplishments.

• 11 December. Peter C Gøtzsche: My dismissal is scienti�c judicial murder

Original in Danish: Min fyring er et videnskabeligt justitsmord. Kronik i

Politiken 11. december 2018.

Extracts:

The Cochrane Collaboration’s CEO, Mark Wilson in London, is behind the

planned dismissal of me.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, my lawyer recently found out that the
Danish Ministry of Health and Rigshospitalet, which hosts the Nordic Cochrane
Centre, have worked closely together with Wilson.

I have not been heard, although it is well documented that Wilson does not
always provide a complete and correct picture, which I had warned
Rigshospitalet about, and provided examples of in my hearing letter to the
hospital.

Wilson has required that I shall no longer be allowed to work at the Nordic
Cochrane Centre, and the Ministry and Rigshospitalet have pleased him,
although, according to Cochrane rules, I can continue working as head of
 department or as chief physician. It is outrageous that a person in this way
interferes with internal a�airs in another country, on top of this contrary to the
rules.

I believe my impending �ring is about silencing an important voice in the

debate, just like my expulsion from the Cochrane Collaboration on September
13th. Cochrane’s leadership was very annoyed that I had published a well-
founded criticism of the Cochrane review of the HPV vaccines, and I was told
that it is bad behaviour to criticize colleagues’ science when you are a Governing
Board member or a Cochrane Director. Obviously, this is scienti�c censorship.

It led to massive resentment, with several articles in, for example, Science,
Nature, BMJ and Lancet, that I was expelled from the Cochrane Collaboration
after a process where new accusations were invented on the spot after
Cochrane’s own lawyer’s investigation had exonerated me from all charges. I
believe I have unequivocal evidence that the process is invalid. The next day,
four members resigned from the board in protest.

The case is not about my person, but about important principles that the
leadership of Cochrane trampled underfoot. Cochrane’s credibility plummeted
because I am known for high quality research, integrity and incorruptibility.

More than 8000 signatures have been sent to the minister with a request to
overturn my sacking, with such prominent names as Cochrane co-founder, Sir
Iain Chalmers, BMJ’s editor-in-chief, Fiona Godlee, Member of the European
Parliament Margrete Auken who has done a lot to make data available to
researchers, psychiatrist David Healy, highly respected as one of the world’s
leading experts on psychiatric drugs, and the world’s most cited health
researcher, John Ioannidis from Stanford University.

Some of these people have also sent personal letters to the minister.

It seems that the Ministry and the hospital have used all means at their disposal
needed to accommodate Wilson’s unusual requirement that I must be �red, even
though 50 employees su�ered as a result, fearing for their jobs for a period of
more than two months.

This is a huge scandal, and Wilson’s actions will sully Cochrane’s reputation
even more than the Governing Board has already accomplished. Everyone will
lose on this.

• 19 December. Independent investigation of the Cochrane Governing

Board process against Peter C. Gøtzsche. Questions that could be asked.

• 21 December. Letters to Danish Minister of Health about preventing

 Gøtzsche’s dismissal.

• 30 December. Gøtzsche, Why we’re establishing an Institute for Scienti�c

Freedom.

• 2 February 2019. Gøtzsche, Death of a whistleblower and Cochrane’s

moral collapse.

I publish a book about the Cochrane show trial, which, because of CEO Mark
Wilson’s inappropriate interference with internal Danish a�airs, led to my
sacking on 31 January. “For the �rst time, Gøtzsche pulls back the covers on this
unscrupulous process, giving us all access to secret recordings, which reveal
how his own organisation betrayed him and misled millions of people after
Cochrane cowered to the threats and intimidation from his critics. This is the
fascinating story about institutional corruption in one of the world’s most
venerated charities, which ultimately led to the worst show trial in academia you
can imagine.”

Citations from the book:

“This is like capital punishment what we’re doing” (Gerald Gartlehner, resigned
board member)

“We are o�ering Peter’s head on a platter and we’ll be able to open up ourselves
to a uni�ed brand and more funding” (David Hammerstein, resigned board
member)

“A researcher is making inquiries about the suppression of information

regarding children who died in a clinical trial and everyone is worried about
what letterhead it is written on?” (Ryan Horath, US lawyer)

”… the CEO of the Collaboration, rather than �nding that pursuit worthwhile,
�nds reason to think it might provide cause to expel the director from the
collaboration” (Robert Whitaker, US science journalist)

“This whole process really questions whether this would still be an organisation
that you would want to contribute to” (Karsten Juhl Jørgensen, deputy director,
Nordic Cochrane Centre)

“Peter is undoubtedly a giant, one of the greatest scientists of our times and one
of the most in�uential, impactful, and useful voices in medicine at large. I
cherish enormously his contributions” (John Ioannidis, the world’s most cited
medical researcher)

“The big winner in this con�ict has been the pharmaceutical industry, having
succeeded in weakening the voice of one of its greatest critics and having
consolidated a Cochrane leadership closer to industrial interests with fewer
 audible critical voices” (David Hammerstein)

“If your review is made up of studies which are biased and in some cases are
ghost written or the studies are cherry picked and you don’t take that into
account in your review, then it’s garbage in and garbage out … with a nice little
Cochrane logo on it” (Tom Je�erson, expert on systematic reviews of clinical
study reports obtained from drug agencies)

• 2 1 J u n e 2 0 1 2 . Mark WilsonV and application to Cochrane.

Documentary Films

Diagno sing Psychiatry

The documentary, “Diagnosing Psychiatry,” sheds light on the scienti�c career and
e�orts of Professor Peter C. Gøtzsche in changing the �elf of psychiatry. It portrays
the uphill battle Peter experiences when he, supported by the patients, advocates for
a more humane psychiatric practice, with very little use of psychiatric drugs, no
forced treatment, and a main focus on psychotherapy.

The �lm is produced and directed by Anahi Testa Pedersen, an independent

�lmmaker, who has been working on the project for over four years. It focuses not
only on Peter’s work but also on Pedersen’s own re�ections and experiences as a
mental health patient.

The Happy Pill

Silje Marie Strandberg was seriously mentally ill. She had a heavy schizoa�ective
and dissociative disorder diagnose. She heard voices, hallucinated, cut herself, had
an eating disorder and repeatedly tried to kill herself. She was so sick that no one
thought she could ever recover. But after 10 years in mental wards, 10 years of
compulsion, isolation, electrolysis and heavy medication, she �nally recovered and
is now completely healthy.

The di�erence was her psychiatric nurse,

Lone. Lone went further in terms of
proximity and self-interest. It’s almost
like a miracle. This story is unique. A
story of hope. But it’s also the story of a
young girl with little self-con�dence
that lost 10 years of her life. Where did it
go wrong? Did she have to go through 10 years of torture in mental wards? These are
the answers Silje Marie is looking for in this documentary.

You can watch the documentary here.

Updated 14 April 2020

INFO

Help for psychiatric drug

withdrawal.

Hjælp til udtrapning af

psykofarmaka.

Expert help in lawsuits

about drug harms,
experience from 8
countries:
pcg@scienti�cfreedom.dk

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Help for psychiatric drug
withdrawal.

Hjælp til udtrapning af

psykofarmaka.

Expert help in lawsuits

about drug harms,
experience from 8
countries:
pcg@scienti�cfreedom.dk

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