A House-Senate conference committee stripped a provision from an appropriations bill on October 26 that would have named the National Library of Medicine after Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who heads the subcommittee that oversees funding for NLM’s parent organization, the National Institutes of Health. The conference committee removed the provision after Rep. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who is a physician, objected. “When members of Congress participate in self-congratulations, it only increases public cynicism,” Coburn spokesperson Michael Schwartz said in the October 27 Philadelphia Inquirer.
Specter aide Charles Robbins told the paper that while the senator was initially honored by the measure, introduced by Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), “this was not something that he ever sought, and when a concern was raised, he readily agreed to its removal.”
“It surprised us all at the National Library of Medicine,” said an unidentified NLM spokesperson after Inouye introduced the provision, according to the October 23 Inquirer. “Maybe we’ll see the Jesse Helms Department of State.”
Posted November 1, 1999.