Year of birth: 1949

Wikipedia

BIOGRAPHY

A Danish internist who had previously worked as a pharmaceutical company sales representative, he subsequently reported on bias in trials of pharmaceutical agents. A founding member of the Cochrane Collaboration, he also founded the Nordic Cochrane Centre in 1993.

Turned his attention to screening without first learning the basic epidemiology of cancer screening or gaining an understanding of the screening process. His approach is based on belief or ideology. He wrote that people should not be screened because the benefits of screening are less than the harms people inflict on themselves from “smoking and other unhealthy lifestyles” (Gøtzsche 1997).

Again, he tends to belittle or deny the positive effects of screening and selectively quotes (and repeatedly miscalculates) inflated estimates of harm. Gøtzsche claimed in 1999 that access to original patient data is necessary to avoid bias in meta-analyses. This did not prevent him from doing a meta-analysis of mammography screening trials without access to original data, published two months later in January 2000 (Gøtzsche et al. 2000).

Gøtzsche was expelled in 2018 from the Governing Board of the Cochrane Collaboration, was dismissed from his positions as Director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, as a Head Physician at the Copenhagen University Hospital (Rigshospitalet), and as Professor of Clinical Research Design and Analysis at the University of Copenhagen for his behavior and questionable scientific conduct (Lund 2020).

References

Gøtzsche P 1997. Screening for colorectal cancer. Lancet, 349 (9048), 356; author reply 358. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)62854-1 PMID: 9024398.

Gøtzsche PC, Olsen O 2000. Is screening for breast cancer with mammography justifiable? Lancet, 355 (9198), 129-34. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(99)06065-1 PMID: 10675181.

Lund K 2020. Så røg Peter Gøtzsches professorat (in Danish) - Retrieved from https://www.sundhedstinget.dk/kristians-klumme/72-sa-rog-peter-gotzsches-profesortitel.html on 28.1.2025.