Fraud in the two pivotal trials of fluoxetine in children with depression
Fluoxetine (Prozac) from Eli Lilly was the first SSRI approved for depression in children and adolescents. But it doesn’t work and it increases the risk of suicide and violence. After having reviewed Lilly’s unpublished clinical study reports, which we got from a drug agency, psychiatrist David Healy and I concluded that fluoxetine is both unsafe and ineffective.
As we describe in our review, which can be downloaded here, essential information was missing; there were unexplained numerical inconsistencies; new outcomes appeared that were not prespecified in the trial protocol (the Texas sharpshooter fraud); rating scales and analyses were changed; the trial protocols were violated in other ways; and the efficacy outcomes were biased by differential dropouts and missing data.
The publications of the trials were seriously misleading and – with ten people who lost a child or spouse to suicide as a consequence of being prescribed a depression drug for a non-psychiatric condition – I called for retraction of the fraudulent trial reports, but to no avail.
Fluoxetine is a horrible drug that should never have been approved. But Lilly was in financial trouble and turned their drug, which they had wanted to shelve, into a blockbuster.
Lilly’s frauds are second to none. See more in my freely available book, Is psychiatry a crime against humanity?
Report on improving mental health outcomes
In this report, we explain that the mental health system’s standard treatments are colossally counterproductive and harmful, often forced on unwilling patients. The overreliance on psychiatric drugs is reducing the recovery rate and life expectancy of people diagnosed with serious mental illness dramatically. Psychiatric incarceration, euphemistically called “involuntary commitment,” is similarly counterproductive and harmful, adding to patients’ trauma and massively associated with suicides. Harmful psychiatric interventions are being imposed on people without consideration of the facts about treatments and their harms, and are a violation of International Law.
We published our report on 18 September 2023 and I now republish it.
What really happened to Peter Gøtzsche?
What knocked me over was one of the worst show trials in academic history
By Peter C Gøtzsche
Translation of my article in the newspaper Politiken 2024;Dec 2
In the Danish newspaper Politiken (25 Nov), Lars Igum Rasmussen brought a comprehensive portrait of me because of my 75th birthday the next day. Most of the article is laudatory, but already in the headline Lars Igum gets it wrong: “Peter Gøtzsche was one of the greatest. Until his manners knocked him off the throne.”
What knocked me over was one of the worst show trials in academic history, which I have written two books and also an article in Politiken about: “My dismissal is a scientific judicial murder” (11 Dec 2018). I was elected to Cochrane’s Governing Board with the largest number of votes to change Cochrane’s disastrous course, but it became too much of a threat to Cochrane’s CEO, who, by the way, suddenly disappeared without any explanation in the middle of a month after he had destroyed Cochrane. …
Alternative medicine is no alternative
Also called complementary medicine, there is no commonly accepted definition of alternative medicine which might delineate a logical boundary to other treatments. Most definitions say it is not presently considered part of conventional medicine. That could be translated into: It does not work. If it worked, doctors would be happy to use it – and would not call it alternative.
Alternative medicine is no alternative is chapter 13 in my book, Survival in an overmedicated world: look up the evidence yourself. Copenhagen: People’s Press; 2019, which has been published in 7 languages; Danish, Dutch, English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. Read the chapter here.
Of mites and men: Ineffective interventions against house dust mites, institutional corruption and Cochrane fraud
Some people with asthma are allergic to house dust mites, and many physical and chemical methods have been tried to eradicate the mites or reduce their occurrence. One of my researchers, Cecilia Hammarquist from Sweden, wanted to review the trials, which we did.
This is a hilarious story illustrating that there are no limits to stupidy and dishonesty in healthcare. Read it here.
Health checks: A “Yes, Minister” parody also outside the UK
My article illustrates the importance of having access to documents in the public administration and a shocking degree of torturing the data till they confess committed by civil servants. Health checks don’t work but are popular with politicians, and the rest follows from there.
Cochrane review of intercessory prayer: a pillar of shame for Cochrane
One of the most absurd interventions in healthcare is distant healing, which includes prayer. We have shown that a Cochrane review of intercessory prayer[1] goes beyond reason, is logically inconsistent, and uses an unsound mixture of theological and scientific arguments,[2] which led to utter nonsense. …
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Support historic trial about human rights violations in psychiatry
Translation from Norwegian
Every crown goes directly to expenses related to the trial.
The money collected goes directly to cover the costs of a court case against the state for human rights violations. The trial starts on 19 November in Oslo District Court.
Survivor of forced psychiatry sues the state for violation of human rights
For the first time, the state, represented by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, is sued for human rights violations in relation to forced psychiatric treatment in Norway. This case is the first to come before the court from ICJ-Norway’s (the Norwegian branch of the International Commission of Jurists) pro bono group for human rights cases related to coercion in mental health care. …
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Big Pharma is organised crime
In 2013, I published the book, Deadly medicines and organised crime: How big pharma has corrupted health care, which won the British Medical Association’s Annual Book Award in 2014, in the category Basis of Medicine. It has appeared in 18 languages.
In 2014, I lectured about drugs in Santa Rosa in California at Dr. John McDougall’s weekend course. John made three interviews with me before I left, and the one about organised crime has been seen by over one million people. John died in 2024, and as I don’t know what will happen to his YouTube channel, I have now uploaded the interview here.
ADHD er en epidemi af falske diagnoser og skadelig medicin
Af Professor emeritus Peter C Gøtzsche og psykolog Allan Holmgren
(Nedenstående er vores debatindlæg, som Politiken ikke ville udgive)
I Politiken (21. august) kommer folketingsmedlem Matilde Powers (S) med et væld af forkerte påstande om ADHD.
Hun kalder ADHD en biologisk forstyrrelse i hjernen med en nedsat virkning af signalstofferne dopamin og noradrenalin. Man har aldrig kunnet påvise, at personer med en ADHD-diagnose har anderledes hjerner end andre, hverken på scanninger eller kemisk. ADHD er ikke andet end et navn, man har givet personer med en vis adfærd, som mange af os har. Når man bruger de diagnostiske spørgsmål på kursusdeltagere, får mellem en tredjedel og halvdelen diagnosen! …
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