News

Professor of psychology John Read about what is wrong with psychiatry

Published on June 26, 2023

John Read tells Denise Winn about his work showing adverse life events explain most types of emotional distress, and how the medical model ignores it in the article “Lack of insight: the story of psychiatry.” This article, and the editorial, “Where’s the madness?” are very insightful.

The logic is straightforward, but in psychiatry, things are different to the rest of healthcare. As John says: “In any other branch of medicine, if you had a drug that increased the thing it was supposed to be decreasing, it would be off the market.”

Read about the story of psychiatry.

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The government has a moral duty to help those harmed by prescribed dependence forming drugs

Published on June 21, 2023

26% of adults in England was prescribed a dependence forming drug in the previous year, for example, antidepressants, benzodiazepines, Z-drugs, GABA-ergic and opioids. The government has a moral duty to help those harmed. See our open letter in BMJ: https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1417

Our medicines are the third leading cause of death

Published on June 21, 2023

I explain briefly in this article why our medicines are the third leading cause of death; why we generally cannot trust our drug regulators and other authorities; that vaccines have saved millions of lives and still do, but that those against influenza and COVID-19 are not particularly effective; and what you can do yourself to reduce the risk that you become one of the millions who died because they took a drug they didn’t really need. Read the article here.

Videos of tardive dyskinesia and akathisia

Published on June 19, 2023

Even though tardive dyskinesia – and also akathisia, which it resembles – are serious, horrible and common harms of psychiatric drugs, they are often overlooked or deliberately ignored by psychiatrists. I have just published an article on Mad in America about these conditions, which have links to the videos below.

US actor Joey Marino can no longer act, as he is in terrible pain and has constant involuntary muscle movements after treatment with neuroleptics. The other video is also heart-breaking. It shows people who suffer from tardive dyskinesia or akathisia. Some of the children have become permanently brain damaged to an unbelievable degree.

Dear reader. I have a plea for you. Please spread information about my article everywhere you can. Neuroleptics are enforced on patients with the untenable arguments that they are good for them, which psychiatrists routinely claim they cannot dispute because they lack insight into their disease.

This is abhorrent and forced treatment must stop. Some of the patients are afraid of dying because they have seen patients being killed by neuroleptics.

Sunday Times: The Chinese virus was likely manufactured in Wuhan as part of a secret bioweapons programme

Published on June 12, 2023

By Peter C Gøtzsche
Institute for Scientific Freedom

This is the conclusion of a detailed investigation published by the Sunday Times on 10 June. I must admit that even though I knew that the virus that has so far caused 7 million deaths was highly likely fabricated in Wuhan (see my book, “The Chinese virus”, which is freely available) and that the Chinese military was involved with this research, I always thought it far-fetched that the research could be part of a bioweapons programme.

But after having read the article, this seems likely to me. Read the article, and judge for yourself, please. And call for a total ban on these extremely dangerous gain-of-function experiments that, as far as I know, are still being carried out in Wuhan and elsewhere.

Kritisk psykiatrisk lærebog: en ny psykiatri er nødvendig

Published on June 7, 2023

Af Peter C Gøtzsche

Lærebøger i psykiatri er utroværdige. Psykiatrien må laves radikalt om. Se min lærebog, Critical Psychiatry Textbook, som man kan hente gratis på min hjemmeside.

I hele verden er der et opgør på vej med den traditionelle, såkaldt biologiske psykiatri. Årsagerne er indlysende. Jo mere, man behandler med psykofarmaka, jo værre går det for patienterne, og jo flere kommer på førtidspension, fordi de ikke kan færdiggøre en uddannelse eller få sig et arbejde.

Psykofarmaka kan ikke gøre patienterne raske og gør dem ofte mere syge, end de var i forvejen.

Kritikken kommer ikke kun fra patienterne og deres pårørende, men også fra psykiaterne selv. …

Robotic rejections of highly relevant letters to the editor of World Psychiatry about patient safety

Published on June 6, 2023

By Peter C Gøtzsche

On 9 May, Bruce Arroll et al. argued in a letter to the editor of World Psychiatry, why patients with a depressive condition should not get a prescription for an antidepressant at their first visit to a general practitioner but at a later stage, if at all.

I agreed but had reservations with their arguments and argued why these drugs should not be used at all, for anyone, which I explained in a letter to the editor: …

Predatory journal “invites” me to submit my preprint manuscript about invitations to publish in predatory journals

Published on June 2, 2023

By Peter C Gøtzsche

I had expected this to happen but was still a bit surprised when it did happen. This is the email I received today, from Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Emerging Drugs inviting me to publish my preprint article “Review of invitations to publish in predatory scientific journals.” This journal is published by the Omics group based in India, a well-known predatory publisher that I mention in my article. I need say no more. Should we laugh or cry or scream out loud?

From: Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Emerging Drugs <>
Sent: Friday, June 2, 2023 1:43 PM
To:
Subject: Review of invitations to publish in predatory scientific journals
Importance: High

Dear Dr. Peter C Gøtzsche,
Greetings from Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Emerging Drugs

We have gone through your unpublished work entitled “Review of invitations to publish in predatory scientific journals” and enthralled to know about your reputation and commitment.

We strongly believe that this potential research would be beneficial to the people working in the field of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Hereby we request you to kindly submit your manuscript to get published in our journal. We assure you that it reaches several global medical readers.

You can submit your manuscript as an attachment to this e-mail or directly through Journal’s online portal.

Looking forward for your response
Have a nice day ahead.

With Best Regards
Catherine G
Editorial Team
Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Emerging Drugs

Cochrane – A sinking ship?

Published on June 2, 2023

By Peter C Gøtzsche

Cochrane – A sinking ship? This article was posted by PhD Maryanne Demasi as a blog on the website of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine on 16 September 2018 (https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotlight/2018/09/16/cochrane-a-sinking-ship/). Incidentally, I found out earlier this week that the link had become inactive: “This site has been archived or suspended.” Demasi inquired, and it turned out that the editor had removed the entire blog site because it had “been inactive for some time.” We believe that this action is effectively a retraction without notifying the authors about it. Demasi was told by the publisher that she would “find out how we can restore access to the archived posts.”

To be certain that people can find Demasi’s article easily, I have uploaded it on our website. It starts thus:

A scandal has erupted within the Cochrane Collaboration, the world’s most prestigious scientific organisation devoted to independent reviews of health care interventions. One of its highest profile board members has been sacked, resulting in four other board members staging a mass exodus. They are protesting, what they describe as, the organisation’s shift towards a commercial business model approach, away from its true roots of independent, scientific analysis and open public debate. There are concerns that Cochrane has become preoccupied with “brand promotion” and “commercial interests”, placing less importance on transparency and delivering “trusted evidence”.

The erasure of women by nauseating “political correctness”

Published on May 25, 2023

By Peter C Gøtzsche

Read my article here. To a considerable extent, the erasure of women has been caused by the deplorable activism of a small minority of highly vocal and intolerant transgender people who have influenced academic publishing and stifled scientific freedom. The Lancet called women “bodies with vaginas” but did not call men “bodies with penises.” And, as I demonstrate, the activists’ mantra “Trans women are women” can lead to absurdities and dangerous situations for women if we do not preserve our common sense.