A strong and independent research community to the benefit of… patients.
Seven weeks ago in the wake of Peter Gøtzsche’s dismissal by the Rigshospitalitet, I wrote to Ellen Trane Nørby the Danish Minister for Health. The letter is HERE. She replied on December 11 – See HERE. The response below was sent yesterday, along with the hard copies noted and link to the Welsh Senate proceedings.
December 17th 2018
Ellen Trane Nørby
Minister of Health. Denmark
Re Peter Gøtzsche & the Safety of Young Danes
Dear Minister:
Thank you for your response to my letter. I was aware that you do not manage the Rigshospitalet. While I mentioned Cochrane and how events like Dr Gøtzsche’s in general play out, my primary concern lay with the point you make in your final words, especially the last 4, about Denmark remaining “devoted to ensure a strong and independent research community to the benefit of all – not least the patients”.
The Gøtzsche event has been framed exclusively in Cochrane terms. A better framing would be that close to 100% of the articles on patented drugs in our best journals and likely a large proportion of the literature on vaccines is ghostwritten, and there is no access to the data from the clinical trials these articles purport to represent.
At a time of growing concern about the threat Fake News poses to democracy, the greatest concentration of Fake News on earth centres on treatments Danish doctors give Danes. This risks compromising trust in medicine and the safety of Danes.
Whatever about the efficacy of the HPV Vaccine, the Jorgensen, Jefferson and Gøtzsche article on HPV trials, linked to Peter Gøtzsche’s dismissal, centred on safety issues – the trials of this vaccine appear to have been designed to avoid detecting expected difficulties.
I am not an expert on HPV vaccines, but I am an expert on antidepressants and young people and on the ability of drug regulators to approve treatments without meeting even minimal criteria and in the face of evidence of harms.
I lectured on this issue in the Welsh Senedd (Senate) two hours before your letter arrived – see – https://youtu.be/4fZD2kb_LYM. A 5-page transcript of the talk and slides are attached.
My message was aimed at the Welsh Health Minister, and by extension you. Whatever about your personal views of Peter Gøtzsche, in delegating these issues to a Rigshospitalet manager, you are responding as politicians invariably do – you are treating this as a rotten apple in a barrel problem when Danish patients, physicians and researchers face a rotten barrel problem.
Rotten barrels are a political problem. Given that in this case, a Dane has done so much to bring the rot to light, I hope you will not wash your hands of this matter.
Yours sincerely
Professor David Healy MD FRCPsych
cc. Margrete Auken, David Hammerstein
The Text of the lecture is HERE. The Slides that link to it are HERE . A video of the entire proceedings of which this was a part – starting at 2 minutes in – is HERE.
The image is a WWII Danish resistance flag.
Finally, it might be useful to add Trussed in Guidelines in here – chapter 6 from Pharmageddon.
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Ellen Trane Norby
https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/Ellen_Trane_Nørby/
I (and I expect others) have already provided Dr Gøtzsche with evidence to support a legal action he intends to take against Cochrane. His current suspension will further strengthen his case and will likely bring the chain of decision making behind his suspension into play.
Thank you for your email of 7. November 2018 concerning the Nordic Cochrane Centre and where you explain your own story.
I fully agree with you that it is very important to maintain a strong and independent clinical research community, which will contribute to transparency in clinical data and public health in general. In Denmark, we have a long tradition for free and independent research.
Free and Independent Research is something Peter Gotzsche has strived for and succeeded at in his long career.
There is no doubt Peter will shake up Cochrane and Rigshospitalet, whether he works for them or not.
6 December. John Ioannidis: Cochrane crisis: secrecy, intolerance, and evidence-based values
11 December. Peter C Gøtzsche: My dismissal is scientific judicial murder
http://www.deadlymedicines.dk/
Re the John Ioannidis article: Cochrane crisis: Secrecy, intolerance and evidence‐based values: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eci.13058
Consider this paragraph:
“One may also argue that the extremely critical positions of PG fuel anti‐science, for example, anti‐vaccine movements. This argument is unfounded. In fact, anti‐science nonsense may be fuelled more by his expulsion when quacks like MMR vaccine deniers (who actually PG has fought against) can weaponize that a scientific critic with such strong credentials was dismissed with petty machinations. People who strongly disagree with PG on scientific issues should be the first to complain about PG’s dismissal and demand his reappointment at his job in the Rigshospitalet.”
Also consider:
“One may disagree with PG on several points about the science. For example, for antidepressants, the best available data suggest that they do have a small effect on average10 and this may be large (and thus clinically meaningful) for some people. In contrast to what PG asserts, psychotherapy does not seem to be more effective11 and psychotherapy trials are as affected by bias as antidepressant trials.12 Also, HPV vaccination should be widely used currently, even though it is still useful to see all the previously missed trials that PG and his team identified8 included in a new, updated Cochrane systematic review. It would also be useful to accumulate more long‐term evidence. Finally, the pharmaceutical industry is not just a form of organized crime. In contrast to tobacco industry which might fit this description, big pharma does offer value to humankind, even if it has overt conflicts of interest and covert marketing agendas.”
Interesting that Ioannidis seems determined to defend the status quo re vaccination…
What expertise does Ioannidis have in vaccination that qualifies him to discount citizens’ concerns in this area?
Elizabeth
This language is very troubling: Ioannidis needs to research what the evidence base for MMR safety is without abusing people – I am furious about this matter because it does not take Ioannidis’s mathematical skills or reputation to find out that it is slight to non-existent:
https://www.ageofautism.com/2018/11/the-junk-safety-science-which-underpins-uk-government-mmr-vaccine-policy.html
I took the “meta-analysis” recommended by the British government’s Chief Medical Officer and the six MMR studies should not last 5 seconds according to any scientific criteria (1) these are very poor and unconvincing studies (2) they are the best that anyone seems to be able to do (3) in two cases (Madsen and De Stefano) it is transparently clear that without the biases there would have been a significant positive result for autism. If Ioannidis can do any better he is welcome but he had better not try and win the argument by ad hominem attack.
I am sure David has views about SSRIs but manifestly the public should not be exposed to products which have been trialed as defectively as HPV vaccines, on PG’s evidence. It is not enough ethically to conjecture that they might be of some benefit. It is fine that Ioannidis has come out to support him but one regrets the terms.
My further comments to Dame Sally Davies about the failure of the MMR safety evidence and the rise of autism. I don’t know whether the mighty Ioannidis can square the circle but manifestly everything is falling apart, and Dame Sally doesn’t seem to be able to do anything about it.
https://www.ageofautism.com/2019/01/confirmation-bias-and-the-united-kingdom-department-of-health.html
PS Elizabeth, I don’t see why Ioannidis would not have the competence to assess vaccination data if so minded. A couple of other points:
1) I don’t see why the monitoring agencies that have been so woefully lacking over many other matters should suddenly become reliable over MMR or any other vaccine: in fact even where they pick up adverse reactions they would be unlikely to monitor long enough to discover autism as an effect.
2) We really do not want these matters to be resolved by scurrilous accusations (Brian Deer etc). Andrew Wakefield continues to be brought up virtually everyday as the bogeyman in defence of the entire vaccine project – but even if what was alleged was remotely correct – it would not have any bearing on the general safety or usefulness of the products.
The Danish Health minister and her collaborators
re DENMARK URGED TO RELEASE A LONG LIST OF NAZI COLLABORATORS in THE GUARDIAN 28TH AUG 2002
the Danes have been obliged to release information about the level of collaboration with nazis which went on in Denmark during the 2nd world war by industry. politicians, the royal family and others.
The work by David and others is revealing nothing has changed ‘A moral perspective was totally absent’ It resonates with what is going on between medicine, pharma, politicians, industry, psychotherapy/psychology orgs, the law
It also highlights that while (extra) ordinary people retained a humanity and protected those in vulnerable positions they were being shafted by those in influential positions with powerful networks.
Very few of us would have access to the sort of information David makes public but Thanks to the internet they can no longer secretly threaten those who speak out when they will continue to publish the truth.. Careers and livelihoods and reputations are trashed instead.
Just as in the war it takes remarkable people to fight and stand up for principles underlying care for others and respect for the truth. .
There is by the way a monument on a hillside above Pontypridd in S Wales to commemorate the soldiers who went to the assistance of Denmark and the resistance fighters, and other countries, during the war.
Susanne
Sadly, I fear we should not take the future freedom of the internet for granted. If corporate and government power can shut us all up they will – having silenced the MSM internet is on the agenda, the basis of all this talk of Fake News.
Agree with you there John all the more reason for getting the message out with that possibility in mind. Blogs are already being taken down , we have no way of knowing how many, and links disappear .Although it looks like and can be a way of protecting privacy the removal of so many links to individuals with things to hide has been useful. Just complain to gogle and information can be disappeared.
Thats a very interesting subject.
Just some thought on this that popped up.
In an interview by Rep. Jamie Raskin with the google CEO concerning some video about Hillary Clinton and some quite disturbing claims, prevalent on Youtube and recomended by the Recommendation engine, he mentioned the amount of content being uploaded to their Youtube platform every minut. It was massive. about 400 hours every minute.
How to detect and administer what to be concerned with, concerning uploaded content on for example youtube? Perhaps the autotranslate function can also be a tool for this. This way A I can learn or have learned to detect what should be subject for scrutiny. I.e what should be banned, downplayed or in other ways dealt with. In all languages naturally.
The function and operation of the recommendation engine is also a interesting subject. What is being promoted, and more important what is not.
Another interesting factor is the video views. It would be expected, that very sensitive subjects should not have too many views – not seem too popular. Could also be administered with A I ‘soft power’. Both number of views and rating of content.
Then there is the different newspapers national and abroad, that have replaced their internal search function with a googlemodel. This could also be a instrument for a more centralised control of what can be found when searching a newspaper for specific content.
Then there is Wikipedia. There is some quite interesting german investigative documentaries on the processes that control what there is allowed to be stated – and maintain there as wikipedia ‘facts’.
Die dunkle Seite der Wikipedia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHfiCX_YdgA
Zensur – die organisierte Manipulation der Wikipedia und anderer Medien
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tef7bgwInjY
How to administer consent with ‘soft power’ is definatly very interesting.
Another grip that can be applied is ‘Shadowbanning’:
Covertly censoring statements, posts and other public communication without the ‘targeted’ user realises it without researching it and being aware of the trick. That means it will look for the user as if his post, tweet, whatever is delivered, but only to himself.
No doubt also a powerfull tool with a promising future.
I wouldnt trust wikipedia or other popular media description of the softpower instruments. Probably the worst you can imagine will be more realistic.
F Edward Yazbak: ‘The CDC finances, writes and helps publish Danish research
https://vaccinationnews.org/sites/default/files/DanishStudy2005.pdf
https://www.ageofautism.com/2012/11/wanted-by-the-feds-poul-thorsen-who-helped-pull-off-cdc-vaccine-autism-heist.html
https://www.ageofautism.com/2014/08/cdc-frauds-connections-between-the-destefano-paper-and-the-thorsen-affair.html
https://www.ageofautism.com/2016/02/dr-poul-thorsen-stil-funded-while-on-fugitive-list.html
Nearly 8 years after Poul Thorsen’s indictment he remains unprosecuted in Denmark, unextradited to the United States. The criminal farce has been going on since the beginning of the millennium.
They still don’t get it. In thebmj 17th Dec 2018
Top Italian Public Health Official Faces Allegations of Failing to Disclose Pharma Links.
What he rceived wasn’t just peanuts – he is Head of National Institute of Health
Last year – published by Global Investigative Journalists in ‘Cable’
Medical Research in Bristol Violates International Guidelines
One of their articles critisized the failure to register ‘Mertazapine added to SSRIs and SNRIs for Treatment Resistant Depression in Primary Care Phase 111
This was at first agreed by the lead researcher Peter Kessler then he seemed to realise that that was incorrect and it did conform to guidelines
The research was based in Bristol and the participants were from different regions in England As it seems odd that Ethics Approval was given By S E Wales Ethics Cttee I wrote to ask why that would be so – no reply so far.
Have sent info re David Healy and Rxisk blogs to Cable to ask for publicity in the newsletter.
Symposium, and opening of the Institute for Scientific Freedom, 9 March 2019
Scientific freedom is under constant pressure. We will therefore open an Institute for Scientific Freedom on 9 March in Copenhagen in connection with an international scientific meeting, with experienced speakers from USA, Europe and Australia. Please register as early as possible.
http://www.deadlymedicines.dk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/19-March-2019-Symposium-and-opening-of-the-Institute-for-Scientific-Freedom-programme.pdf
Prof. Peter Gøtzsche
@PGtzsche1
I’m raising money for Scientific Freedom. Click to Donate: (link:
https://www.gofundme.com/scientific-freedom?pc=tw_co_share_w&rcid=r01-154522643964-856d43860be248c0) gofundme.com/scientific-fre… via
@gofundme
https://www.gofundme.com/scientific-freedom
“Peter Gøtzsche is the valiant proponent of truth, justice, scientific integrity and human rights fighting the corrupt Goliath of Big Pharma and corrupt lackeys in corrupt medicine, academia and Cochrane. May he persevere!”
The donations will be used to cover legal costs and to support a new Institute for Scientific Freedom in order to allow Peter to carry on with his work for the benefit of the patients.
19 December. Independent investigation of the Cochrane Governing Board process against Peter C. Gøtzsche. Questions that could be asked.
http://www.deadlymedicines.dk/
Alert 73: MEET ME IN DENMARK MARCH 9, 2019
for a precedent-setting conference with
Peter Gøtzsche MD on Scientific Freedom
https://breggin.com/alert-73-meet-me-in-denmark-march-9-2019/
It’s the first time I will speak frankly in public about the repeated, at times life-threatening, attempts to stop my scientific and reform work.
Introduction by Fiona Godlee; Dee Mangin and others …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIIQVll7DYY
News
Expelled Cochrane director to set up new institute for “integrity in science”
BMJ 2019; 364 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l183 (Published 11 January 2019) Cite this as: BMJ 2019;364:l183
https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l183
Peter Gøtzsche, who was expelled from the Cochrane collaboration last year,1 plans to found a new Institute for Scientific Freedom. The new organisation, whose goal is “to preserve honesty and integrity in science,” will be launched on 9 March at an international symposium in Copenhagen.
Gøtzsche, who was a member of Cochrane’s board until his sacking last autumn, told The BMJ that the institute will be financed by crowdfunding. It will focus on lobbying for improvements in healthcare research quality as well as producing its own research.
“Lobbying will be a big part of what we do,” he explained. Gøtzsche …
https://www.gofundme.com/scientific-freedom
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