The expulsion of an outspoken founder member of the Cochrane Collaboration has divided the international network regarded as the gold standard in unbiased reviews underpinning evidence based medicine.
On 17 September the Cochrane governing board announced it had voted to expel the head of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, Professor Peter Gøtzsche, for bringing the Cochrane Collaboration into disrepute and what it said was “repeated bad behaviour over many years”.
The board did not specify the exact reasons for his expulsion, which was followed by the resignation of four other members of the 13 strong board, but it followed the recent publication of an article by Professor Gøtzsche that claimed a Cochrane review of HPV vaccine was biased and had ignored 20 trials.
Professor Gøtzsche has previously gained a reputation for being a harsh critic of pharmaceutical industry influence in healthcare and has used his position as head of the Nordic Cochrane Centre to voice controversial views against screening mammography for breast cancer and the use of antidepressants in psychiatry.
In its statement, the Cochrane Board said the expulsion was not about scientific debate, tolerance of dissent or members being unable to criticise a Cochrane Review.
“It is about a long-term pattern of behaviour that we say is totally, and utterly, at variance with the principles and governance of the Cochrane Collaboration. This is about integrity, accountability and leadership,” they wrote.
In a lengthy statement, Professor Gøtzsche responded that the ‘bad behaviour’ justification masked a “hidden agenda” of Cochrane to remove him for his strong advocacy for transparency, democracy and scientific pluralism and against commercial pressures within the Cochrane group .
“[The] growing top-down authoritarian culture and an increasingly commercial business model that have been manifested within the Cochrane leadership over the past few years threaten the scientific, moral and social objectives of the organisation,” he wrote.
“As most people know, much of my work is not very favourable to the financial interests of the pharmaceutical industry. Because of this Cochrane has faced pressure, criticism and complaints. My expulsion is one of the results of these campaigns.”