Sundheds- og Ældreudvalget 2018-19 (1. samling)
SUU Alm.del Bilag 80
Offentligt
Dear Members of the Danish Parliament:
This letter signed by 3500 public health scientists and advocates was sent to the Minister of Health
this morning. We call your attention to the imminent dismissal of Dr. Peter Gotzsche from
the
Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen.
We hope that your intervention can prevent this loss for the
international health-care and medical research community.
Thank you very much, David Hammerstein
Dear Minister of Health of Denmark Ellen Trane Nørby:
We are writing to express our concern over the possible dismissal of Peter Gøtzsche from
his job at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen. We feel that Dr. Peter Gøtzsche´s work at the
Nordic Cochrane Centre has been an important service to patients, taxpayers and the
scientific community in Europe and globally. For many years the prestigious activity and
publications of Dr. Gøtzsche have played a pivotal role in favour of the transparency of
clinical data, the priority of public health needs and the defence of rigorous medical
research carried out independently of conflicts of interest. The recent crisis within the
Cochrane Collaboration that involved Dr. Gøtzsche and many other prominent long-time
members of Cochrane should be seen in this light.
We ask you to reconsider this possible dismissal due to the great benefits taxpayers,
patients and health-care professionals reap from his work aimed at studying the efficacy
and safety of medical treatments. We also fear that the dismissal of Dr. Gøtzsche from the
Rigshospitalet could harm the international reputation of Danish medical research and
could seriously weaken Denmark´s traditional support for open scientific debate.
We hope this issue can be resolved amicably and fairly for the sake of public health, robust
scientific debate and the wise spending of public money.
Thank you very much,
David Hammerstein, Former Member of the Cochrane Governing Board (2017-2018) and former
Member of the European Parliament (2004-2009)
Iain Chalmers, Coordinator, James Lind Initiative
Fiona Godlee, Editor in Chief, The BMJ
Ray Moynihan, Ba. PhD. Senior Research Fellow, Bond University, Australia
Tom Jefferson MD MRCGP FFPHM, Senior Associate Tutor, University of Oxford
Member, Cochrane Collaboration (1994 - current)
Margrete Auken, Member of the European Parliament