Friday, January 31, 2014

Psychiatry Gone Astray

Peter Gøtzsche, MD

January 28, 2014

At the Nordic Cochrane Centre, we have researched antidepressants for several years and I have long wondered why leading professors of psychiatry base their practice on a number of erroneous myths. These myths are harmful to patients. Many psychiatrists are well aware that the myths do not hold and have told me so, but they don’t dare deviate from the official positions because of career concerns.
Video interview http://youtu.be/VIIQVll7DYY
Being a specialist in internal medicine, I don’t risk ruining my career by incurring the professors’ wrath and I shall try here to come to the rescue of the many conscientious but oppressed psychiatrists and patients by listing the worst myths and explain why they are harmful.

1 comment:

  1. "Peter Gøtzsche, director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, has dealt with the counter-evidence on the specific issue of antidepressant prescribing.4 He shows how Nutt and colleagues have succumbed to the tendency to minimise harms and exaggerate benefits in a way that puts patients at risk and leaves them without access to balanced information. And in terms of stigma, the evidence consistently finds that it is the idea that mental illness is like any other illness that is most likely to lead to stigma and so to more potential pain and suffering for patients."
    http://cepuk.org/2014/08/19/full-text-cep-

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