Publisher Moved His Field Miles Ahead

"He wanted the practical, the things that would be directly useful to the person with diabetes," said Marcia Levine Mazur, a retired Diabetes Forecast senior editor.

Banks wanted to enable his readers, encouraging them, for example: "With medical developments, what should you ask your doctor about?" Mazur said.

He also "recast the way the recipes were listed. He explained what good the food would do for you, how it fit into a diabetes food plan."

She added that he shunned the word "diet," with its negative connotations, and used instead "food plan," to accent a more positive idea of taking control over one's health.

Last year, Banks left the association during a change in upper management. But even before that, he had emerged as an outspoken figure in the debate over free and immediate access to medical and scientific research papers.

"Peter reminded people that health literacy is low [and] Internet access is still a privilege," said Aime Ballard-Wood, a former managing editor of the ADA's medical journals. "If you want to help the average person with a chronic disease, you're not necessarily helping them by making an article free. You have to provide interpretation."

At his death, Banks was involved with an effort called patientINFORM -- started by commercial and nonprofit publishers as well as voluntary health organizations including the diabetes association -- to identify new findings from scholarly journals, interpret the material on their own Web sites and provide a free link to the original research.

Throughout his career, Banks was known for leaving plenty of room in his family life -- he was married for 27 years and had two children -- and outside hobbies. He encouraged those who worked for him to do the same.

Not especially athletic in his youth, he decided at age 40 to take up marathon running to raise money for diabetes. He also became director and head coach of a running program for children age 5 to 14, sponsored by the Fairfax Police Youth Club.

"He loved working with kids who were struggling more, either behaviorally or with their athletic confidence," said his wife, psychotherapist Lucy Banks. "He'd run with these little kids, talking to them, 'Look at how well you're doing! We're almost there.' "