Dr Gøtzsche heads the Nordic Cochrane Collaboration, an independent, non-profit organisation that organises medical research in a systematic way to provide true evidence based medicine.
Dr Gøtzsche complained to the European Ombudsman after the EMA (European Medicines Agency) refused access to detailed clinical study reports on 2 anti-obesity drugs. This led to a reversal by the EMA and a complete overhaul of its policy on access to medical data.
Dr Gøtzsche claims that pharmaceutical companies, who fund and carry out most of the research on licensed drugs, suppress and cosmetically enhance results to give the best spin on the products they sell. Unfortunately doctors prescribe medicines without reading the original research studies, so tend to believe the hype from drug reps and compromised medical journals.
Dr Peter Gøtzsche states that after heart disease and cancer, prescription drugs are the third biggest killer of people in the USA and Western Europe. 'It's a man made epidemic almost as bad as tobacco'.
He points to the corruption in healthcare and the lack of sufficient control. 'What the drug industry is doing fulfills the RICO criteria for organised crime.'
My good friend Derek Shields alerted me to the fact that John Braithwaite published a book 'Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry' way back in 1984.
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