[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 149 (Tuesday, December 9, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Page S6445]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO DONALD LINDBERG

 Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as a member of the Senate who has 
spent many years leading efforts to build support for biomedical 
research and improved public health, I would like to pay tribute to a 
great public servant and trailblazer in medical informatics, Donald 
A.B. Lindberg, Director of the National Library of Medicine, NLM, the 
world's largest biomedical library, and a part of the National 
Institutes of Health. Dr. Lindberg recently announced that he will 
retire next year after over 30 years of distinguished public service.
  Trained as a pathologist, Dr. Lindberg is recognized worldwide as a 
pioneer in medical information technology, artificial intelligence, 
computer-aided medical diagnosis and electronic health records. When 
Dr. Lindberg joined NLM in 1984, the library had no electronic 
journals, personal computers were few and far between, and only a 
relatively small number of research institutions had access to the 
Internet. Today millions of scientists, health professionals, and 
members of the public use NLM's high-quality electronic information 
resources billions of times a year.
  Dr. Lindberg arrived at NLM with a belief in the potential of 
advanced computing and telecommunications. He immediately launched the 
groundbreaking Unified Medical Language System, now broadly used to 
help computer systems behave as if they understand biomedical meaning. 
He also greatly expanded NLM's informatics research training programs, 
increasing the Nation's supply of informatics researchers and health 
information technology leaders. The library, its grantees, and its 
former trainees continue to play essential roles in the development of 
electronic health records, health data standards, and the exchange of 
health information.
  One of the proudest achievements of Dr. Lindberg's tenure was the 
establishment of the National Center for Biotechnology Information, 
NCBI, in 1988. It expanded the scope of the NLM and provided a national 
resource for molecular biology information and essential support for 
mapping the human genome. Today, NCBI is home to GenBank, dbGaP, 
PubChem, and PubMed Central and is an indispensable international 
repository and software tool developer for genetic sequences and other 
genomic data, and a pioneer and leader in linking data and published 
research results to promote new scientific discoveries.
  In another unprecedented move, Dr. Lindberg asked NLM to create the 
Visible Humans, a library of digital images representing the complete 
anatomy of a man and a woman--giving a unique and detailed look inside 
the body. People around the world can and do use the images in a 
variety of ways. They have been used to help students learn anatomy; to 
develop products like artificial limbs; and to create tools to help 
surgeons rehearse operations.
  As access to the World Wide Web and the Internet spread throughout 
the country, Dr. Lindberg seized the opportunity to make high quality 
medical information freely available to the public. In a 1997 press 
briefing that I sponsored with the late Senator Arlen Specter, R-PA, 
and then Vice President Al Gore, we announced free Internet access to 
MEDLINE via PubMed. In 1998, Dr. Lindberg went on to create the 
consumer-friendly MedlinePlus.gov and a new era of timely and trusted 
online health information for the general public began. 
ClinicalTrials.gov, now the world's largest trial registry and a unique 
source of summary results data for many trials, followed soon after in 
2000, providing patients, families and members of the public easy 
access to information about the location of clinical trials, their 
design and purpose, and criteria for participation.
  In 2003, I again joined the NLM and the National Institute on Aging 
in launching NIHSeniorHealth.gov, a website that features 
authoritative, up-to-date information from the NIH, in a format that 
addresses the cognitive changes that come with aging and allows easy 
use. In that same year, I partnered with Dr. Lindberg and respected 
national physician groups to launch the Information Rx project, which 
supplies prescription pads to health providers to point their patients 
to trusted health care information from the NIH. At the urging of the 
Senate Appropriations Committee, Dr. Lindberg has also made high-
quality health information available to physicians and their patients 
via NIH's first consumer magazine, NIH MedlinePlus. This free magazine 
is now available in Spanish and online around the Nation and worldwide.
  Over the past three decades, Dr. Lindberg greatly expanded the scope 
of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. Now, NLM and this 
network of more than 6,000 academic, hospital, and public libraries 
partner with community-based organizations to bring high-quality 
information to health professionals and the public-regardless of 
location, socioeconomic status or access to computers and 
telecommunications. NLM has entered into longstanding and successful 
partnerships with minority-serving institutions, tribal and community-
based organizations, and the public health community. NLM's marvelous 
exhibitions which Dr. Lindberg championed, such as Native Voices: 
Native Peoples' Concepts of Health and Illness, expand NLM's reach with 
electronic and traveling versions, bringing important issues and 
scholarship to persons unable to make it through NLM's Bethesda doors. 
Moreover, Dr. Lindberg helped set the U.S. standards for the public's 
use of the Internet. He was the founding Director of the National 
Coordination Office for High Performance Computing and Communications 
in the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy and was 
named by the HHS Secretary to be the U.S. National Coordinator for the 
G-7 Global healthcare Applications Project.
  It gives me great pleasure pay tribute to Dr. Donald A.B. Lindberg, 
one of this country's visionaries, for his many contributions in 
science and technology that have transformed access to biomedical 
information and clearly had a lasting positive impact on the 
Nation.

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