Newsletter 3: Three new episodes

26 March 2024

Episode 05

The rise and demise of the Cochrane Collaboration, likely the most important organisation established in healthcare in the last 100 years. 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, but Cochrane’s CEO Mark Wilson axed it. Peter C Gøtzsche discusses with Cassels why Wilson killed his book about Cochrane, which Cassels published elsewhere, and why Cochrane seems to have collapsed. We hope that somehow a new Cochrane will come out of the ashes. 

Episode 06

Why is mammography screening a bad idea? Professor emerita Cornelia Baines from the University of Toronto was a primary investigator in the Canadian National Breast Screening Study, one of the best mammography screening trials ever carried out. This trial did not find an effect of screening on breast cancer mortality. Peter C Gøtzsche discusses with Baines the false propaganda for breast screening and how its proponents have constantly harassed anyone who told the truth. 

Episode 07

How can patients be safely withdrawn from their psychiatric drugs? This is often very difficult. 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 a hyperbolic fashion, which involves very small doses by the end of tapering. Horowitz 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. 

Best wishes 

Peter C Gøtzsche

Professor emeritus and Director

Institute for Scientific Freedom

Copenhagen

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