Professor emerita Cornelia Baines from the University of Toronto was a primary investigator in the Canadian National Breast Screening Study. In this episode, Peter C Gøtzsche discusses with Cornelia Baines the false propaganda for breast screening and how its proponents have constantly harassed anyone who told the truth. Documentation: Miller AB, Baines CJ, To T, Wall C. Canadian National Breast Screening Study: 1. Breast cancer detection and death rates among women aged 40 to 49 years. CMAJ 1992;147:1459-76. Miller AB, Baines CJ, To T, Wall C. Canadian National Breast Screening Study: 2. Breast cancer detection and death rates among women aged 50...

Training Psychiatrist and Clinical Research Fellow in the UK National Health Service, Mark Horowitz, has published guidance about how to withdraw safely from psychiatric drugs. In this episode, Peter C Gøtzsche interviews Mark Horowitz who gives practical advice about how to taper the drugs in a hyperbolic fashion. He also recounts his personal experience of horrific withdrawal symptoms when he tried to withdraw a depression drug and did not know how to do it. Documentation: Horowitz MA, Taylor D. Tapering of SSRI treatment to mitigate withdrawal symptoms. Lancet Psychiatry 2019;6:538-46 (behind a paywall). Horowitz M, Taylor DM.The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines: Antidepressants, Benzodiazepines,...

Science journalist Alan Cassels, University of Victoria, British Columbia, was asked by the Cochrane leadership to write a book to celebrate Cochrane’s 20th anniversary in 2013. In this episode, Peter C Gøtzsche discusses with Cassels why Cochrane’s CEO, journalist Mark Wilson, killed his book about Cochrane and why the most important organisation established in healthcare in the last 100 years seems to have collapsed. We hope that somehow a new Cochrane will come out of the ashes. Documentation: Cassels A. The Cochrane Collaboration: Medicine’s best kept secret. Victoria: Agio; 2015. Demasi M. Cochrane – a sinking ship? BMJ 2018; Sept 16. Gøtzsche...

Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at University College London, Joanna Moncrieff, is co-founder of the Critical Psychiatry Network based in the UK and has advocated for far less use of psychiatric drugs for decades, in scientific articles and books. In this episode, Peter C Gøtzsche discusses with Professor Joanna Moncrieff what critical psychiatry is about; why psychiatric drugs are much overused and based on false premises; and how the disease centred and the drug centred model for psychiatric drugs can help explain the predicament we are in. Documentation: Moncrieff J. The bitterest pills: the troubling story of antipsychotic drugs. Palgrave Macmillan;...

Professor Christine Stabel Benn, Southern University in Denmark, has published ground-breaking field studies about vaccines with her husband, Professor Peter Aaby. In this episode, Peter C Gøtzsche discusses with Professor Christine Stabell Benn the research that has shown that live, attenuated vaccines reduce total mortality by much more than their specific effects would predict; that non-live vaccines increase total mortality; that the order in which the vaccines are given is important for mortality; what the harms are of the COVID-19 vaccines; and why they are overused. Documentation: Benn CS, Fisker AB, Rieckmann A, et al. Vaccinology: time to change the paradigm? Lancet...

Professor Martin Kulldoff from Harvard University (currently on leave) is one of the authors of The Great Barrington Declaration that warned against lockdowns and recommended focused protection. In this episode, Peter C Gøtzsche discusses with Professor Martin Kulldorff what went wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic and how we could do better in future pandemics. Kulldorff’s home country, Sweden, did not lock down and did not recommend facemasks, yet coped much better with the COVID-19 pandemic than most other countries in terms of mortality, the most important outcome. Documentation: Kulldorff M, Gupta S, Bhattacharya J. Great Barrington Declaration. 2020; Oct 4. Gøtzsche PC. Vaccines:...