Peter C. Gotzsche And His Critique Of Psychopharmaceuticals

Peter C. Gotzsche is an expert in pharmacological treatments who has done important research on psychopharmaceuticals. His questions about the subject caused great controversy in the world of medicine and psychiatry. Much of the scientific community is divided between those who adore it and those who want to ban it.

The most relevant aspect of Gotzsche’s work is that, despite being a prestigious physician and scientist, he was strongly opposed to the pharmaceutical industry. He is not based on his own opinions, but on long-term studies that support all his claims. The fact that a doctor with your knowledge has done this means a heavy blow to drug manufacturers.

Peter C. Gotzsche became famous in the 1990s when he founded, with some colleagues, the Nordic Cochrane Collaboration Center in Copenhagen. This organization is one of the pillars in the field of evidence-based medicine. Gotzsche was a member of the board until 2017, when he was expelled by his colleagues. This happened because of the heated controversies that his works sparked.

Peter Gotzsche and a controversial work

For many years, Peter Gotzsche was dedicated to verifying the true effectiveness of various medications and medical procedures. Their research has gathered thousands and thousands of information on this subject. In particular, there are two studies that have caused hostility in the scientific community: one on mammography and one on antidepressants.

In the case of mammography, Gotzsche demonstrated that it was basically useless. Their work consisted of carefully evaluating eight of the studies that support this procedure as a measure to prevent breast cancer. He examined data covering a 12-year period. Thus, he came to the conclusion that mammograms, in a nutshell, are useless. Many of his colleagues expressed an irritated response to this survey.

Gotzsche also studied the subject of antidepressants in depth. After thorough research, he stated that this type of medication does far more harm than good. He harshly criticized the way in which antidepressants ended up being massively prescribed in the world. He also said that, in general, psychiatric drugs end up exacerbating the symptoms they seek to combat. In addition, he denounced that several of the psychiatrists who write the DMS are also employees of pharmaceutical companies at the same time.

Peter Gotzsche’s great complaint related to psychopharmaceuticals

The conclusions of Gotzsche’s 40 meta-analyses on psychopharmaceuticals are described in the book Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime . Just by the title we already have an idea of ​​the strong reviews it contains. Basically, it labels the pharmaceutical companies as a mafia, which has taken over medicine and has no other objective than profit on a large scale.

In this work, he declares that “in the United States and Europe, drugs are the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer” . In addition, it gives a detailed description of how it came to this conclusion, based on a rigorously applied scientific method.

He found, among other things, that most studies supporting the new drugs have serious flaws. Even so, they are placed on the market. Most people do not know, and cannot know, the adverse effects they cause. That’s why he talks about an “organized crime” in these practices.

A worrying panorama

What Peter Gotzsche shows is that there are huge economic interests in relation to medicines, which prevent even legal action on them. He mentions, in detail, the case of a large American pharmaceutical company. There have been independent investigations that have revealed big lies about the products that this company puts on the market.

However, the prosecutors responsible for the case concluded that the collapse of that company would have undesirable effects, and so they decided to file it. They only asked for certain products to be withdrawn from the market and, thus, the issue was resolved. This accusation of corruption brought great criticism to Gotzsche. Despite being one of the most prestigious professors at the University of Copenhagen, they tried to turn him into someone undesirable.

What Peter Gotzsche is asking is for much tougher laws to be enacted on the clinical trials of drugs. He also calls for the pharmaceutical companies’ business practices to be more tightly regulated. Regardless of whether you are right or wrong in your allegations, your request is reasonable enough to be taken seriously by societies and governments.