James S. Turner, Esq. is the chair of Citizens for Health, a national nonprofit consumer advocacy group working to broaden health care options, create an integrative health system based on wellness, and advance the freedom to make health choices. One of the original Nader’s Raiders and long-time advocate of informed choice for safe food, drugs and other consumer products, he has authored two best-selling books, The Chemical Feast: The Nader Report on Food Protection at the Food and Drug Administration and Making Your Own Baby Food. As a partner in the Washington D.C. law firm of Swankin & Turner (organized in 1973), Jim represents businesses as well as individuals and consumer groups in a wide variety of regulatory matters concerning food, drug, health, environmental and product-safety matters. He has appeared before and/or advised the Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Product Safety Commission and Federal Trade Commission, as well as the Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health. He has served as Special Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Food, Nutrition, and Health, and to the Senate Government Operations Subcommittee on Government Research. Jim helped organize the successful campaign to lobby Congress for passage of the Organic Food Production Act of 1990 and lead the legal team that in 1996 persuaded the FDA to reclassify acupuncture needles as safe and effective for legal U.S. importation and distribution. He is a graduate of the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University (1969), holds a B.A. in history and political science from Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences (1962) and served as a gunnery and nuclear weapons handling officer on ships in the U.S. Navy from 1962 to 1966.

Jim’s Presentations:
Law as a Healing Profession: The Innate Intelligence of the Body Politic