subjects. In 2003, Gothenburg University was ordered by the court to release medical records and other sensitive data about a group of children who had participated in a longitudinal psychiatric study done by Gillberg and other researchers, to two individuals under the Freedom of Information Act; this was done despite the researchers' assertion that anonymization was not considered feasible due to the nature and length of the study (a small group of participants had been followed for a period of 16 years and the data included a combination of taped interviews, medical records, criminal records, school records, and psychiatric evaluations). The court ordered the university to set conditions for the access so that the interests of the children and the families would be protected. In April 2003, the university's Vice-Chancellor set the conditions: one of the persons requesting access, the sociologist Eva Kärfve, would have to get her research project approved by the ethical review committee, and each concerned individual would have to consent before documents about her or him could be read by Eva Kärfve and Leif Elinder, the other person who had requested access. However, Kärfve and Elinder appealed the university's conditions and the Administrative Court of Appeal ruled that the conditions were unreasonable. In an analysis of the case, Sven Ove Hansson, professor and head of the Department of Philosophy and the History of Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, a former member of the Swedish Government Research Advisory Board, wrote: "[I]t is particularly interesting to note that the Court of Administrative Appeal nullified the decision by Gothenburg University to require individual consent and approval from an ethical review committee before giving access to sensitive data on individual research subjects. These are two of the cornerstones of the scientific community's own system for protecting research subjects." Background Beginning in 1996, pediatrician Leif Elinder criticized Gillberg's research and alleged that the numbers reported by Gillberg were made up. Elinder became associated with the sociologist Eva Kärfve at Lund University, whose research had been devoted to early witch hunts and medieval myths in Europe. They coordinated their criticism and Kärfve wrote a book, published in 2000, rejecting most of the research on DAMP, and especially Gillberg's. Other psychiatrists and neuroscientists in Sweden defended the Gillberg group and argued that Elinder and Kärfve had crossed the line from scientific criticism to personal attacks and vilification. The conflict