Tuesday, July 5, 2011

FDA Drug Approval Documents Collection

The OHSU Library is pleased to offer the online publication of the FDA Drug Approval Documents Collection.

This collection contains the review documents for eight of the twelve antidepressant agents that led to the publication of the article "Selective publication of antidepressant trials and its influence on apparent efficacy" by Dr. Erick Turner. According to ScienceWatch.com, this article was the tenth most highly cited scientific article published in 2008. Dr. Turner procured Freedom of Information Act documents for his important publication and arranged them in binders. The Library has scanned these documents and offers them in a hierarchical digital format, providing online access not otherwise available.

Dr. Erick Turner is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Pharmacology at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in Portland. He is also Senior Scholar with OHSU's Center for Ethics in Health Care and Staff Psychiatrist with the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He previously worked at the FDA as a reviewer. There he became aware that drug companies were conducting studies that were not represented in the published literature. The OHSU Library is honored to have been chosen as the repository for these important documents from Dr. Turner.

Questions about the collection or the OHSU Digital Resources Library may be addressed to Friday Valentine, Cataloging & Metadata Librarian (valentif@ohsu.edu).