Erick H. Turner, M.D.

Biography

Dr. Turner’s work is aimed at increasing medical research transparency to make the evidence base more complete, truthful, and reliable. He previously worked as an NIH intramural researcher, then as an FDA reviewer, i.e. gatekeeper for drugs new to the US market. There he witnessed how much data never sees the light of day in journal articles.

Motivated by his FDA experience, Dr. Turner and co-authors have published articles re-examining the efficacy of various psychotropic drug classes, the best known of these being a paper published a January 2008 article in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy”. This article received wide coverage in the national and international press and was ranked the 10th most highly cited scientific article in 2008 and, as of the end of 2015, has been cited by over 1000 peer-reviewed journal publications and 700 books.