Cochrane distances itself from controversial views on psychiatric drugs

The Cochrane research organisation has stated unequivocally that it does not share the views of Peter Gøtzsche, the director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, on the benefits and harms of psychiatric drugs.1

The research organisation said that it had been forced to issue a statement after Gøtzsche wrote an article in the Daily Mail saying that psychiatric drugs were Britain’s third biggest killer after heart disease and cancer and that doctors were handing them out like sweets.2 In the article Gøtzsche said that as an investigator for the Cochrane Collaboration his role was to look forensically at the evidence for effects of treatments.

He quoted his new book, Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial, in which he said that the …