Peter Gøtzsche expelled from Cochrane — the evidence watchdog banished its own co-founder

Peter Gøtzsche co-founded the Cochrane Collaboration in 1993 alongside Sir Iain Chalmers and 80 other investigators. He established the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen the same year and served as its director for 25 years. Cochrane was the gold standard of evidence-based medicine — systematic reviews that doctors and health systems around the world relied on to make treatment decisions.

Gøtzsche became a vocal critic of the pharmaceutical industry, publishing a 2012 report titled 'Corporate crime in the pharmaceutical industry is common, serious and repetitive' and a 2013 book, Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime. He argued that industry-funded trials hid deaths — citing an FDA analysis showing antidepressant suicides 15 times higher than reported — and that psychiatric drugs were minimally effective but highly dangerous. In 2015, he published Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial, claiming that 98% of users could discontinue psychotropic drugs.

On September 13, 2018, Cochrane's Governing Board voted 6 to 5 to expel Gøtzsche, citing 'seriously bad behaviour' and bringing the organization into 'disrepute.' The BMJ described the process as a 'show trial' based on an external law firm's report. Four supporting board members resigned in protest, calling it a 'mass exodus.' Gøtzsche was stripped of all roles, including director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre. In 2019, he founded the Institute for Scientific Freedom.