Few people have influenced me as much as the late Congressman Berkley Bedell, who passed away at age 98 in December 2019. After leaving Congress, Berkley was instrumental in the formation and funding of the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) at the NIH in the 1990s. He was also a decisive influence in elevating that small Office to a full-blown Center, with its own funding capacity. As a result, the office transitioned from its $2 million budget to a National Center for Integrative and Complementary Health, with a $146.5 million allotment. None of this would have happened without Berkley’s efforts.

Founding, defending and expanding the government’s efforts in complementary medicine was Berkley’s goal during the last decades of his long and eventful life. I am fortunate that he sometimes took me along with him as he made his lobbying rounds, which gave me the opportunity to meet a great many legislators, especially his close friend, Senator Tom Harkin. Harkin had the power to make Berkley’s vision a reality. And he used it wisely. 

On a personal level, there was no one like Berkley. I spoke to him in October, just a few weeks before his demise. At 98, his mind was as sharp as always. We had a wonderful hour-long talk, not just about our days as advisors to the NIH, but about the Iowa caucus process. In fact, he was planning on going from Florida to take part in a political rally in Iowa, his home state. As always, he had a keen understanding of the facts, candidates and issues. As we said goodbye, his last words to me were, “I love you.” I know he said those words to many people, and the remarkable thing was that in each and every case you knew meant it!

It was uplifting to have such a person in my life. I was blessed to have such a friend and will never forget him.