The Sidebar

EXCLUSIVE: Annabel Melongo reacts to today's ruling by a Cook County judge declaring IL eavesdropping law unconstitutional

2012-03-02T16:45:00.022-05:00

Annabel K. Melongo

A Cook County Judge declared the state’s eavesdropping law unconstitutional Friday.

Judge Stanley J. Sacks read his ruling in the case of Christopher Drew, a Chicago artist who was charged with felony eavesdropping after he recorded his Dec. 2, 2009, arrest on State Street by Chicago Police.

“The Illinois Eavesdropping Statute potentially punishes as a felony a wide array of wholly innocent conduct,” he read. “A parent making an audio recording of their child’s soccer game, but in doing so happens to record nearby conversations, would be in violation of the Eavesdropping Statute.”

Prosecutors now may appeal the judge’s ruling directly to the state’s Supreme Court.

Present in court today was Annabel Melongo.

As first reported by The Sidebar, in October Melongo was released from Cook Cook County jail after being incarcerated for 18 months and held on a $300,000 bond.

Her crime?

According to Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, Melongo recorded some routine phone conversations with a Cook County Clerk of Courts, then uploaded audios and transcripts of the calls* to the Internet. (As a result of Judge Steven J. Goebel granting her motion, Melongo's now living with a friend under house arrest and wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet.)

This afternoon Melongo sent out the following e-mail. (Regarding any minor grammatical errors, Melongo was born in Cameroon. Her first language is French, her second is German, and her third is English.)

Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2012
From: Annabel Melongo <melongo_annabel@yahoo.com>
Subject: Illinois Eavesdropping Law Unconstitutional In Cook County

Dear All,

Just to inform you that Judge Sacks, Christopher Drew's Judge, has just declared the Illinois Eavesdropping Law Unconstitutional in Cook County. Which ruling undoubtedly has repercussions in my case when I argue it on March 15th, 2012.

Seating in that courtroom, I had tears in my eyes when I heard this. I can't believe the end is almost near. I'm sending you this email from the courthouse, which shows what today's ruling means for me. You'll hear all of this in the hours or days to come, I just wanted you to have the news first, given your engagement, in one way or other, to my case.

Thanks a lot.

* The transcripts of the calls were included as exhibits in a November 30, 2011 defense motion. From court records, here they are:

Six years after the American Heart Association recommends chest thrusts for choking rescue, the story gets reported...sort of

2012-02-22T11:00:00.003-05:00

From Life Saving Skills: A New Way to do the Heimlich Maneuver by Maddie Garrett, KATC-TV News, Lafayette, Louisiana, February 8, 2011:

(The) rules on what to do if someone is choking have changed, and there's a new way to do the Heimlich Maneuver...(If) the person choking becomes unconscious, the rules have changed. Instead of pushing up in the abdomen, (Registered Nurse Ella Beth) Goetschius said it's better to perform more like CPR, minus the breaths of air. She said to lay the person on the floor, do 30 chest compressions, then open the mouth and check to for the object.

First, contrary to the report, this information ain't new.

From the 2005 Adult Basic Life Support guidelines published in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association (AHA):

Treatment Recommendation
Chest thrusts, back blows/slaps, or abdominal thrusts are effective for relieving FBAO (Foreign Body Airway Obstruction) in conscious adults and children >1 year of age, although injuries have been reported with the abdominal thrust. There is insufficient evidence to determine which should be used first. These techniques should be applied in rapid sequence until the obstruction is relieved; more than one technique may be needed. Unconscious victims should receive CPR. The finger sweep should be used in the unconscious patient with an obstructed airway only if solid material is visible in the airway. There is insufficient evidence for a treatment recommendation for an obese or pregnant patient with FBAO.

Five years later in 2010, the most recent AHA guidelines were near-identical:

Although chest thrusts, back slaps, and abdominal thrusts are feasible and effective for relieving severe FBAO in conscious (responsive) adults and children ≥1 year of age, for simplicity in training it is recommended that abdominal thrusts be applied in rapid sequence until the obstruction is relieved. If abdominal thrusts are not effective, the rescuer may consider chest thrusts. It is important to note that abdominal thrusts are not recommended for infants <1 year of age because thrusts may cause injuries.

Second, the guidelines say chest thrusts are recommended as effective for conscious choking victims. For some reason, the TV story only reported that the treatment should be done on unconscious victims.

Confused? Yeah, me too.

But there's one thing I'm reasonably sure of.

Over six years after the AHA began recommending chest trusts as an alternative choking rescue treatment, to my knowledge this is the first TV news story to report the information.

On the bright side, in Cajun country, KATC viewers have been informed about this potentially lifesaving skill.

At this rate, it's only a matter of decades before the rest of the country gets the news!

Charles W. Guildner MD, July 2011; click here for contact info

Incidentally, the idea that chest thrusts could be effective for choking rescue was introduced in a 1976 published study by Charles W. Guildner MD of Everett, Washington.

Per this 2007 Seattle Public Radio report by Patricia Murphy, Dr. Guildner explained how my father tried to derail his work:

By the time the chest thrust study was published in 1976, Dr. Heimlich had filed complaints against Dr. Guildner with 6 different medical groups. Eventually Guildner was cleared of all charges, but by then the Heimlich maneuver had become firmly entrenched as the primary method for choking response in the US....

GUILDNER: "It's so repugnant to me the way Dr. Heimlich has bullied. He's a bully and he has bullied people into submission."

In his quest for what reporter Thomas Francis called the "choking rescue crown," my father also called in some medical muscle in the form of US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop who used his federal government pulpit to stomp the competition and put the debate on ice.

From Koop's Declaration regarding the Heimlich Maneuver, Public Health Report, US Department of Health and Human Services, September 30, 1985:

(Dr. Koop) urged the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association to teach only the Heimlich Manuever (sic) in their first aid classes. Dr. Koop urged both organizations to withdraw from circulation manuals, posters and other materials that recommend treating choking victims with back slaps and blows to the chest...these methods are hazardous, even lethal."

The result? From a 2007 Creators Syndicate column by Lenore Skenazy:

After that, only the Heimlich Maneuver was considered kosher.

The fix?

What most people don't realize, Dr. Heimlich's son, Peter Heimlich, said, is that "Koop was an old friend of my father's, and he did it as a buddy favor."

FEMA dumped the Save-A-Life Foundation based on IL Daily Herald newspaper article

2012-02-08T18:18:00.004-05:00

The Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a Chicago-area nonprofit that has been the subject of dozens of critical media reports since November 2006 and which is now the subject of federal and state investigations, became a member organization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in January 2003.

On September 17, 2009, after SALF founder/president Carol Spizzirri filed for voluntary dissolution as an Illinois corporation, her organization went belly-up.

Just weeks before, per these records I obtained last week via a Freedom of Information Act request, Spizzirri's organization was dumped by FEMA.

Note that Spizzirri mentions me in her August 1, 2009 last gasp letter to FEMA, dated about a month after her organization withdraw its failed nuisance lawsuit filed against me and others. (Per a Cincinnati newspaper report, that "case was widely viewed as having the potential to set a precedent involving First Amendment protections for online commentary.")

Since mid-2010, SALF has reportedly been under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded SALF about $3.33 million. In November 2010, the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services recommended that CDC review the role of SALF's corporate treasurer, CDC executive Douglas R. Browne.

SALF received no funds from FEMA.

As for Spizzirri - who, according to the San Diego Reader, once "was a darling of politicians and bureaucrats, although it was a matter of record that she had been convicted twice for shoplifting" - she's now living in a mobile home park in San Marcos, California.

"Asimov Super Quiz" ignores claimed co-developer of the Heimlich maneuver

2012-02-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

From The Heimlich maneuver by Henry J. Heimlich MD & the late Edward A. Patrick MD, PhD, Postgraduate Medicine, 5/1/90

Isaac Asimov's Super Quiz is a syndicated King Features newspaper quiz column written by Ken Fisher. From the February 4, 2012 column:

6. He has received credit as the inventor of abdominal thrusts.

Answer: Henry Heimlich

True, but what about....?

From Dr. Edward A.Patrick & Dr. Henry J. Heimlich Regarding the Heimlich maneuver, press release, The Patrick Institute, May 28, 2003 (via the Wayback Machine, emphasis from original):

A reporter* from the Cincinnati Enquirer walked up the driveway of my home on May 19, 2003...He asked why I did not get proper credit for the development of what now is called the Heimlich maneuver....I have always viewed that Dr. Heimlich and I worked together to develop what has become known as the Heimlich maneuver just as the Wright brothers worked together to develop the first flying machine.

...In 1985, Surgeon General Koop called me to indicate that he was giving a press release to the American people declaring that the back slap was lethal and the Heimlich maneuver would be the only treatment for choking. Dr. Heimlich and I had developed the Heimlich maneuver as the best treatment for choking – it "flew"!

* Robert Anglen (now at the Arizona Republic) can provide more details.

From Heimlich's Maneuver by Thomas Francis, Cleveland Scene, August 11, 2004:

On the day of Koop's announcement, Heimlich staged his own press conference in Cincinnati, while Patrick had his in Evansville, Indiana. Patrick fielded questions from reporters about his role in inventing the maneuver. "At 9:30, when the press conference was over, a reporter came up to me and said, 'I just talked to Dr. Heimlich, and he says he did it alone,'" says Patrick. He was stunned.

Asked to describe his role in inventing the maneuver, Patrick gives technical descriptions of two discoveries that were turning points, both of which he claims as his own. He has difficulty remembering Heimlich's contribution.

Nevertheless, there are no sour grapes. "I never asked him about that," says Patrick of Heimlich's solo claim to the maneuver. "I would like to get proper credit for what I've done, but I'm not hyper about it."

Still, he says that for the sake of accuracy, the technique ought to be called the Patrick-Heimlich maneuver.

From Dr. Patrick's full-page obituary in the British Medical Journal, March 13, 2010:

Patrick claimed that he was the co-developer of the Heimlich manoeuvre, which he referred to as the “Patrick-Heimlich manoeuvre.” For nearly 30 years, his career was intimately tied to the equally puzzling career of Henry Heimlich, once dubbed the “most famous physician in the world” for the life saving manoeuvre named after him.

Who might be able to shed more light on this mystery? Also from the BMJ obit:

He leaves three former wives, Patricia Roy, Susan Soudrette, and Joy Lake Patrick, and four children from his first marriage (one predeceased him) and two from his third.

My father, Cory Servaas MD, and Edward A. Patrick MD PhD (1987)

"Research expert" Dr. John Pippin & PCRM execs still ignoring elephant in the room - my father's medical atrocity experiments

2012-02-02T10:00:00.002-05:00

From the website of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)

Per the LA Weekly, "In both its mission statement and its IRS filings, the Washington, DC–based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) says it is 'strongly opposed to unethical human research.'"

But meanwhile, as the article reported, PCRM turns a blind eye to the notorious medical atrocity experiments conducted by my father, a longtime member of PCRM's advisory board. And every couple of years, PCRM presents the Henry J. Heimlich Award for Innovative Medicine.

Via the British Medical Journal, here's a sample of that innovation:

...(Dr.) Heimlich became convinced that he could cure cancer, Lyme disease, and AIDS by infecting patients with malaria, known as “malariotherapy.” When the US Food and Drug Administration refused to allow the research to be conducted in the United States, the men moved the study to China, Ethiopia, and Gabon. The World Health Organization denounced the study as an example of “clearly unscrupulous and opportune research.”

The Africa experiments are utterly clandestine because they violate international law protecting human subjects. In order to generate more public awareness and perhaps shake loose new information, I've been raising sand in the media using the PCRM hypocrisy angle.

For example, via the Jackson, MS, NBC-TV affiliate:

In a new twist, the son of a famous doctor is speaking out against PCRM. Peter Heimlich, son of Dr. Henry Heimlich who created the Heimlich maneuver, claims his father allegedly used people for controversial medical research. Dr. Heimlich serves on the board for PCRM....

"My concern is the organization seems to put the interest of pigs above human beings who are being subjected to violative medical research," said Peter Heimlich.

PCRM has been criticized by others as being a "PETA front group"..."I'd say they're fools," said (PCRM's Dr. John) Pippin.

Fool that I am, over the past two months, I sent a string of e-mails to Dr. Pippin and other PCRM executives and attached published reports including Thomas Francis's landmark 2005 Radar magazine article that included:

Mekbib Wondewossen is an Ethiopian immigrant who makes his living renting out cars in the San Francisco area, but in his spare time he works for Dr. Heimlich, doing everything from "recruiting the patients to working with the doctors here and there and everywhere," Wondewossen says. The two countries he names are Ethiopia and the small equatorial nation of Gabon, on Africa's west coast.

"The Heimlich Institute is part of the work there - the main people, actually, in the research," Wondewossen says. "They're the ones who consult with us on everything. They tell us what to do."

..."We go to an epidemic area where there is a lot of malaria, and then we look for patients that have HIV too. We find commercial sex workers or people who play around in that area."

...Wondewossen say that the researchers involved in the study are not doctors. He refuses to name members of the research team, because he says it would get them into trouble with the local authorities. "The government over there is a bad government," he says. "They can make you disappear."

Wondewossen won't reveal the source of funding for this malariotherapy research. "There are private funders," he says. But as to their identity?"I can't tell you that, because that's the deal we make with them, you know?" He scoffs at the question of whether his team got approval to conduct this research from a local ethics review board. Bribery on that scale, he says, is much too expensive: "If you want the government to get involved there, you have to give them a few million - and then they don't care what you do."

All I wanted from Dr. Pippin was his answer to this question, presumably a piece of cake for any "research expert":

Do you consider the Heimlich Institute's "malariotherapy" experiments to be ethical?

No answer.

No surprise.

A few years ago when a prominent medical historian from the Mayo Clinic wrote to Dr. Pippin, he played dumb and passed the hot potato to his boss, PCRM founder/president Neal Barnard MD, who considers my father to be "one of the leading medical pioneers of our time."

Some sex workers in Ethiopia might disagree.

I also asked PCRM execs when the next presentation of their Heimlich Award was scheduled.

They seem be keeping that a secret, too.

(source)

Oregon newspaper quotes me kicking the Red Cross for doing a lousy job

2012-01-11T20:25:00.005-05:00

From It’s a life-saver: Two-step technique is recommended to help a choking person by Randi Bjornstad, Eugene (OR) Register-Guard, published a couple days ago:

It turns out that for at least five years, the Heimlich maneuver has been just the second part of the method the American Red Cross, and some other lifesaving organizations, want us all to use in trying to save each other from choking to death.

It also turns out that maybe the maneuver should have never been called the Heimlich in the first place, because there are those - including his own son, Peter Heimlich - who contend that Dr. Henry Heimlich took credit where it wasn’t due when it came to laying claim to the procedure.

Why the new-and-improved procedure hasn’t been more widely publicized, Peter Heimlich - who e-mailed Register-Guard sports reporter Adam Jude the same day of his Dec. 29 story on (University of Oregon football player Mark) Asper’s heroics - doesn’t know.

“Based on my experience, very few people, including medical professionals, are aware of the 2006 American Red Cross update,” Peter Heimlich, who lives in Atlanta, said in a subsequent e-mail message last week. “This was a major change in U.S. first-aid guidelines, but the Red Cross didn’t issue a press release so that the media could inform the public. I’ve asked Red Cross officials why they chose not to issue a press release, but I can’t get a straight answer.”

Ms. Bjornsted apparently didn't ask the Red Cross why they never issued a press release so that the public might be aware of this potentially lifesaving information.

Maybe another reporter will.

Click here for the Red Cross's media contacts.

The White House gives me a four-month runaround re: whether President Obama was "close" to tainted IL charity

2011-12-15T18:07:00.007-05:00

This a belated follow-up to my July item, Was Senator Barack Obama "close" to a Chicago nonprofit that's now under state & federal investigations? I've asked the White House.

The idea was to try and verify a thin claim published by the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) and by the Huffington Post that, when he served as an IL state senator and as a member of the US Senate, President Obama was a supporter of SALF.

As Sidebar readers know, SALF was a high-flying, politically-connected Chicago-area nonprofit whose wings got clipped in November 2006, when ABC Chicago aired the first of four exposes by I-Team reporter Chuck Goudie. Since then, SALF has been the subject of dozens more critical media reports.

Per The Hill and other news outlets, SALF is being investigated by the IL Attorney General. Per my blog, an executive at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who moonlighted as SALF's Corporate Treasurer is under review by the CDC - and my congressman, Rob Woodall, is asking questions. There's about $9 million in IL state and federal dollars that may have gone bye-bye

Better yet, there's plenty of sordid human drama centering around SALF's founder/president, Carol J. Spizzirri, a special friend to plenty of politicos and, from the looks of this photo, a dear friend of my parents.

SALF's Carol J. Spizzirri, my father & my mother (sitting)

Back to President Obama, to my knowledge, here's the only published document that mentions him, a 2006 SALF press release:

Like I said, that's wafer-thin evidence, but I figured I'd toss a couple softball questions at the White House and see what happened. Even a denial would give me a cheap headline, à la:

"White House denies claims that President was 'close' to tainted nonprofit"

Truth be told, I assumed I'd simply be ignored. In hindsight, I think I'd have preferred that.

White House Deputy Press Secretaries Jamie Smith and Josh Earnest (source: PotomacFlacks.com)

Per the correspondence posted below, White House Deputy Press Secretary Jamie Smith wasted hours of my time - and hers - by leading me on a four-month wild goose chase of endless back & forth e-mails.

Her challenge? To field this pair of slow-motion grounders I tossed at her:

1) Per a Huffington Post article, is it accurate to say that "Barack Obama was close to the Save-A-Life Foundation"? If not, please explain.

2) According to a February 27, 2006 press release:

Save A Life Foundation (SALF) President and Founder Carol Spizzirri recently spoke with U.S. Senator Barack Obama...regarding SALF’s future lifesaving efforts....While in the Illinois legislature together, Obama and current Illinois Senate President Emil Jones were always supportive of SALF’s efforts to train Illinois schoolchildren in life-sustaining skills for free.

Are any parts of the above sentences inaccurate? If so, please explain.

It started off great. White House Deputy Press Secretary Smith promptly agreed to answer my questions.

Cheap headline, here I come!

For the next couple of months, I politely sent follow-up nudges and she promptly sent follow-up replies assuring me that she was working on getting my answers. (Look, I'm aware that I'm a cloutless blogger so I was willing to be patient.)

Then she pulled this 180:

I regret to inform you that we will not be able to accommodate your request.

WTF? Did a White House Deputy Press Secretary just broke what I consider to be Rule Three for every media rep?

Don't make promises you can't keep.

Based on this memo from her boss Jay Carney (via Lynn Sweet's Chicago Sun-Times column), I'd assumed I was dealing with a pro:

Jamie Smith will join the White House Communications team as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary. In addition to serving as an on-the-record spokesperson for the White House, she will manage the day-to-day operations of our office. An experienced and well-regarded manager and communicator, Jamie is currently Director of Public Affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Before that, she was Communications Director for U.S. Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV when he was Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and then Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Smith also served as Traveling Press Director for the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign, Communications Director for former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and The Albright Group, and Legislative Aide to Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey.

Those sounded like high-class gigs and quite a few for such a young woman to have held, so I kept my cool and played this hand:

On my blog this week, I intend to report this (more or less) as "White House refuses to answer questions about President Obama's past ties to tainted Illinois nonprofit under federal and state investigations."

If you wish to dispute that characterization, would you please get back to me by the end of today?

Less than an hour later, to my surprise, she put the ball back in play!

Thanks for your reply back. If you can give me a few more days on this, I would appreciate it.

Will respond by week's end.

But those assurances led to - yeah, you guessed it - another two months of phony promises, a family sob story, and then White House Deputy Press Secretary Smith vanished.

I think I know why she's held so many jobs.

But just as bad as wasting my time, she broke Rule Two:

Protect the boss.

That is, now, thanks to her - along with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin - that makes three prominent Democrats from Illinois who appear to hiding from questions about their relationships with SALF.

Which in my book constitutes a clear cut violation of Rule One:

Get in front of the problem.

Especially with election season just 'round the bend.

Cincinnati charity for indigent Africans gives award to my father, who conducted medical atrocity experiments on African AIDS patients

2011-12-12T08:00:00.022-05:00

From the website of Cincinnati's NuWay Foundation, which aims to better the lives of underprivileged Nigerians:

Here's what caught my eye:

From a gallery of numerous photos of the gala:

NuWay Foundation founder/chair Evans Nwankwo and his wife Catherine present NuWay Foundation "International Bridge" award to my father; on the right is event emcee Liz Bonis

More about the honoree via a Sunday front page story in the February 16, 2003 Cincinnati Enquirer:

(Dr. Heimlich's) experiments - which seek to destroy HIV, the AIDS-causing virus, by inducing high malarial fevers- have been criticized by the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration and condemned by other health professionals and human rights advocates as a medical "atrocity."

...For years, Dr. Heimlich has been criticized by state, federal and international health organizations over malariotherapy. Despite this, Heimlich proudly continues his work in China and says he wants to expand malariotherapy to Africa.

And expand it he did. From Radar Magazine, November 11, 2005

Mekbib Wondewossen is an Ethiopian immigrant who makes his living renting out cars in the San Francisco area, but in his spare time he works for Dr. Heimlich, doing everything from "recruiting the patients to working with the doctors here and there and everywhere," Wondewossen says. The two countries he names are Ethiopia and the small equatorial nation of Gabon, on Africa's west coast.

"The Heimlich Institute is part of the work there - the main people, actually, in the research," Wondewossen says. "They're the ones who consult with us on everything. They tell us what to do...We go to an epidemic area where there is a lot of malaria, and then we look for patients that have HIV too. We find commercial sex workers or people who play around in that area."

...Wondewossen say that the researchers involved in the study are not doctors. He refuses to name members of the research team, because he says it would get them into trouble with the local authorities. "The government over there is a bad government," he says. "They can make you disappear."

...He scoffs at the question of whether his team got approval to conduct this research from a local ethics review board. Bribery on that scale, he says, is much too expensive: "If you want the government to get involved there, you have to give them a few million - and then they don't care what you do."

Here's a clip about the "malariotherapy" experiments from the June 8, 2007 ABC 20/20 by Brian Ross, Is Dr. Heimlich really a savior?, featuring interviews with National Institutes of Health Director Anthony Fauci MD and my brother Phil, longtime second-in-command at Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute, which funded and oversaw the "malariotherapy" experiments:

Were Evans Nwonkwo and the other members of the NuWay Foundation board - some of Cincinnati's most prominent citizens - unaware of these and the many other media reports about the Heimlich atrocity experiments?

Were they were unaware that just a few years ago, when Victoria Wulsin ran for Congress, her work for my father and brother's Institute helped upend her campaign? In addition to media reports, including ABC News, Dr. Wulsin was hammered from the primary through the general election in these TV spots, perhaps the first time violative human subjects research was part of a political race.

Dangerous experiments: a cover-up- OH 2nd District campaign spot by Steve Black for Congress, Democratic primary, Spring 2008

Not exactly your good doctor - OH 2nd District campaign spot by Re-Elect Jean Schmidt to Congress, general election, Fall 2008

In an attempt to learn more, I sent these inquiries to Mr. Nwonkwo. I received a confirmation of receipt, but no response from him or any other representatives of his organization:

Finally, from the LinkedIn page of the emcee of the NuWay fundraiser:

My brother Phil Heimlich and NuWay Foundation Director Benjamin Nwankwo at the gala (source)

UPDATE:

My interview on Dr. Joe Schwarcz's Montreal radio show, November 20, 2011

2011-11-23T09:56:00.006-05:00

From his McGill bio:

Joe Schwarcz (PhD McGill 1973) is Director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society, a unique enterprise with a mandate of demystifying science for the public, the media and students..."Dr. Joe" has appeared hundreds of times on the Canadian Discovery Channel, TV Ontario, Global Television, CBC-TV, CTV-TV and various radio stations. He hosts the "Dr. Joe Show" on Montreal's CJAD every Sunday from 3-4 PM.

seg. 1: The disclosure of a family secret leads me into researching my father's career

seg. 2: Coming to grips with my father's dangerous medical claims; the "Patrick maneuver"

seg. 3: Failure of the medical profession to police itself; bogus drowning case reports involving the use of the Heimlich maneuver; my criticism of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)

seg. 4: My decision to blow the whistle on my father's frauds; reactions of family members; my father won't defend his work

seg. 5: My father's 1976 firing by Cincinnati's Jewish Hospital; more PCRM critique; my father used beagles to develop the Heimlich maneuver

Westchester NY Health Commish & IL State Education Chief Gery Chico say Save-A-Life Foundation falsely listed them as board members, so I notified the Illinois Attorney General

2011-11-21T21:00:00.010-05:00

SALF executives Rita Mullins (straw hat) & Carol Spizzirri (black pants suit) and US Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (turquoise shirt), Punjabi Sports Festival, Chicago, July 15, 2007 (source)

From Possible Charity Scam by Sophia Beausoleil, WCIA News, Champaign, IL:

According to the Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office, the Save a Life Foundation (SALF) closed it's doors Sept., 2009. Whenever a non-profit shuts down, the state does an investigation, but over the summer the state received complaints and documents questioning the organizations handling of finances. A representative for the Attorney General's office said they are looking into the organizations charitable contributions and assets.

Here's more for the Attorney General to look into, a letter I e-mailed today (slightly revised for clarity).

###

November 21, 2011

Barry Goldberg
Assistant Illinois Attorney General
Charitable Trust Bureau
100 West Randolph Street
Chicago, IL 60601

Dear Assistant Attorney General Goldberg:

This is to request that, in addition to the previous information I've provided to you, that you include the following information in your office’s investigation of the Save-A-Life Foundation Inc. (SALF).

According to a November 19, 2011 article by Theresa Juva-Brown published in the Westchester, NY, Journal News, New Westchester health chief Sherlita Amler brings experience from Arkansas to Putnam:

(Dr.) Amler graduated from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, moved to New Orleans for a residency in pediatrics and eventually landed at U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

...When she and her husband worked for federal health agencies, they had ties to the Save A Life Foundation, a charity in Illinois that taught first-aid skills to children. The foundation, which received millions in federal grant money, was discredited after a 2006 television news investigation revealed that its founder, Carol Spizzirri, lied about being a registered nurse, the circumstances of her daughter’s fatal car crash (the reason the foundation was created) and the number of children it had trained.

Amler said the CDC assigned her to advise the group on how to measure whether its teaching was effective. After she found out in 2008 that she was listed on SALF’s website as a board member, she called the organization to take off her name.

“I had nothing to do with their board,” she said.

The following is a screen capture from SALF's now-defunct website, still available via an online cache. According to that service, this information was posted on SALF's website from at least June 30, 2007 - May 11, 2008:

Please also see these pages from SALF's Annual Corporate Reports which, based on the Journal News report, falsely claim that Dr. Amler served on the organization's Medical Advisory Board from 2005-08.
2005-08 Save-A-Life Foundation Annual Reports list Dr. Sherlita Amler as a board member

Further, you'll recall my letter of February 19, 2011 in which I brought to your attention another apparently problematic claim by SALF, that Gery J. Chico (now Chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education) served as a member of the organization's National Board of Directors. As I informed you in that letter, Mr. Chico has denied that claim.

Per a November 10, 2011 article by reporter Emily Coleman and published in the Sauk Valley Telegraph, Mr. Chico reiterated his position that SALF falsely claimed he served on the organization's board. The article also includes:

“I think if there’s probable cause for wrongdoing, especially if it involves public money, there ought to be an investigation, sure,” Chico said.

The examples of Dr. Amler and Mr. Chico raise reasonable concerns about potential misrepresentations of other individuals SALF claimed as board members. Presumably such questions may be resolved by Rita Mullins, former mayor of Palatine, IL, for 20 years, who according to SALF's IRS tax returns served as the organization's Vice-Chairwoman and Corporate Secretary from 2004-08.

Rita Mullins listed as corporate officer on Save-A-Life Foundation's IRS tax returns, 1/1/04-6/30/08

Here's a screen capture from today via WhitePages.com:

Thank you for your ongoing attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Peter M. Heimlich
(ADDRESS REDACTED)
Ph: (208)474-7283
e-mail: pmh@medfraud.info
website: MedFraud.info
blog: The Sidebar

cc:

The Hon. Rob Woodall, United States House of Representatives
The Hon. Tim Bivins, IL State Senate
Gery J. Chico, Chairman, IL State Board of Education
Sherlita Amler MD, Health Commissioner, Westchester County, NY
Theresa Juva-Brown, Journal News
Emily K. Coleman, Sauk Valley Telegraph
Robyn Ziegler, Press Secretary, Office of the Illinois Attorney General

From now-defunct "Re-Elect Rita Mullins" website (2009)

While Arne Duncan & Dick Durbin hide, my congressman Rob Woodall is asking about million$ the CDC awarded to a tainted Illinois nonprofit whose Corporate Treasurer was - ouch! - a top executive at the Atlanta agency

2011-11-14T10:43:00.010-05:00

Rep. Rob Woodall (holding copies of SALF documents I handed to him), Town Hall, Suwanee, GA, 11/5/11

A freshman Republican congressman from Georgia is asking questions about a developing Illinois scandal that involves two of the biggest players in the national Democratic party.

Sidebar regulars know that the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) was a high-flying nonprofit that, according to the Chicago Tribune, was awarded nearly $9 million in federal and state funds to provide first aid training classes to millions of students.

Among other problems, records of any training classes are hard to come by.

IL State Sen. Tim Bivins

Last week an Illinois daily reported that State Senator Tim Bivins (R-Dixon) and State Board of Education chairman Gery Chico want "investigations and audits of (SALF)":

“Where’s our money going?” Bivins said. “Where’s our tax dollars going? Where did it go?... As taxpayers, we have a right to know where the money’s going.”

...Chico agreed.

"I think if there’s probable cause for wrongdoing, especially if it involves public money, there ought to be an investigation, sure,” Chico said.

That prospect doesn't seem to appeal to this pair of officials who helped SALF obtain big bucks: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin. Click their names and you'll see what I mean.

Back in the day, both spared no praise or support for the organization and its founder/president, Carol J. Spizzirri. Duncan called her "one of my heroes." Durbin told a CNN reporter, "I would do everything I could to help her."

Spizzirri, reportedly a twice-convicted shoplifter whose teenage daughter filed a protective order against her mother, is also prone to exaggeration. For instance, per this eye-popping 2006 I-Team report by ABC Chicago, she claimed nonexistent medical credentials, a bogus college degree, and even fabricated stories about her own child's death to gin up funds for her organization.

After dozens more media exposes, you'd think the elected officials who handed SALF millions of public dollars might want to assure taxpayers that their money didn't go down the you-know-where.

Think again. Despite his calls for oversight, Bivins wrote me, "There is little or no interest in pursuing an investigation of SALF in Illinois."

Such incuriousity may be attributable to SALF's connections to scores of public officials up and down the Prairie State's political food chain.

Click here for pages of photos of some of those worthies posing with SALF founder/president Carol Spizzirri and her second-in-command, Rita Mullins, former 20-year mayor of Palatine, IL.

Here are the gal pals of SALF enjoying themselves at a wedding shower last year for Spizzirri's daughter, Ciprina. Since then, Mama Spizzirri has reportedly relocated from Grayslake, IL, to a mobile home park in San Marcos, California.

SALF's Carol J. Spizzirri & Rita Mullins

As Sen. Bivins wrote me, "It's going to take someone from outside Illinois to expose the SALF scandal."

That someone may turn out to be my congressman, Rob Woodall, (R-GA, 7th District).

This week, Rep. Woodall wrote me that since July he's been asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about $3.33 million that agency awarded to SALF.

According to sworn grant applications and financial reports SALF submitted to the CDC (which I obtained via FOIA), a good chunk of that dough was supposed to be used by SALF to provide first aid training classes for many thousands of students in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and other districts.

During most of those years, Arne Duncan was in charge of CPS and had a close relationship with Spizzirri and her operation. He even appeared as a cartoon character on SALF's website:

Here's one problem. In response to a federal court subpoena and public records requests, CPS can't locate any training records.

So where'd the CDC money go?

In addition to Duncan, one person who should know the answer to that question is Douglas Browne who, according to an October article in The Hill, "served as (SALF's) corporate treasurer from 2004 to 2009."

Per The Hill, during those same years Browne was also - can you say conflict of interest? - a Deputy Director at the CDC. From SALF's 2006-07 Annual Report:

The Hill:

(Congressional candidate Tim)Bagwell sent an 8-page letter to Health and Human Services Inspector General Daniel Levinson on Monday requesting that the office "review and determine" whether $3.3 million awarded to the Save-A-Life Foundation were "properly administered."

...Bagwell also wants the inspector general to review the relationship between the nonprofit and CDC Deputy Director Douglas Browne, who served as the nonprofit's corporate treasurer from 2004 to 2009.

That resulted in this:

At the beginning of the summer, I spent a frustrating month trying to get answers from the CDC about the status of the IG's request "for further review and appropriate administrative action" about Browne's role.

CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, MD MPH

After being sandbagged by three CDC departments, including the office of Director Tom Frieden, I wrote congressman Woodall and requested his assistance.

Last Saturday Rep. Woodall hosted a local Town Hall meeting at which I took the opportunity to reiterate my concerns. A few days later, he sent me this. (To download a copy, click here.)

Per the congressman's letter, there's more to come, so keep reading The Sidebar for updates.

Rep. Rob Woodall

In the meantime, I encourage readers to write your own congressional representative, share a link to this item, and request that s/he send a letter of support to Rep. Woodall for his willingness to take a closer look at this rat's nest.

If you do, feel free to e-mail copies to me.

Philly paper picks up my item about anti-gay political consultant's phantom clients: Campaign Solutions scrubs their website, PCRM isn't talking

2011-11-12T08:00:00.138-05:00

left to right: unknown man, Karl Rove, Chris Margaronis, Anthony Bellotti

Campaign Solutions is a high-powered DC outfit that puts together big money political campaigns for anti-gay rights candidates and anti-gay rights ballot measures.

As I reported last month, although they're not keen on civil rights for gay people, Campaign Solutions staffer Anthony Bellotti claimed to represent these three nonprofits that promote the rights of animals: Animal Protection of New Mexico; the American Anti-Vivisection Society; and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).

Per my follow-up, the New Mexico group informed me they were never clients of Campaign Solutions.

Now the Anti-Vivisection organization has denied that they were ever a client.

A couple days ago, the Philadelphia Gay News picked up the story, moved the ball forward, and - thank you very much - gave yours truly some ink.

Jen Colletta (source)

From Antigay consulting firm cites, withdraws animal-rights clients by PGN staff reporter Jen Colletta:

A staffer at a consulting firm known nationally for its work on behalf of a number of conservative, often antigay, politicians and initiatives, has purported to have a client list that includes a number of animal-advocacy groups, including one in the Philadelphia area - a connection the animal group denies and that has since been removed from the firm’s website.

Campaign Solutions has worked on campaigns for Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, and the Virginia-based organization also helped promote Yes on 8, the successful California ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage.

...Blogger Peter Heimlich wrote about the seeming disconnect between support for animal rights and for restricting LGBT rights on his blog, The Sidebar.

“On their website, Campaign Solutions proudly claimed to represent organizations dedicated to improving the lives of our four-footed friends, meanwhile cooking up high-profile political campaigns to restrict the civil rights of human beings because they’re gay,” he said.

...“After I reported the story on my blog, client names and other information started vanishing from their website,” Heimlich said. “When I asked company president Becki Donatelli if she or Anthony Bellotti wanted to explain, she politely declined.”

Sue Leary, president of AAVS, told PGN her organization accepted free advice from a contributor, who works for Campaign Solutions, but said her agency is not currently and never was a client of Bellotti’s or Campaign Solutions.

Donatelli did not respond to a request for comment last week from PGN.

Last weekend, however, all mention of the animal-advocacy groups, as well as the antigay agencies, were removed from Bellotti’s profile.

In other words, one of the country's top political consulting shops appears to have falsely claimed that at least two organizations were clients.

Here's a screen shot taken on October 18, the day my first item ran:

Here's a shot of the same page today sans the animal rights clients and his "highly regarded" anti-gay rights campaigns:

Courtesy of ChangeDetection.com, a free online tool that monitors web pages, this shot shows last weekend's alterations:

Hey, wait a minute. What about PCRM, unquestionably the highest-profile of the three animal rights groups? Are they now or have they ever been clients of Campaign Solutions? Does it matter?

Based on this e-mail I received from Pattrice Jones, a writer who advocates for animal rights and for civil rights for gay people, she sure seems to think it's important:

First, let me vouch for both AAVS (with which I have worked concerning genetic engineering of animals) and PCRM (with which I have worked concerning the globalization of unhealthy Western diets), as organizations staffed and managed by persons who are committed to social justice. I assume that they have been disgusted to learn that they have been doing business with a company that also fosters homophobia.

My guess is that both of these organizations would be willing to make a statement condemning homophobia and/or eventually divest themselves from association with that company.

Per the Philly Gay News, guess again:

PCRM did not respond to a request for comment.

My request to the IL Senate committee interviewing Gery Chico tomorrow about the Save-A-Life Foundation: Ask him if he supports an investigation by the Chicago Schools Inspector General

2011-11-08T08:30:00.005-05:00

Gery Chico & Carol Spizzirri promote the Save-A-Life Foundation on Chicago TV (undated, likely 2003)

The Hon. Antonio Muñoz, Chairman
The Hon. Tim Bivins, Minority Spokesman
Illinois Senate Executive Appointments Committee

Dear Senators Muñoz and Bivins:

In June, the Chicago Sun-Times reported:

Former Chicago mayoral candidate Gery Chico’s appointment as chairman of the state Board of Education hit a snag Wednesday amid GOP questions over his ties to a now-defunct non-profit organization.

Based on issues raised by a Texas blogger, Senate Republicans put the brakes on Quinn’s appointment, asking that Chico personally appear before a Senate panel to explain his relationship with Save A Life Foundation, a charity that is undergoing a probe within Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office.

“To me, this is the biggest non-event there could be,” Chico said when asked about the wrinkle in his confirmation. “I’m happy to come down there and answer any questions.”

According to the senate website, Mr. Chico is appearing before your committee tomorrow morning. This is to request that today you review and share this information with your fellow committee members.

This is also to request that at tomorrow's hearing Mr. Chico be asked this question:

Do you think the Chicago Public Schools Inspector General should investigate whether $62,000 paid by the schools to the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) was properly administered?

Here's why.

First, according to this April 24, 2003 press release, Sunny Chico (who's identified as "a member of SALF's Educational Advisory Board") stated:

My husband Gery (former President, Chicago Board of Ed.) was instrumental in bringing SALF to the Chicago Public Schools....

According to a November 2006 ABC Chicago I-Team report by Chuck Goudie (emphasis added):

One of Illinois' highest profile charities teaches the Heimlich maneuver to children while maneuvering the truth to get money from government and big business.

It's called the Save-A-Life Foundation and is known across Illinois as an organization that teaches schoolchildren how to respond in emergencies. For the past few years, Save-A-Life has received millions of dollars in government funds and corporate donations. An ABC7 I-Team investigation has uncovered a series of misleading claims and deceptive credentials that raise doubts about Save-A-Life's integrity, funding and training.

Save-A-Life officials say they have taught the Heimlich maneuver and other first aid techniques to more than 1 million schoolchildren since 1995. They claim to have taught nearly 70,000 children how to save a life in the Chicago Public Schools this year alone.

..."It's free to the children. We bring this course to schools for free," Spizzirri said.

But it wasn't free to the Chicago Public Schools, where officials say Save-A-Life charged them $50,000 the past two years.

Schools CEO Arnie (sic) Duncan says it seems unlikely that Carol Spizzirri's organization could have taught the number of students they claim....

From the October 11, 2009 Chicago Tribune:

(Carol) Spizzirri launched a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching children emergency response techniques, raising at least $8.6 million in federal and state grants for her Save-A-Life Foundation. Firefighters and paramedics were recruited to offer instruction on how to apply CPR and stop bleeding and choking, said Spizzirri, who estimates 2 million children took the classes, many of them from the Chicago Public Schools.

From SALF's website, here's a list of hundreds of Chicago Schools where the organization claimed to have provided first aid training classes:

As any parent knows, every school activity generates paperwork. An extracurricular program of this nature using outside employees (firefighters and paramedics) would undoubtedly produce mountains of documents: student and teacher schedules, training materials, employee records, evaluations, and much more.

But in response to a federal court subpoena (filed by my attorney in Save-A-Life Foundation v. Baratz) and public records requests, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) have failed to produce records for any training classes.

The only records CPS produced are a handful of SALF press releases and these 22 invoices showing that from 2000-2007, CPS paid SALF about $62,000:

Chicago Schools Inspector General James M. Sullivan informed me that his office had no statute of limitations re: investigating potential vendor fraud, so in January I submitted this request asking that he determine whether the $62,000 was properly administered:

Per the above information and the documentation below my signature, Mr. Chico (and his wife) were associated with and promoted SALF both during and after his years on the Chicago School Board. In my opinion, it should be him, not me, asking IG Sullivan to investigate SALF. If he's unwilling to assume that minimal degree of responsibility, it's unclear why your committee would entrust him to head the State Board of Education.

Therefore, to reiterate, at your hearing tomorrow I hope you'll take the opportunity to ask Mr. Chico this question:

Do you think the Chicago Public Schools Inspector General should investigate whether $62,000 paid by the schools to the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) was properly administered?

Finally, records indicate members of your committee were associated with SALF. I'm unfamiliar with your protocol, but it may be appropriate to disclose the details at tomorrow's hearing.

Thanks for your time and consideration. If you have any questions or would like additional supporting documentation, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Peter M. Heimlich
Atlanta
(208)474-7283
e-mail: pmh@medfraud.info
website: MedFraud
blog: The Sidebar

Meeting at which Gery Chico and other members of the Chicago Board of Education invited SALF into the schools (undated, probably late 1999):

(1:00) Spizzirri credits IL Sen. Walter Dudcyz for arranging a $600,000 Department of Commerce and Community Affairs (DCCA) grant "to bring this program to the schools of Chicago." Click here for a copy of the grant.

(1:20) Spizzirri: "We've trained over 5000 children since October in schools throughout the city. We have an additional one to 43,000 children to train by the end of June."

(4:30) Gery Chico indicates he's impressed with her claims.

(5:45) Spizzirri: "(My daughter) bled to death before the paramedics arrived." From Chuck Goudie's 2006 ABC7 report:

But even that isn't true, according to police and hospital reports and an inquest by the Lake County coroner. The official record states that 18-year-old Christina Spizzirri was legally drunk at the time of the accident; and that after hosting a drinking party while her mother was vacationing in Florida, the teenager got behind the wheel and flipped her own car.

Police records show there was no hit-and-run, and even though the local police didn't know emergency first aid, the teenager did not die at the scene as Carol Spizzirri contends. Medical records state that Christina died 30 minutes after arriving at the hospital.

(8:30) Former SALF board member Carlos Azcoitia PhD appears. Recently when asked if SALF should be investigated, Dr. Azcoitia, who serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Northeastern Illinois University wrote, " I agree that if there is any suspicion of financial impropriety, it should be investigated thoroughly." Click here for a copy of his e-mail.

(9:00) Chico: "I don't think we can afford to do anything but do this (SALF program).

May 26, 1999 Chicago School Board Resolution signed by Gery Chico & Paul Vallas claiming SALF had trained many thousands of CPS students:

In 2002, Chico was listed as a member of a SALF committee that produced a Pre-EMS White Paper:

From SALF's Corporate Report that year:

The next year:

From SALF's report of the 2003 event:

PCRM "research expert" denounces use of animals in any medical research as "a fraud" - but he and his organization praise the lifesaving Heimlich maneuver and "Heimlich operation," both developed using dogs

2011-11-03T11:00:00.002-04:00

From today's South End, the student newspaper of Wayne State University in Detroit:

Dr. John Pippin, director of academic affairs for PCRM (the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine), said the group’s interest is scientifically and medically based.

...PCRM is opposed to and seeks to ban the use of animals in medical research in all forms, Pippin said, because such research is “a fraud.”

From A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation by John J. Pippin MD FACC et al, published in 2006 by the Medical Research Modernization Committee:

"Relied exclusively on human clinical investigation"?

PCRM's research expert apparently didn't do his research.

From Pop Goes the Cafe Coronary by Henry J. Heimlich MD, Emergency Medicine, June 1974, the first published article about what came to be called "the Heimlich maneuver":

The procedure is adapted from experimental work with four 38-pound beagles...After being given an intravenous anesthetic, each dog was "strangled" with a size 32 cuffed endotracheal tube inserted into the larynx and capped. After the cuff was distended to create total obstruction of the trachea, the animal went into immediate respiratory distress as evidenced by spasmodic, paradoxical respiratory movement of the chest and diaphragm. At this point, with a sudden thrust, I pressed my hand deeply and firmly into the abdomen of the animal a short distance below the rib cage, thereby pushing upward on the disphragm. The endotracheal tube popped out of the trachea and, after several labored respirations, the animal began to breath normally.

...We repeated the experiment more than 20 times on each animal with the same excellent results When a bolus of raw hamburger was substituted for the endotracheal tube, it, too, was ejected by the same procedure, always after one or two compressions.

From The Use of a Gastric Tube to Replace of By-pass the Esophagus by Henry J. Heimlich MD and James M. Winfield MD, Surgery, April 1955:

Eight adult mongrel dogs were used...The dogs were given nothing by mouth for twenty-four hours before operation....The abdomen and chest were shaved.

...Dog No. 1 (Operation Dec. 7, 1953). - This operation was performed through separate abdominal and chest incisions. Ten centimeters of esophagus was resected and the gastric tube brought through the esophageal hiatus. The dog survived three weeks on gradually increasing amounts of food. It was eating adequate amounts of soft solids by the end of the second week. On Dec. 26, 1953, it was noted to have a white froth around the mouth. On Dec. 28, 1953, it was found dead in its cage.

...Dog No. 2 (Operation Jan. 11, 1954). - The possibility of the gastric tube surviving nourished only by its intrinsic blood supply was considered. The operation was performed with ligation of the left gastroepiploic vessels and no splenectomy. The animal gradually deteriorated and died on Jan. 14, 1954, three days postoperatively.

...Dog No. 3 (Operation Jan. 18, 1954). - The esophagus was divided and not resected. Its lower end was closed...For two days the animal vomited gastric juice. It appeared well on the third day. On the fourth day postoperatively, small amounts of fluids were taken. Approximately 200 c.c. was swallowed without difficulty, but vomiting occurred in thirty minutes. On the fifth day it was found dead.

...Dog No. 4 (Operation Jan. 25; 1954). - The dog died on the operating table during the procedure.

Dog No. 5...The dog did well for two days, taking fluids on the second day. On the third day it had a convulsion and died.

...Dog. No. 8 (Operation March 4, 1954). - The procedure, as described in the text, was performed through separate abdominal and chest incisions....(Two months after the operation) the animal was obviously healthy and eating as a normal dog. It was therefore sacrificed.

From April 7, 2005 press release, National Medical Group Creates Award In Honor of Henry Heimlich,

“Dr. Henry Heimlich’s vision and incredible creativity are responsible for medical advances that have saved tens of thousands of lives,” said PCRM president and founder Neal Barnard, M.D. “He is the embodiment of innovation, compassion, and getting the job done. His work has inspired researchers and medical students to break convention, think creatively, and focus on what counts: saving lives.”

PCRM's Henry J. Heimlich Award for Innovative Medicine

Today the Canadian Red Cross made a major update in their choking rescue guidelines. Why are they acting like they're trying to keep it a secret from the media and the public?

2011-11-01T16:06:00.010-04:00

Over the past couple of decades, if you came upon a choking child or adult, the Canadian Red Cross recommended that you perform a series of abdominal thrusts (aka the Heimlich maneuver).

As I reported in August (and today it became official), the CRC has updated its first aid training guidelines. They now recommend first performing a series of back blows. If that fails to remove the obstruction, rescuers are instructed to proceed with abdominal thrusts.

This information might make the difference between life and death or help prevent a choking victim from suffering brain damage.

But don't expect to read about it in the press or see the story on TV. The CRC wrote me that they have no intention of sending out a press release.

Here's another question. Five years ago, the American Red Cross made the same update. What took the CRC so long to catch up?

I've sent multiple inquiries to CRC officials, including Conrad Sauvé, who heads the organization. I can't get him or anyone else to answer those questions. (See below for the correspondence.)

So at the moment, it appears the only way the public is able to obtain this potentially lifesaving information is by paying for a CRC training class - $160 according to this website - or by reading The Sidebar.

Another question, this one for readers.

Imagine you're a parent in, say, Nova Scotia and suddenly your child starts to choke. You rush to the CRC's website in search of help and frantically type "choking" into the search box.

Click here for the results. As of today, the search brought up 64 documents including lots of press releases about CRC award presentations and how to sign up for first aid training classes.

But I couldn't locate instructions on how to respond to a choking emergency.

If anyone finds those, would you please e-mail me the link so I can share the information with the public?

my correspondence with the Canadian Red Cross re: 11/1/11 choking rescue guidelines update

Caught fibbing, top anti-gay campaign consultant scrubs NewMex animal rights "client" from their site; meanwhile DC & PA pro-animal clients seem to be playing ostrich

2011-10-28T07:30:00.006-04:00

A couple weeks ago, I reported Top political consulting firm advocates humane treatment for animals while driving major campaigns against human rights for gay Americans.

The item was about Campaign Solutions, a company that puts together big money political campaigns for anti-gay rights candidates like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum, and anti-gay rights ballot measures including California's Yes on Prop. 8.

As I reported, although they're apparently not keen on civil rights for gay people, Campaign Solutions claimed to represent three organizations that promote the rights of animals.

Oops. Make that two organizations.

The day after my item ran, in search of reaction comments, I e-mailed the three groups: Animal Protection of New Mexico, the American Anti-Vivisection Society of Jenkintown, PA, and the DC-area Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

So far I've only gotten one reply, but it was same-day pronto:

According to an e-mail I received later that day from Ms. Jennings, "I will be contacting (Campaign Solutions) and asking them to correct their site."

Looks like they did.

Campaign Solutions boy wonder Anthony Bellotti proudly puts together some of the company's highest profile campaigns to limit civil rights for gay Americans. Here's his web page before my item ran:

The day after I received Elisabeth Jennings's e-mail, her organization disappeared from boy wonder's web page:

I asked Rebecca "Becki" Donatelli, president of Campaign Solutions (and arguably one of the most influential voices in Republican politics), if she or boy wonder wanted to comment.

Rebecca Donatelli

Her reply:

What about her company's other animal rights clients, the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)?

Radio silence so far.

I did, however, receive an October 24 e-mail from Pattrice Jones, a writer who advocates for animal rights and for civil rights for gay people. She was one of five like-minded activists I copied on my inquiries to AAVS and PCRM.

Pattrice Jones (source)

She wrote:

First, let me vouch for both AAVS (with which I have worked concerning genetic engineering of animals) and PCRM (with which I have worked concerning the globalization of unhealthy Western diets), as organizations staffed and managed by persons who are committed to social justice. I assume that they have been disgusted to learn that they have been doing business with a company that also fosters homophobia.

My guess is that both of these organizations would be willing to make a statement condemning homophobia and/or eventually divest themselves from association with that company. However, I also understand that they may need some lead time to make such a move.

Perhaps they should consider hiring Ms. Jennings of Animal Protection of New Mexico? Now there's someone who doesn't need much lead time to make a move.

Whistleblower Annabel Melongo thanks bloggers (including me) who have reported about her case

2011-10-26T20:31:00.003-04:00

Subject: Thanks

From: Annabel Melongo <melongo_annabel@yahoo.com>

Date: 10/24/2011 11:50 PM

To: pmh@medfraud.info, dean@cincinnatibeacon.com, lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net, lee.cary@att.net

Jason Haap, The Cincinnati Beacon

Lee Cary, The American Thinker

Peter M. Heimlich, The Sidebar

Stephen Lendman, The Stephen Lendman Blog

Dear Jason, Lee, Peter, and Stephen:

Last week I was released from Cook County Jail after Judge Steven J. Goebel granted my motion to be released under house arrest. I'm now living with a close friend and doing fine.

Under the provisions of Judge Goebel's order, I'm unable to discuss my case with representatives of the media, but I wanted to express my heartfelt gratitude for the articles you've written.

Sincerely,

Annabel Melongo

Chicago, IL

###

SALF whistleblower’s atty: IL cop’s “fraud and perjury” led to her indictment!, Cincinnati Beacon, July 15, 2010

A Political Prisoner in Illinois? by Lee Cary, The American Thinker, September 20, 2010

Annabel Melongo: Victimized and Imprisoned by Stephen Lendman, January 5, 2011

After being held for 18 months in Cook County Jail for "eavesdropping," SALF whistleblower Annabel Melongo has been released under house arrest - and an Illinois senator wants to know what's been going on: "To say this whole case is troubling would be an understatement" by me, The Sidebar, October 21, 2011

After being held for 18 months in Cook County Jail for "eavesdropping," SALF whistleblower Annabel Melongo has been released under house arrest - and an Illinois senator wants to know what's been going on: "To say this whole case is troubling would be an understatement"

2011-10-21T17:39:00.005-04:00

Annabel K. Melongo

A week after Circuit Court Judge Steven J. Goebel signed this court order, self-described fraud whistleblower Annabel Melongo has been released under house arrest from Cook County Jail after being held 18 months on a $300,000 bond.

The charges? Per the April 2010 grand jury indictment, under Illinois's controversial eavesdropping law, the state alleges that Melongo uploaded to her website recordings of routine phone conversations with a courthouse clerk.

Now an Illinois state senator with a background in law enforcement is asking serious questions about the case.

Melongo, who's been called a "political prisoner" by bloggers who've written about her case, is a former employee of the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a one-time high-profile, politically-connected Chicago-area nonprofit.

According to this page from Melongo's now-defunct website - it went dark while she was imprisoned - Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez has been "harassing" her since October 2006 in order to protect powerful politicians whom she alleges were involved with SALF.

In October 2006, Annabel was charged of destroying SALF's files, among them financial records. Those charges were entirely based on claims made by SALF's founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri of Grayslake, IL. According to multiple news reports, Spizzirri has a history of serious fabrications, including the false claim that she is a Registered Nurse; that she worked as a renal transplant nurse in a Milwaukee hospital; and that she earned a BSN degree from a Wisconsin college whose name she misspelled on her CV.

...Illinois taxpayers may wonder why the state's top law enforcement officer (Attorney General Lisa Madigan, whose High Tech Crimes unit assisted in the state's case against Melongo) and Cook County Prosecutor Anita Alvarez are expending so much time and public money to prosecute this trumped-up case against her rather than investigate what happened to the millions of tax dollars that went to the Save-A-Life Foundation.

Re: the above allegations against Spizzirri and more, see Where Did the Save-A-Life Money Go?, a San Diego newsweekly article from last year.

In another twist, since last year SALF has reportedly been under investigation by Attorney General Madigan's Charitable Trust Bureau. (A November letter from the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services indicates a federal investigation is also underway.)

Now Sen. Tim Bivins, a Republican from the Northwestern part of the state, has publicly expressed his concerns about the Melongo case.

Winning office in 2008 after retiring from 20 years as a county sheriff, Bivins learned about Melongo's situation after he began asking questions about another chapter in the SALF history: Gery Chico's relationship with the now-tainted nonprofit.

Gery Chico accepts award from SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri (2003?)

A long-time Chicago power player who ran second to Rahm Emanuel in this year's mayoral race, Chico's appointment to head the State Board of Education was reportedly stalled in June by the Senate Executive Appointments Committee on which Bivins serves. To my knowledge, no date's been set, but Chico's slated to appear before the committee to answer questions about SALF.

Sen. Tim Bivins

In response to my inquiry about his interest in the Melongo case, Sen. Bivins e-mailed me this statement:

To say this whole case is troubling would be an understatement.

Annabel Melongo has spent a year and a half in jail and her accuser is alleged to have a tainted past, which if true, would make her a witness and alleged victim without credibility.

Did Annabel Melongo with intent destroy SALF's records or was she a whistleblower who was set up by her former boss? Any reasonable person who looked at SALF and the Melongo case would walk away with more questions than answers.

According to a friend of hers, for the first time in 18 months, last night Annabel Melongo didn't sleep in a jail cell.

8/31/11 defense motion to mandate house arrest for Annabel Melongo

Top political consulting firm advocates humane treatment for animals while driving major campaigns against human rights for gay Americans

2011-10-18T07:00:00.006-04:00

source: Campaign Solutions

UPDATE, 10/19/11: In response to my e-mail this morning, I just received this from Elisabeth Jennings, Executive Director of Animal Protection of New Mexico:

We are not and never have been clients of Campaign Solutions. They proposed working with us to develop online fundraising for our non-profit, but we decided not to engage in a business relationship with them.

I'm doing follow-ups in order to attempt to determine why, per this screenshot, Campaign Solutions claims her organization is a client of CS staffer Anthony Bellotti.

###

Campaign Solutions, arguably the country's leading conservative political consulting firm, counts among its clients brand name anti-gay politicos and spearheads big-money ballot initiatives to deny equal rights to gay Americans.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Alexandria, VA-based company also carries the ball for high-profile animal rights groups like the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a DC organization that touts its relationships with prominent members of the gay community including Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) and Ellen DeGeneres.

PCRM is one of three pro-animal organizations that Campaign Solutions names as clients. The others are Animal Protection of New Mexico, based in Albuquerque, and the American Anti-Vivisection Society of Jenkintown, PA, whose website states:

Founded in 1883, the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) is the first non-profit animal advocacy and educational organization in the United States dedicated to ending experimentation on animals in research, testing, and education. AAVS also opposes and works to end other forms of cruelty to animals.

Per George Orwell, some animals are more equal than others. Especially political animals.

According to their website, "Campaign Solutions invented online fundraising for political and public affairs campaigns. We've raised more online money for Republican candidates, ballot initiatives, non-profit organizations, and public affairs clients than any consulting firm in history."

Here's one of those candidates:

Source: Campaign Solutions portfolio

Here's another name on the CS client roster:

Campaign Solutions also proudly takes credit for California's "Yes on Proposition 8" ballot measure and Maine’s version, "Yes on 1 - The People's Veto of Same Sex Marriage":

Source: Campaign Solutions portfolio

Another valued client: Rev. Louis Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition, which for decades has campaigned against what it calls "the homosexual agenda."

I guess some agendas are more equal than others. They definitely pay better.

And when it comes to the agenda of attracting clients from the animal rights community, if this ain't Campaign Solutions' boy wonder, then I'm a monkey's uncle:

source: Campaign Solutions

From his Facebook, here's Mr. Bellotti posing with an alleged war criminal.

PCRM, the Anti-Vivisection Society (which, speaking of Orwell, sounds like something from 1984), and Animal Protection of New Mexico must be paying Campaign Solutions a pretty penny. Are we to believe these established, savvy nonprofits are unaware of the company's political profile? "Well, we never looked at their brochures, client list, or website..."

What about supporters of these organizations? Would they pleased to learn that their donations are paying Mr. Bellotti's salary?

And what would high-profile gay public figures think about being one degree of separation away from Mr. Bellotti and his agenda?

Marlon Reis and his partner, Rep. Jared Polis (source)

This congressman, for instance. According to PCRM:

Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., has just agreed to sponsor our bill to include vegetarian options and a dairy alternative beverage in school lunch programs.

What about Ellen DeGeneres, shown here accepting PCRM's "Voice of Compassion" award from the organization's founder/president, Neal Barnard MD?

For a possible follow-up, here's my agenda.

I'll send this item with requests for comment to some of the above players and see what kind of responses I get.

UPDATE:
my 10/19/11 inquiry to three animal rights groups

Contrary to Campaign Solutions' claim, Animal Protection of New Mexico says they've never been a CS client

University of Washington researcher Stephan Guyenet withdraws 'Food Reward Trial' after complaint to school's Human Subjects Division re: lack of institutional review board (IRB) oversight

2011-10-13T09:56:00.006-04:00

Last month I was contacted by a chum who has followed my efforts to bring to public attention the Heimlich Institute's illicit (and apparently illegal) human experiments on AIDS patients in Africa.

My chum told me about an internet dust-up that had been going on at blogs and websites that follow nutrition science, a subject about which I have no expertise or interest. (Full disclosure: I consume food.)

According to said chum, a researcher at the University of Washington named Stephan Guyenet was planning a human study looking into what causes obesity, but it was apparently terminated for unknown reasons.

"Well," I responded. "If you want to learn more, since the school's a public institution, why not submit a public records request?"

The chum then presented the following reasoned response.

"I don't want to. Would you do it?"

Not a surprise. Chum has a history of trying to persuade me to do tasks. I usually don't bite, but this was a simple chore that might result in an easy blog item.

So I asked the U of W to provide "any and all related records including but not limited to the proposed study."

Here's what I received:

For ease of comprehension (there are a lot of duplicate e-mails), I copied and re-formatted them in chronological order. Some didn't have complete headers, but they were all dated so here's what I came up with. (I don't think I made any goofs, but if I did, send me an e-mail and I'll repair. Want copies with the full headers? Submit your own $%#@& records request. To download a pdf of both versions, click here.)

Long story short, on September 5, someone by the name of Francis Pomeroy e-mailed Wendy S. Brown RN, Assistant Director of U-Dub's Human Subjects Division.

Over the next few days, Ms. Brown engaged in a cordial e-mail exchange with Dr. Guyenet and Noella A. Rawlings who, according to this web page, is an attorney who represents the school in matters that include human subjects research.

On September 8, Dr. Guyenet informed Ms. Brown:

I have decided to end my participation in this study and advise my collaborators not to undertake it. There is no way for me to obtain IRB approval without my mentor, who understandably is not interested in doing this study. In retrospect, there are a number of problems with this idea that I didn't understand at the time. As I said before, I am 100% committed to upholding my responsibilities to the UW and to the NIH. I appreciate you helping me with this.

Based on the e-mails, my understanding is that Dr. Guyenet's mentor is professor of medicine Michael W. Schwartz MD.

So who is Francis Pomeroy? A quick Google of his name and e-mail address didn't yield any clues, so it may be a pseudonym.

No, it's not me. Years ago I used a pseud to drop a dime to UCLA's Office of Human Subjects Protection about the Heimlich AIDS experiments in China which resulted in a bunch of news reports, but I had nothing to do with this.

Anyway, in search of an easy follow-up, I'm e-mailing this item to Francis Pomeroy. If anything interesting comes back, I'll post an update.

UPDATE, 11am EST: 15 minutes ago I sent an e-mail to francispomeroy@hotmail.com and this bounced back:

Haunted by his ties to tainted nonprofit, Education Secretary Arne Duncan ignores questions about $174,000 "phantom" program he arranged for the group

2011-10-10T05:06:00.006-04:00

In June I reported about an inquiry from Michael P. Goldenberg of Ann Arbor, MI, to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Goldenberg had questions about a $174,000 contract Duncan arranged when he ran the Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

The money was awarded to the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) a Chicago-area nonprofit. Now under investigation by federal and state agencies, SALF has been the subject of dozens of mainstream media exposes, starting with a November 2006 barnburner by ABC7 Chicago that included an interview with Duncan:

One of Illinois' highest profile charities teaches the Heimlich maneuver to children while maneuvering the truth to get money from government and big business.

It's called the Save-A-Life Foundation and is known across Illinois as an organization that teaches schoolchildren how to respond in emergencies. For the past few years, Save-A-Life has received millions of dollars in government funds and corporate donations. An ABC7 I-Team investigation has uncovered a series of misleading claims and deceptive credentials that raise doubts about Save-A-Life's integrity, funding and training.

Save-A-Life officials say they have taught the Heimlich maneuver and other first aid techniques to more than 1 million schoolchildren since 1995. They claim to have taught nearly 70,000 children how to save a life in the Chicago Public Schools this year alone.

On the Save-A-Life website, the organization promotes itself with a cartoon character of Schools' CEO Arne Duncan, who acts as an animated pitchman.

...Schools CEO Arne Duncan says it seems unlikely that (the) organization could have taught the number of students they claim.

With a developing mess that may involve President Obama - the Huffington Post reported that he was "close" to SALF, an allegation for which a White House press officer has promised me a response - you might think Duncan would provide a prompt and unequivocal denial.

But four months after Goldenberg's letter, the Ed Sec hasn't made a peep.

Gerald W. Bracey, 1940-2009

Instead, evasive, play-dumb e-mails from a Department of Education Communications Director seem to bolster concerns raised two years ago by the late education critic Jerry Bracey in his final column, The Skeleton in Arne Duncan's Closet.

Halloween season is an appropriate time to talk about rattling skeletons in the closet. US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appears to have a noisy one dating from his years running the Chicago Public Schools.

Her name is Carol J. Spizzirri.

A little background. Spizzirri is a convicted shoplifter. According to a sworn affidavit by her ex-husband, a court ordered psychological evaluation diagnosed her as a paranoid schizophrenic and pathological liar. Spizzirri claimed to be a registered nurse and a renal specialist. Her alma mater, now defunct, denied giving her an RN and reportedly she has never been a registered nurse in either Wisconsin or Illinois, as she had claimed. One of her daughters filed a protective order against her because of alleged abuse.

From Where Did the Save-A-Life Money Go? by Don Bauder, San Diego Reader, November 17, 2010:

Arne Duncan, then the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, now United States Secretary of Education, had lauded what the foundation was doing for the schools and effused, "Carol [Spizzirri] is one of my heroes."

Here's his hero storming out mid-interview when ABC7 I-Team reporter Chuck Goudie challenged claims made in SALF's fundraising and promotional materials about the Labor Day 1992 death of her 18-year-old daughter, Christina Pratt:

Shortly before her death, the girl filed a protective order against her mother who she claimed had struck her "on several occasions and threatened her on many occasions."

Via the Chicago Tribune:

(SALF founder/president Carol) Spizzirri launched a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching children emergency response techniques, raising at least $8.6 million in federal and state grants for her Save-A-Life Foundation...(Spizzirri) estimates 2 million children took the classes, many of them from the Chicago Public Schools.

However, in response to a federal court subpoena and public records requests, CPS can't produce any training records.

SALF's now under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General and by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC awarded SALF about $3.33 million, money that SALF told the CDC was used to train public school students in Chicago and Milwaukee. But the Milwaukee Schools don't have any records either.

According to a letter from the office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC is supposed to be looking into the role of Douglas R. Browne, a CDC Deputy Director who moonlighted as SALF's Corporate Treasurer according to an article in The Hill.

Duncan arranged a two-year contract with Spizzirri in which her organization was supposed to provide first aid training for 18,000 students during school years 2004/05 and 2005/06. Duncan signed off on $49,000 from the CPS coffers and Ronald McDonald House Charities kicked in another $125,000, a total of $174,000 handed to SALF.

Arne Duncan, Carol J. Spizzirri, and you-know-who (circa 2005)

But like I said, CPS has no records for the program. Further, in response to a public records request I filed for all training records associated with SALF's phantom CPS/McDonald's program, CPS handed the dirty diaper to Duncan:

The Chicago Public Schools does not have any responsive documents to your April 29, 2011 request. The schools who received training from the Save A Life Foundation were selected by members of the former CPS Chief Education Officer’s Office.

Which brings us back to Michael Goldenberg's inquiry.

Michael P. Goldenberg

Goldenberg, who's spent his career in public education, posted his letter to Arne on his blog and included a link to my web page, Did Arne Duncan unknowingly help a bogus nonprofit rip off $174,000 from the Chicago Schools & McDonald's Charities?

Goldenberg wanted to know if the former Chief Education Officer of the Chicago Schools thought the current Inspector General of the Chicago Schools should investigate the $174,000 contract Duncan arranged for SALF. In a follow-up, Goldenberg asked if Duncan had a financial relationship with SALF.

Answering those questions should be easy dunks for a White House cabinet member and a former basketball pro.

Apparently not. After months of promises and foot-dragging by Duncan's office, Goldenberg received this non-answer:

Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:35:49 -0500
From: "Dorfman, Cynthia" <Cynthia.Dorfman@ed.gov>
Subject: Your letter to Secretary Duncan
To: "mikegold@umich.edu" <mikegold@umich.edu>

Dear Mr. Goldenberg,

We received your letter to Secretary Duncan regarding the SALF program in Chicago Public Schools. Since the Secretary is no longer affiliated with the school system in Chicago, your best source of information is the school system itself. They would have all the records and data.

Sincerely,

Cynthia Dorfman
Director of Regional Communications and Outreach

Goldenberg copied me on his correspondence and since he was being sandbagged, I thought I'd give it a go. From the e-mail I sent last week to Ms. Dorfman:

(On my blog) I intend to report that Mr. Duncan and you would not answer any of Mr. Goldenberg's questions including whether or not Mr. Duncan had a financial relationship with SALF. If you wish to dispute that characterization and/or provide further information or clarification, please get back to me no later than Wednesday, October 5.

It took a couple of phone messages and follow-up e-mails for her to finally send me this piffle:

Mr. Heimlich, I was (sic) responding to your emails and voice mail to let you know that I don't have any information about this issue.

But I don't fault Ms. Dorfman.

She's just stuck with the crummy task of having to cover for a boss who apparently doesn't want anyone going into his basement where - if you listen - you might hear a $174,000 skeleton moaning and rattling its chains.

"Dear Arne" letter from Carol Spizzirri + grant request for year 2 of SALF's CPS/McDonald's program

"Dear Carol" letter from Arne Duncan approving year 2 of SALF/Ronald McDonald House program

Animal rights group (PCRM) scrubs Heimlich Institute from approved "humane" charities list after my report disclosed $343,000 had been awarded for animal research at University of Cincinnati

2011-09-20T21:26:00.007-04:00

Dr. Henry Heimlich, inventor of the Heimlich Manuever (sic), seated, inspects lymphocytes involved in developing new cellular therapy for transplant patients . Deaconess Assns. Foundation and the Heimlich Institute donated $115,000 to the Hoxworth Blood Center to complete a $615,000 award for the study. From left are Hoxworth researchers Jose Cancelas, MD, Ph.D.; Tom Leemhuis, Ph.D.; and Naseem Almezel. (source)

Last month I reported that Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute had awarded $343,000 to the University of Cincinnati's Hoxworth Blood Center for a research study using animals. (1/20/11 update: For details about the types of animals used in the research and financial records, page down to see the results from a FOIA I submitted to the school.)

What made this interesting is that a high-profile Washington, DC-based animal rights advocacy group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) had long included the Heimlich Institute on their list of approved charities that "(do) not fund or conduct animal experiments."

Not any more.

The Heimlich Institute is now MIA from PCRM's list.

Here's a screen shot I grabbed last month. At this writing, the same information is still visible in Google's cached version of the page.

Now here's a screen shot taken tonight from the same web page:

Over the past few weeks I sent multiple e-mails to PCRM founder/president Dr. Neal Barnard and to two of his organization's media representatives, but never received a reply.

As of tonight, my father is still listed as a member of PCRM's medical advisory board.

I have no information whether or not PCRM intends to continue to present its Henry J. Heimlich Award for Innovative Medicine which the organization established in 2005.

UPDATE: From Hoxworth receives donation by Zohair Hussain, The News Record (University of Cincinnati student newspaper), September 21, 2011

Heimlich personally decided to help fund the research being done at Hoxworth. When Heimlich decided to make such a donation in the name of research at Hoxworth, Deaconess decided to contribute to Heimlich's donation.

"Doctor Heimlich personally saw the potential in the research of Dr. Leemhuis and Dr. Cancelas," said Patrick Ward, executive director of Deaconess Associations Foundation said.

UPDATE, 1/20/11
Response to my FOIA re: use of animals in Heimlich Insitute-funded research at Hoxworth Blood Center, Unive...

International first aid throwdown! Australia: "NEVER perform the Heimlich maneuver on choking victims." The Heimlich Institute & Surgeon General Koop: "ONLY perform the Heimlich."

2011-09-07T18:09:00.011-04:00

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to an international first aid throwdown.

The prize? Determining the most effective method to rescue a choking victim.

In this corner, courtesy of the September 5, 2011 Sydney Morning Herald, Australia's largest first aid organization, St John Ambulance:

In the opposing corner, from the website of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute, my father and the late Edward A Patrick:

Drs. Edward A. Patrick & Henry J. Heimlich

But the Heimlich tag team has another heavyweight in their corner: US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. From the same article:*

All that's missing is a referee. How about the medical profession?

Or how about the media? Presumably the press wants to provide the public with the best available first aid information. Also, controversy sells newspapers and this one's got that base covered, plus two world-famous doctors are in the mix.

If anyone wants to ask the various players what they have to say to support their positions, click the names for their contact information: St John Ambulance Australia, the Heimlich Institute, and the Koop Institute at Dartmouth College.

* What most people don't realize, Dr. Heimlich's son, Peter Heimlich, said, is that "Koop was an old friend of my father's, and he did it as a buddy favor." (source)

Anti-animal testing icon awards $343,000 for cancer research using animals; will PCRM revoke the Heimlich Institute's "Humane Charity Seal of Approval"?

2011-08-22T10:36:00.015-04:00

9/20/11 FOLLOW-UP: Animal rights group (PCRM) scrubs Heimlich Institute from approved "humane" charities list after my report disclosed $343,000 had been awarded for animal research at University of Cincinnati

My father and Dr. Neal Barnard at a PCRM 25th Anniversary gala, West Hollywood, CA, April 11, 2010; click here for video in which my father appears at timestamp 1:45

For decades, animal rights advocates have counted my father among their most prominent supporters.

For example, in her book, One Can Make a Difference, PETA founder/president Ingrid Newkirk wrote, "(Dr. Heimlich) is staunchly opposed to animal experiments."

According to this website, the president of an anti-vivisection group called Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine told the Jerusalem Post, "(Dr. Heimlich is) vehemently opposed to animal experiments."

So what happens when like-minded members of the animal rights community find out that last year my father awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund medical research using animals?

How about the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)? According to the LA Weekly, my father's been on the medical advisory board of this animal rights advocacy group since 1986. PCRM even established the "Henry J. Heimlich Award for Innovative Medicine."

One of PCRM's principal objectives is to eliminate the use of animals in medical research. According to their website, my father has been an important part of those efforts:

Our video, Advances in Medical Education with Henry Heimlich M.D., which shows Harvard Medical School's outstanding alternative to old-fashioned medical school dog labs, won the Silver Plaque at the 1997 International Film and Video Competition. Produced by Steven Ragland and directed by Mark Schimmel, it was released to all medical schools and medical libraries in the U.S. and Canada.

Our second video, Innovations in Trauma Training with Henry Heimlich, M.D., along with Human Anatomy-Based Trauma Training: An Implementation Guide, shows instructors exactly how to teach trauma care without using animals. Currently, trauma courses kill an estimated 5,000 dogs every year. PCRM's video was distributed to every Advanced Trauma Life Support instructor in North America.

According to this 1996 article, PCRM founder/president Neal Barnard MD recommends donating money to my father's nonprofit because "(the Heimlich Institute) never sponsor(s) any animal experiments."

Five years later, from PCRM featured Launches Humane Charity Seal of Approval:

Charities that qualify are licensed to use the Humane Seal graphic on their educational and fundraising materials; the Seal's simple design quickly conveys the message: This charity is cruelty-free. PCRM administers the program on behalf of the Council on Humane Giving, a coalition of physicians and animal protection organizations. Charities wishing to apply for certification must sign a statement of assurance that they do not fund or conduct animal experiments.

...Thirty-some charities, including the Heimlich Institute...have received certification to date.

So how does the Heimlich Institute spend the money it receives from donors?

Last year, per this press release and media reports, the Heimlich Institute gave $500,000 to the University of Cincinnati's Hoxworth Blood Center.

Here's a photo from a January 28, 2010 press conference at which my father and E. Anthony Woods (chairman of the Heimlich Institute) presented the half-million dollar check to Hoxworth's director, Ronald Sacher MD (left):

From an article in the UC News Record, the school paper:

"As [Heimlich] starts to slow down, he wanted to make sure the money was used for purposes of saving lives," Sacher said.

From a press release issued by the school (emphasis added):

Jose Cancelas, MD, PhD, and Thomas Leemhuis, PhD, researchers at the blood center, will use the $500,000 gift to fund two projects: one looking at ways to eliminate cell damage in chemotherapy patients and the other aimed at creating cell therapies for immune-compromised pediatric patients.

Last week I obtained some interesting related documents.

Here's an October 16, 2009 e-mail submitted by Hoxworth to the Heimlich Institute's longtime vice president, my brother Phil Heimlich. Per the e-mail, grant applications for the two projects were attached. (Page down for the complete paperwork.):

Two weeks later, on behalf of the board, Phil wrote back that $343,000 was approved for the chemotherapy project.

These are screenshots from the grant application for the chemotherapy study.

Among other questions, will PCRM remove the Heimlich Institute from their list of approved charities?

I'll ask them and will report the results.

grant application & funding approval from Hoxworth Blood Center to the Heimlich Institute

SCOOP! (I think): Canadian Red Cross catches up with the rest of the world, makes backblows the first treatment for choking - but are they still behind the curve?

2011-08-13T21:39:00.030-04:00

(Based on some quick Googling, I think this a scoop. But if you know of a previous media report, e-mail it to me and I'll give credit where it's due.)

After years of lagging behind the rest of the world, the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) is finally updating their choking rescue guidelines.

Hey, I didn't say it - they did:

In many countries, the combination of back blows and abdominal thrusts has been used since the 2005 guidelines. In North America, using only abdominal thrusts was decided upon as it was easier for the lay rescuer to remember, not due to supporting evidence. Evidence now supports the combination of techniques as more successful than using only one method.

More from a CRC statement published last October:

Airway obstruction – for adults and children (one year or older), if the person shows signs of mild airway obstruction, encourage continued coughing but do nothing else. If he or she shows signs of severe airway obstruction and is conscious, apply up to five back blows. If this fails, give up to five abdominal thrusts. If the obstruction is still not relieved, continue alternating five back blows with five abdominal thrusts.

So why is Canada late to the dance? I don't know, but for decades, most of the world's first aid organizations have recommended backblows as the first treatment response.

Here's another question. Why did the CRC decide to continue to teach abdominal thrusts (a/k/a the Heimlich maneuver) rather than chest thrusts, the preferred treatment in Australia and New Zealand?

The Aussies have a straightforward explanation for their position:

Stephen Dean, Assistant CEO, St John Ambulance Australia's Queensland branch: "In the US, they still advocate the Heimlich Manoeuvre for choking but in Australia, we believe the evidence shows it is dangerous and so our guidelines don't promote it."

That argument certainly seems to be backed up this information:

For conscious (choking) victims, case reports have shown success in relieving FBAO (Foreign Body Airway Obstruction) with any one of several techniques, including back blows/slaps, abdominal thrusts and chest thrusts. Frequently, more than one technique is needed to relieve the obstruction. However, there have been reported life-threatening complications associated with the use of abdominal thrusts.

...Severe complications from the use of this technique have been cited in the medical literature. Desaiet al. reported a case of traumatic dissection and rupture of the abdominal aorta after a forceful Heimlich maneuver. In addition to this complication, these authors cite reports of other complications occurring with the use of the Heimlich maneuver. These injuries include retinal detachment, rib fractures, and ruptures of abdominal organs. Additional injuries included rupture of the diaphragm, jejunum, liver, esophagus and stomach. Other reported injuries of vascular structures consisted of aortic stent graft displacement, rupture of the aortic valve, acute aortic regurgitation, laceration of a mesenteric vessel, and acute aortic thrombosis in both an aneurysmal and non-aneurysmal aorta.

The above is from the 2011 international first aid and resuscitation guidelines of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Now take another look at this sentence from the CRC statement posted at the top of this item:

In North America, using only abdominal thrusts was decided upon as it was easier for the lay rescuer to remember, not due to supporting evidence.

Am I missing something or is this a rationale for continuing to teach a potentially life-threatening procedure simply because they don't want to take on the job of re-training the population?

An enterprising reporter could certainly ask the CRC to provide the supporting evidence that persuaded them to continue recommending abdominal thrusts rather than switching to chest thrusts.

Trouble in paradise: Ohio fireman gets lifesaving award for near-drowning rescue of a Korean tourist in Hawaii. But he performed an unapproved, discredited treatment on the victim - abdominal thrusts - and her condition is uncertain.

2011-08-03T09:00:00.005-04:00

Patty Dukes, Chief of Emergency Medical Services for the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, with Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle (source)

On July 8, WKRC-TV News aired Norwood Firefighter Rescues Woman While on Honeymoon by reporter Dan Spehler. (Norwood's an enclave of greater Cincinnati.)

A Norwood firefighter is called a hero after trying to save someone's life on his honeymoon. He and his wife were in Hawaii when they came across a woman who was face down in the water.

...(Philip) Reed and his wife were honeymooning on the island of Oahu near the Hanauma Bay, just east of Honolulu. They swam out toward the reef to go snorkeling. "I said hey its starting to get a little rough I think we should head back and about that time we heard some woman screaming. As we get closer we saw her pointing to the water. There was a woman face down in the water."

Reed and his wife pulled her onto the reef.

So far so good. But then this...

"I kept giving her abdominal thrusts to get water out of her. We gave her more rescue breaths."

As a firefighter and paramedic, Phil knows how to deal with an emergency. but this was different. "I have had no water rescue training."

...and this.

(Today) he got a certificate and a letter from (Honolulu's) chief of EMS...I'm just glad we were able to do something and hopefully we gave her the best chance she had."

As for what happened to the woman...Phil was told she was on life support when they left the island. But he doesn't even (know) if she survived.

From the June 3, 2011 Washington Post:

The Heimlich maneuver (abdominal thrusts) became famous as a way for people to dislodge a foreign object from a choking person’s airway. But it’s been utterly discredited as a way of rescuing a person who is drowning, and can actually do serious harm to someone who has just been pulled from the water, numerous experts say.

...The list of experts who reject the Heimlich maneuver is lengthy: The American Red Cross; the United States Lifesaving Association; the American Heart Association; the Institute of Medicine; the International Life Saving Federation and many experienced doctors and academics have strongly inveighed against doing “abdominal thrusts” for drowning victims.

...In Tampa, which has one of the highest drowning rates in the country, Dr. James Orlowski (at University Community Hospital) said he has documented nearly 40 cases where rescuers performing the Heimlich maneuver have caused complications for the victim.

Questions:

Why did the Norwood fireman perform an unapproved, discredited treatment on the drowning woman? Why was he given an award for doing so?

Why did the fireman accept an EMS award and participate in a news report without even knowing if the woman was still alive?

And why did WKRC report the story without knowing whether or not the woman survived?

According to two April 18 media reports, she didn't.

From the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the islands' biggest daily:

From the website of the local CBS/NBC affiliate, Hawaii News Now:

How do I know this is the same case reported by WKRC?

First, it's not in the text version of the Cincinnati news report, but in the video, Dan Spehler says the event happened "a couple of months ago."

Based on that information, in minutes I located the two Honolulu news stories via Google.

Apparently that idea never occurred to anyone at the Norwood Fire Department or WKRC, who were busy celebrating the award.

Here it is, a certificate awarded by Honolulu City and County EMS Chief Patricia "Patty" Dukes:

Note the Honolulu EMS motto.

Next, here's an e-mail I received in response to an inquiry I sent to City and County of Honolulu. Per my red highlighting, this is when the story took an unexpected turn.

Subject: RE: media inquiry
From: Louise Kim McCoy
Date: 7/11/2011 6:21 PM
To: Peter M. Heimlich

Peter: Here are the responses to your questions.

1) Does the City and County of Honolulu EMS recommend that abdominal thrusts be performed on near-drowning victims? No, it is not part of our protocol

2) Would you please provide me with a copy of the letter and certificate Chief Dukes sent to Mr. Reed? E-mail or fax would be best. The City and County of Honolulu recognized Mr. Reed for responding to an emergency at Hanauma Bay and providing rescue breathing prior to the arrival of lifeguards. It was never reported to us that Mr. Reed had performed abdominal thrusts at the scene.

3) Would you please provide me with the date of the near-drowning, the victim's name, and the victim's present condition? On April 18, 2011, a woman was transported from Hanauma Bay to Straub Hospital in critical condition. The media reports that stated she died at the hospital soon after arrival were incorrect. We do not have information on her current condition.

Louise Kim McCoy
Press Secretary
City and County of Honolulu

I asked Ms. McCoy who provided her with this information. She answered that it came from the Emergency Services Department.

To recap, based on the above information:

On April 18 at Hanauma Bay, the Norwood fireman/paramedic and his wife happened upon a woman who was drowning. They pulled her onto a reef and, along with rescue breaths, he repeatedly applied abdominal thrusts. The woman, a 35 year-old tourist from Korea, was transported to Straub Hospital in critical condition. Later that day, two area news outlets incorrectly reported that she died.

About two months later, Honolulu EMS chief Patty Dukes sent the award to the fireman, someone told WKRC about it and Dan Spehler reported the story, characterizing the fireman as a hero. Though they all knew she had been in critical condition at the time of the accident, apparently none of these parties made any effort to verify the patient's current condition.

It's unclear what Dukes knew and when. Was she aware of the patient's condition when she presented the award? Dave Platte, News Director at Hawaii News Now, says the information his station reported originated from Honolulu EMS.

Before my inquiry to Ms. McCoy, if Honolulu EMS knew that the patient was alive, it's dead certain they made no effort to notify the media. If they had, the two news stories would have been updated. (More about that below.)

O Ka Mea Ma'i Ka Mua. The patient is our priority. Sounds nice anyway.

I wanted to know what happened to the Korean woman, so I started making calls. Eventually I located a source who was close to the situation and who was willing to talk.

The source informed me that the woman had remained in a coma for an entire month at Straub Hospital.

Then, at considerable personal expense - $100,000 according to my source - the patient's husband arranged to have his wife airlifted to Seoul to be cared for at Yonsei University Health System.

Yonsei University Health System (YUHS) was founded in 1885 as the first modern medical institution in Korea by the American medical missionary, Dr. Horace N. Allen...As the hospital expanded over the years to include various colleges and research centers, the Yonsei University Health System was born. YUHS has been the leader of medicine and is respected as the protector of Korean health. Furthermore, the roots of Christianity, modern medical education and medical care in Korea can all be linked to YUHS.

What's her present condition?

On Monday, I spoke with Jiman Kim, Vice Consul at the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Honolulu.

I told him that I was writing about the case and he informed me that he has remained in contact with the patient's husband since the accident.

He explained that due to privacy issues, he could not share or confirm any of the details I obtained from my source.

However, he said he didn't have a problem forwarding information to the patient's husband.

###

Finally, last week I submitted corrections requests to the two Hawaiian news outlets that misreported the story.

Ed Lynch, Managing Editor at the Star-Advertiser, arranged a rewrite that acknowledged the error and replaced the incorrect story at the same link:

Honolulu News Now News Director Mark Platte chose the Orwellian route and simply disappeared the mistake.

Date: 7/30/2011 12:10 AM
From: Mark Platte
To: Peter M. Heimlich
Subject: RE: corrections request re: Hanauma Bay near-drowning

Mr. Heimlich,

When we realized the Korean visitor had not died, as EMS officials told us, we removed our story from our Web site.

Thanks for letting us know the sequence of events for a future story. We will call you if we need more information.

Aloha, Mark

In a follow-up, I asked Mr. Platte, a former newspaper editor:

Based on your e-mail, my understanding is that Hawaii News Now policy is that when your station is informed that a story posted on your website includes false or incorrect information, the original story is deleted.

If my understanding is incorrect, please explain before Tuesday, August 2. Also, if you station has a corrections policy, please provide me with a copy before that date.

I haven't received a reply, but maybe that disappeared, too.

Mark Platte

Was Senator Barack Obama "close" to a Chicago nonprofit that's now under state & federal investigations? I've asked the White House.

2011-07-29T05:00:00.003-04:00

UPDATE: On August 7, I received an e-mail from Deputy White House Press Secretary Jamie Smith informing me that she was checking on my inquiry (copied below) and would get back to me ASAP.

Last month, the Huffington Post published Save A Life Foundation Connection Delays (Gery Chico's) Appointment To State Board Of Ed by staff reporter Will Guzzardi that included:

(Chico) wasn't the only one to support SALF: politicians as formidable as Barack Obama and Arne Duncan were close to the group.

Arne Duncan & Carol Spizzirri, 9/2/06 (source)

Per my web page, for years Duncan was indeed close to SALF.

Reportedly he even called SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri "one of my heroes."

Based on the information published last November in the San Diego Reader, you'd think Duncan, now US Secretary of Education, might have set the bar higher.

Spizzirri was a darling of politicians and bureaucrats, although it was a matter of record that she had been convicted twice for shoplifting.

...(It) wasn’t until November of 2006 that ABC 7 News in Chicago, in the first of several broadcasts, exposed more of Spizzirri’s untruthful statements. She had told the station that she was a registered nurse. But the station reported that the institution from which she had claimed to receive her nursing degree had never given her one. A hospital in which she had claimed to be a transplant nurse said she had been a patient care assistant, which is akin to a candy striper.

After the announcer challenged her on the assertion that the accident was a hit-and-run, she walked out of the interview.

Here's that exit scene - take note of the man who leads her off camera.

What about Barack Obama? Was he "close" to SALF, which is reportedly under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General and apparently also by at least one federal agency?

To my knowledge, such a claim is unsupported by the record.

In the HuffPo article, clicking the link attached to his name takes you to this web page from SALF's now-defunct site.

Not much here except some hype about a phone call between Spizzirri and US Senator Obama, and this:

While in the Illinois legislature together, Obama and current Illinois Senate President Emil Jones were always supportive of SALF’s efforts to train Illinois schoolchildren in life-sustaining skills for free.

That's true about Sen. Jones (now retired), who's been called Obama's political "godfather."

For example, on its 2004 & 2005 IRS filings, SALF identified Jones as being on their board.

But that's Senator Jones, not his pupil.

Without question, the most intriguing (and potentially damning) allegation originates from Annabel Melongo, a former SALF employee who since April 2010 has been imprisoned in Cook County Jail on a $300,000 bond.

Annabel Melongo

The charge? Two counts of eavesdropping.

Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez - who, as reported by the NY Times, has a history of abusive prosecutions using the same dubious law - alleges Melongo committed the heinous act of uploading recordings of two mundane phone calls she had with a court clerk to her now-defunct website.

Tax watchdogs and political opponents may also start adding up the megabucks the spendthrift Alvarez and her co-operative judges are costing county taxpayers in pursuit of such pointless prosecutions.

To the discredit of Chicago media, Melongo's story has gone unreported except by a few bloggers, one of whom received a July 6, 2010 letter in which she wrote:

In my subpoenas, there was no direct email between Obama and Carol Spizzirri. However there’s a manager, Vince Davis, who told employees, through an email, about Obama sponsoring a bill to fuel $10 million or so, I don’t recall the exact amount, to the organization. That was the only and first time I ever saw Obama’s name mentioned in the SALF saga. The email in question was sent in response to employees panicking in the wake of the November 16, 2006 ABC investigative report.

If that turns to be true, then it’s a big story in itself.

Indeed. But I've twice asked Melongo to provide me with a copy of the alleged e-mail and twice she's refused.

In an attempt to separate fact from rumor, this week I tried to obtain some answers.

Kori Schulman

On Monday I phoned the White House switchboard, identified myself as a blogger and was steered to a woman named Kori Schulman. We had a pleasant chat during which she explained that my inquiry didn't fall into her job responsibility, but she courteously offered to forward my e-mail to an appropriate staffer in the White House press office.

My e-mail's copied below. In a future post, I'll let you know what happens.

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to ask Vince Davis for a copy of the alleged $10 million e-mail, here's his LinkedIn page.

Vince Davis

If Davis looks familiar, it may be because he's the guy who interrupted the ABC7 interview with Carol Spizzirri and escorted her off camera.

my 7/25/11 inquiry to the White House re: Barack Obama's relationship to the Save-A-Life Foundation

7/6/10 letter to blogger from inmate Annabel Melongo re: Save-A-Life Foundation, IL politicians, etc.

Any Illinois voters want to help me try to get answers from US Senator Dick Durbin? (An experiment in interactive journalism)

2011-07-20T10:33:00.002-04:00

"When (Save-A-Life Foundation founder/president Carol Spizzirri) came in and sat down with me and told this story to me face to face, I was with her and decided I would do everything I could to help her" - Dick Durbin in a 1995 CNN interview (video posted below)

More recently, Senator Durbin's office seems to be doing everything it can to avoid telling the truth about his relationship with Spizzirri and her Chicago-area nonprofit that's now under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General and apparently by at least one federal agency.

In the interests of obtaining more information, I have an idea for an interesting, perhaps even fun, experiment.

It requires the participation of one or more registered Illinois voters. Here's the deal....

Earlier this month I reported that the senator's press secretary, Christina Mulka, provided a variety of false information to a Texas blogger about her boss's relationship with the Save-A-Life Foundation, a Chicago-area nonprofit now under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General.

After running that item, I e-mailed Ms. Mulka and asked her to confirm or deny two claims made by SALF, this one for a fundraiser....

...and this from a list of members of SALF's corporate board that was part of a year 2000 grant application for $50,000 that was submitted by SALF to an Illinois state agency (which approved the request):

I didn't receive a reply so a week later, I sent Ms. Mulka a follow-up that included:

According to this February 17, 2011 Huffington Post article by Will Guzzardi, SALF claimed former president of the Chicago Board of Education Gery Chico was on the board of their organization, but Mr. Chico denied the claim. Two days later I provided the information in Mr. Guzzardi's article to the CTB (the Illinois Attorney General's Charitaible Trust Bureau) in this letter.

Similarly, I'm trying to determine if the two claims published by SALF about Senator Durbin that I brought to your attention - that in year 2000 he was a member of SALF's Advisory Council and/or was Honorary Chairman of SALF's Annual Dinner Dance fund raising event - are accurate or not. Your answers could assist the CTB in their efforts to determine whether any irregularities have occurred.

No response to that either.

From Guzzardi's HuffPo article:

According to Maura Possley, the deputy press secretary for the Illinois Attorney General's Office, a nonprofit misrepresenting the makeup of its board of directors in an annual report would be perjury, a Class 3 felony.

Color me naive, but shouldn't a US senator want to assist an investigation by his home state?

But it's more than a lack of co-operation in this case.

Based on numerous inquiries I and others have sent to his office, Sen. Durbin doesn't seem interested in finding out if the nearly nine million in Illinois and federal tax dollars awarded to SALF did, in fact, provide in-class first aid training to "2 million children...many of them from the Chicago Public Schools" which is what SALF founder/president Carol Spizzirri told the Tribune a couple years ago.

Color me skeptical, but since the Chicago Schools apparently have no training records, isn't that claim iffy? A generation of students supposedly participated in the program, but there are no records?

As for Sen. Durbin's ten-year relationship with SALF, his press secretary may not be intentionally engaging in misdirection, but she's doing a boffo job of creating that impression.

For example, in an e-mail last year Ms. Mulka repeatedly indicated that Durbin's only contact with SALF was in 1995 and that:

(He) never worked to appropriated (sic) funding for the organization.

Oops.

A year later most of the loot he requested came through:

If you're the type who prefers to let sleeping dogs lie or doesn't care what happened to the millions of tax dollars awarded to SALF, no need read any further.

However, if you're not that type and may be up for a little experiment in participatory journalism, here's what I've got in mind.

Since Sen. Durbin won't answer me, maybe he'll answer a constituent.

If you're a registered voter in Illinois, just send this or a similar inquiry to him:

The Honorable Dick Durbin
United States Senate
711 Hart Senate Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Durbin:

I'm a constituent who'd appreciate your answers to the following questions:

1) Were you ever a member of the Save-A-Life Foundation's Advisory Council? If so, during what years?

2) Did you serve as the Honorary Chairman of the Save-A-Life Foundation's Annual Dinner Dance in year 2000?

Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to your reply.

Click here to e-mail him via Ms. Mulka or send it via the Senator's website.

Feel free to courtesy-copy me on your inquiry and let me know the response. I'll publish the results (or non-results) in a future item. Click here for my e-mail address.

Am I asking readers to do my work for me? You betcha. But only because I hit the stonewall.

I'm also interested in learning what happens with this message in a bottle I'm sending into cyberspace. I've never done anything like this and I don't know if any other blogger or reporter has.

Will it generate newsworthy results or bupkis? Dunno, but that uncertainty is one reason why I think it's fun and worth a try.

Also, don't all good citizens share the belief that our elected officials should be accountable? Here's a painless opportunity to see what happens when you try with one of the our nation's most prominent public servants.

Okay, that's enough from me.

Illinois, the ball's in your court.

Dr. Pippin leads charge to protect Washington ferrets, but continues to turn a blind eye to notorious Heimlich atrocity experiments on AIDS, cancer, Lyme patients

2011-07-16T08:15:00.004-04:00

Last month I reported how Dr. John J. Pippin helped protect ferrets at a Cincinnati Hospital, but ignores atrocity experiments on US and foreign nationals conducted by the nearby Heimlich Institute.

This week he and his deep-pockets animal rights organization redoubled their efforts in the Great Northwest:

Invasive ferret use in the University of Washington’s pediatrics residency program violates state law, says the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) in a legal complaint filed July 14. PCRM’s complaint calls on the King County prosecuting attorney to halt the school’s live animal use because it violates Washington’s animal cruelty law.

...“The University of Washington’s use of ferrets is inhumane and violates Washington’s anticruelty statute,” says John Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C., PCRM director of academic affairs.

Dr. Pippin was lead signer of PCRM's pro-ferrett letter this week to the King County prosecutor.

But per the April 8, 2010 LA Weekly, when it comes to protecting human subjects, he and his organization can't be found:

In both its mission statement and its IRS filings, the Washington, D.C.–based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) says it is "strongly opposed to unethical human research."

But the group is throwing a private Hollywood Art of Compassion bash Sunday night to hand out a major award named after Dr. Henry Heimlich, who has been condemned by mainstream medical organizations around the world for his 20-year program of trying to cure cancer and AIDS by injecting people with malaria-infected blood.

...No one involved with the Heimlich Award will explain the contradiction between the PCRM's mission statement and the strange history of the man famous for inventing the Heimlich maneuver.

...Peter Heimlich says his father's malariotherapy research has been denounced as dangerous and irresponsible by the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. In 2002 the WHO called malariotherapy "an example of clearly unscrupulous and opportune research." Five years later, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said: "It is scientifically unsound, and I think it would be ethically questionable...and it does have the fundamental potential of killing you."

..."I don't want to discuss the award, or my research," the 90-year-old Heimlich says today...Please contact Dr. Barnard."

Neal Barnard founded PCRM in 1985, and still serves as president of the nonprofit organization, which has a $7.5 million annual budget and 35 paid staff. Barnard frequently appears on TV and radio as an advocate for animal rights in medical research.

Barnard declined repeated requests for comment.

Heimlich has not denied reports in the Cincinnati Beacon, an Internet magazine, that he is trying to resume the so-called malariotherapy experiments....

A few years ago, when Dr. Pippin was presented with detailed information about the Heimlich atrocity experiments, he feigned ignorance and passed the buck to his boss, Dr. Barnard, who, per the LA Weekly, plays ostrich when it comes to the subject:

More about Dr. Pippin's career trajectory from a 2009 article:

A press release issued by Pippin's current employer, the organization Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, describes Pippin as a "board-certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular diseases, and nuclear cardiology. He has been on several medical school faculties, including Harvard Medical School and the Medical College of Virginia, where he was chosen Cardiology Professor of the Year three times. He has held many clinical, research, and administrative leadership positions, and was the director of cardiovascular medicine and medical imaging at Cooper Clinic in Dallas."

In 2004 he left his position at the Clinic so he could pursue animal activism full time.

"The clinic wanted to put restrictions on things I could do on my own time to work against the use of animals, such as participating in demonstrations," he said.

From the Plano Texas Animal Rights Examiner:

TAP (Texans Exposing Petland) has shown up to protest Petland every Saturday since October, 2008. Dr. Pippin, MD, FACC (also founder of North Texas Animal Rights, or NTAR) was at the Saturday, April 10, 2010 protest to meet and encourage old and new members.

John J. Pippin MD holding "Stop puppy mills sign" at Plano, TX Petland store protest 4/10/10


John J. Pippin MD at San Francisco Petland store protest 10/10/09 (source)

Staten Island first aid columnist goofs, but the paper refuses to publish a correction; six months later, she sneaks in the correct information

2011-07-15T10:44:00.310-04:00

There's a persistent myth in the world of first aid that slapping a choking victim on the back is dangerous. The rationale is that doing so supposedly drives food or another obstruction deeper into the airway.

A year after he introduced "the Heimlich maneuver" in 1974, my father began making this claim. He didn't have any evidence, but for the next 30 years, he kept saying it and the media kept reporting it.

Here's the first published example of which I'm aware, a feature by Irene Wright, who, according to Amazon.com, "was a reporter for 25 years with The Cincinnati Enquirer and the newspaper's first female bureau chief."

The efforts to circulate and codify this baloney by my father and a few cronies - one of whom was the US Surgeon General - were successful, at least for a couple of decades.

A few years ago, syndicated columnist Lenore Skenazy nicely summed up the history in a few paragraphs:

I grew up with the belief that back slaps were verboten - the First Aid equivalent of hitting a drowning man on the head with a cement life preserver. Nope, said American Red Cross spokeswoman Pamela King: Back slaps were always part of the protocol - in Europe.

Choke me with a foie gras sandwich. They were? Then how'd they get such a bad rap over here?

Their infamy seems to have been promoted by the guy whose name was not back slap. The guy whose name was (and still is - he's 87) Heimlich.

Back blows are "death blows," Heimlich declared as he lobbied for his own maneuver's acceptance 30 years ago. In 1985, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop endorsed this view, dubbing back slaps "hazardous." After that, only the Heimlich maneuver was considered kosher.

What most people don't realize, said Heimlich's son, Peter Heimlich, is that "Koop was an old friend of my father's and he did it as a buddy favor."

Needless to say, even after a wrong idea is righted, almost inevitably it will continue to find voice.

To wit, How much do you know about emergency first aid? by Gail Larkin, a January 31, 2011 first aid column in the Staten Island Advance that asked readers whether this question was true or false:

Her answer?

Based on my experience, the media doesn't enjoy running corrections, but when good journalists commit errors of fact, they fix 'em pronto.

Brian J. Laline

So I submitted a short corrections request to news editor Brian J. Laline in which I provided documentation from the American Red Cross and American Heart Association, both of which recommend backblows as an effective treatment for choking.

That seemed like sufficient evidence to make the point and I assumed he'd arrange for the paper to run a quick fix.

But you know the saying about what happens when you assume.

Instead of handling what should have been a simple editorial decision, Laline punted my e-mail to Ms. Larkin.

And here my troubles began.

Next came a string of defensive e-mails from Larkin filled with outdated and poorly-sourced information. That struck me as odd because she informed me that she's a paramedic. The first responders I've encountered in my work have unfailingly been sticklers for accuracy and keeping their skills up to date.

But I remained patient and polite and did my best to inform her of the facts, none of which appeared to register. In fact, Larkin seemed resistant to even wanting to understand. For example, in a February 3 e-mail she wrote:

(The) American Heart Association (AHA) continues to discourage instructors from teaching back blows.

I knew this was false so I suggested she contact the AHA. I even provided her with contact information for Tagni McCrae, the organization's Communications Manager.

A week later, then again a week after that, I sent polite follow-up e-mails to Larkin asking if she'd contacted the AHA. I didn't receive a reply from her. Keep in mind that a month had passed since her column appeared.

It was evident that Larkin didn't intend to follow-through, so I did:

I then forwarded this to Larkin. She remained adamant. No correction was forthcoming.

Ever seen this bumper sticker?

Maybe it applies to me for spending so much of my time on this!

But I'd come this far, so to close the loop, I e-mailed all the details to editor Brian Laline and re-submitted my corrections request.

No response. (No surprise.)

I wouldn't be chewing this over on my blog except for the fact that a few days ago my trusty Google News sent me the latest by Gail Larkin, published Monday by the Advance. It's another "how much do you know?" column entitled Summer accident quiz that includes:

Is it just me or does this seem like a weaselly move?

More importantly, it's unclear how refusing to correct an obvious error, then trying to clean up the record in a subsequent column, benefits readers.

Much more importantly, if the Advance is unwilling to publish a correction for such a minor yet unambiguous factual error like this one, how are the big goofs being handled?

Not my problem, hooray!

Finally, I don't understand what Gail Larkin means by "if you are familiar with (backblows)" in her recent column. I mean, what kind of familiarization is required to slap someone on the back?

Based on my correspondence with her, it's Ms. Larkin who needs to familiarize herself with the subjects about which she's reporting.

7/23/11 UPDATE: On July 11, while reporting this story, I e-mailed editor Brian Laline and asked if the Advance had published a correction to Larkin's error. (I couldn't find one, but I wanted to verify.) Today I received a "deleted without being read" response from him. Seems like someone's not keeping up with their editorial responsibilities...or their correspondence!

Garrison Keillor mentions my whistleblowing efforts on "The Writer's Almanac"

2011-07-10T16:40:00.011-04:00

I didn't come across this until today, from the June 1, 2011 Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor's popular poetry reading feature on public radio:

Minor correction. The first reported rescue involving the Heimlich maneuver did not take place in a restaurant, but at a campsite at Hood Canal, Washington (off Puget Sound), according to an article in the June 19, 1974 Seattle Post.

Back to the Writer's Almanac, do yourself a favor and don't miss Garrison Keillor reading Lunch Will Be Served by Eleanor Lerman, a cautionary message that begins:

Just when you think that you are
on the road to success and the
medications have calmed down
your wife, plus a big sale at
the foodstore means that you
can finally buy your cat a
decent meal - that's when
you get the news that it's time
to stare calamity in the face

And what a face: it comes
at you like a speeding pie

Senator Dick Durbin's press secretary provided false information re: Durbin's longstanding relationship with tainted Save-A-Life Foundation including the failure to disclose his million dollar appropriations request for SALF

2011-07-06T09:56:00.020-04:00

1995 CNN report about SALF. Durbin (1:45): "When (Carol Spizzirri) came in and sat down with me and told this story to me face to face, I was with her and decided I would do everything I could to help her."

In e-mails last year, US Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin's press secretary Christina Mulka provided a variety of false information about her boss's relationship with the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), the embattled Chicago-area nonprofit under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General and apparently by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Perhaps most seriously, she failed to disclose a 1999 request by Sen. Durbin for a $1 million appropriation to SALF, funding that went through the following year.

In year 2000 applications for $50,000 in Illinois state funding, SALF claimed Durbin was a member of the organization's corporate Advisory Board.

That same year, Durbin was listed as Honorary Chairman for a SALF Dinner Dance fundraiser.

And according to an August 28, 2006 press release issued by Mayor Richard Daley's office, SALF partnered in a Chicago emergency preparedness program spearheaded by Durbin.

Three months later, SALF and its founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri were the subject of a scorching ABC I-Team expose.

Durbin isn't the only one in the shadows of SALF. Recently, Illinois newspapers reported that the pending appointment of Gery Chico, another prominent Illinois Democrat, to head the Illinois State Board of Education has stalled as a result of questions being asked about his ties to SALF.

And last month a Michigan educator asked US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to answer questions about a $174,000 contract Duncan arranged for SALF when he was Chicago Schools CEO.

Back to Senator Durbin, here's an e-mail exchange from last year between his press secretary and blogger Lee Cary of Little Elm, Texas (north of Dallas), who was asking about the senator's connection to SALF and Spizzirri. (Click here to view the originals.)

From: Mulka, Christina (Durbin)
To: Lee Cary [mailto:lee.cary@att.net]
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 12:51 PM
Subject: RE: media inquiry - SALF

Lee,

Senator Durbin’s involvement was limited to the service he would provide for any Illinois constituent – he and his staff helped the founder navigate the bureaucracy in Washington. As you saw in the CNN video, Senator Durbin’s support was personal in nature and did not extend beyond having sympathy with Carol Spizzirri. Senator Durbin wrote no legislation on behalf of SALF and never worked to appropriated (sic) funding for the organization.

And, I hardly think that a video – that is 15 years old – of Senator Durbin expressing sympathy for a woman who lost her daughter in a tragic accident is evidence of long-term support.

Christina Mulka
Press Secretary
202.228.5643

From: Lee Cary [mailto:lee.cary@att.net]
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 6:18 PM
To: Mulka, Christina (Durbin)
Subject: Re: media inquiry - SALF

Christina,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Based on your response, my understanding is that the Senator is on the record that his last contact with the Save-A-Life Foundation was in 1995. If that information is incorrect, please get back to me by end of the day Tuesday, 8/3. If you require more time, please advise and I'll do my best to adjust to your schedule.

By the way, regarding Ms. Spizzirri and her organization, you may wish to watch this 11/16/06 ABC7 report by Chuck Goudie. Google for more.

Lee

From: Mulka, Christina (Durbin)
To: Lee Cary [mailto:lee.cary@att.net]
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 2:23 PM
Subject: RE: media inquiry - SALF

Lee –

You have asked about a 15 year old contact between then-Congressman Durbin and a constituent; I explained he was sympathetic to her in the wake of terrible personal tragedy.

You have asked whether Sen. Durbin has provided support for her or her organization; I explained that other than being sympathetic on a personal level, he has not secured federal or private funds for her or her group, and did not introduce any legislation to assist SALF while he served in the House or the Senate.

You asked for an on-the-record statement from our office; we provided you with such a statement. In each case, I have responded as quickly as possible and to the best of my ability about an event that occurred more than a decade ago, and has not been an on-going issue for this office since.

And off-the-record: Given the ideological bent of your website, I will confess that I am suspicious of your motives. I think we will let our responses to your previous questions stand, and move on to other, more timely matters.

Christina Mulka
Press Secretary
202.228.5643

Mulka's "ideological bent" comment is probably because, in a previous e-mail, Cary identified himself as a writer for the American Thinker, a hard-right online magazine.

And a quick aside to potential sources: The Sidebar doesn't publish off the record information. In this case I'm making an exception because last September the American Thinker published Mulka's e-mail in an article by Cary, including her off the record comment.

Regarding Mulka's on the record statements, this may be her biggest fail: an October 31, 1999 request for $1 million for SALF in a letter from Durbin to Sen. Arlen Specter, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education.

A year later, $921,000 came through via the CDC (which is under the aegis of HHS), which eventually awarded SALF a total of about $3.33 million.

Durbin's funding request letter (click here to download) contains what I consider to be these unsupportable claims:

This organization has trained 35,000 Cook County children since October, 1998, with the assistance of 150 firefighters, paramedics, and police officers as their instructors.

For example, although the Chicago Tribune reported in 2009 that "2 million children took the classes, many of them from the Chicago Public Schools," per my website, the Chicago Public Schools have been unable to produce any training records.

Therefore it's unclear where Durbin's claimed 35,000 Cook County children were trained and who the 150 instructors were. So where did he obtain the numbers?

During the reporting of this story, I posed that and other questions to Christina Mulka.

She repeatedly refused to participate in this report.

Per this suburban Chicago newspaper article, Durbin was involved with SALF since before February 1995.

The article contradicts this claim Mulka made to Cary:

You have asked about a 15 year old contact between then-Congressman Durbin and a constituent....

But according to the 1995 article:

Congressman Richard Durbin (D-Chicago) was an early supporter of Save A Life Foundation President and Founder Carol Spizzini's efforts.

"I received a letter stating, "I am not a resident of your district, but I would like to speak with you in Washington." The chances of me responding to that letter are normally slim and none (sic) but I was so moved by her story," Durbin stated.

Later that year, Durbin told CNN reporter Lisa Price (timestamp 1:45 in the video at the top of this item):

I've found the very best legislation in Washington DC comes from those personal, human, and family experiences. When (Carol Spizzirri) came in and sat down with me and told this story to me face to face, I was with her and decided I would do everything I could to help her.

During that face to face meeting, presumably Spizzirri failed to mention these personal, human, and family experiences reported last year by Don Bauder in the San Diego Reader:

(Carol) Spizzirri was a darling of politicians and bureaucrats, although it was a matter of record that she had been convicted twice for shoplifting. Save-A-Life began raking in money from government grants.

...But it wasn’t until November of 2006 that ABC 7 News in Chicago, in the first of several broadcasts, exposed more of Spizzirri’s untruthful statements. She had told the station that she was a registered nurse. But the station reported that the institution from which she had claimed to receive her nursing degree had never given her one. A hospital in which she had claimed to be a transplant nurse said she had been a patient care assistant, which is akin to a candy striper.

...(Spizzirri's daughter) Christina filed for an order of protection against her mother. A neighbor who lives four houses away was willing to be Christina’s primary caretaker. The complaint stated that Spizzirri had struck Christina “on several occasions and threatened her on many occasions.” The order of protection, granted the same month, barred Spizzirri from seeing her daughter at several locations such as school and work. Christina “fears her mother will attempt to harass her or retaliate,” said the complaint.

From a 1997 article in the Grayslake (IL) Review:

Grayslake's Carol Spizzirri could be spending a lot more time in Washington D.C. this summer...

Spizzirri could do a lot in Washington in addition to using the legislative support she's received from Senator Dick Durbin, but for the time being Spizzirri is concentrating on this part of the country.

In Washington a Durbin legislative aide, Melissa Merz, said the senator has been working on setting national certification standards.

"We have worked with Carol for two years," Merz said. "We will continue to work with her to determine what form this federal legislation will take. Senator Durbin has not introduced legislation yet, but we are working with the U.S. Department of Transportaion and the Illinois Secretary of State's office," she said.

Here's another problematic document, a page from two year 2000 grant applications submitted by SALF for $50,000 in Illinois state funding from the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs that listed SALF's board and executive associates:

Other names on the document (click here to view) include IL Secretary of State Jesse White, former Illinois first lady Lura Lynn Ryan (who died last week), John Wayne Gacy's attorney Sam Amirante, the late Peter Safar MD (who developed CPR), my father, and other notables.

How about this?

In addition to Durbin, Ryan, Wood, and Topinka (who apparently sent Happy Birthday greetings to Spizzirri about a week ago), the 2000 SALF Dinner Dance Committee includes a long list of luminaries including Illinois Speaker of the House Mike Madigan and former Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine.

Three years later at SALF's annual conference, the relationship with Durbin's still in good standing :

Three years later, here's SALF participating in a City of Chicago program for which Durbin arranged the funding:

A few months after the press release (click here to download a copy), ABC7 Chicago aired an I-Team story by reporter Chuck Goudie that included:

One of Illinois' highest profile charities teaches the Heimlich maneuver to children while maneuvering the truth to get money from government and big business.

It's called the Save-A-Life Foundation and is known across Illinois as an organization that teaches schoolchildren how to respond in emergencies. For the past few years, Save-A-Life has received millions of dollars in government funds and corporate donations. An ABC7 I-Team investigation has uncovered a series of misleading claims and deceptive credentials that raise doubts about Save-A-Life's integrity, funding and training.

Weeks ago I extended to Christina Mulka (and to Sen. Durbin's chief of staff Pat Souders) multiple opportunities to address the false information she provided to Lee Cary. I even graciously offered her this escape route:

(When) you provided the statements to Mr. Cary, you may not have consulted Senator Durbin beforehand and therefore were not in command of the facts...In order to avoid further inaccuracies, this is to request that you share with Senator Durbin the e-mails you sent to Mr. Cary on July 30 and August 2 last year. In the event that you or the senator wishes to revise those statements, please respond by next Monday, June 20. If you require more time, please advise before then and I'll accommodate your schedule.

Below are my final attempts and her last response.

Mulka also declined to answer these questions I previously submitted:

Does Senator Durbin agree or disagree that the Inspector General of HHS should initiate an investigation into the funding SALF received from the CDC?

A former SALF employee has stated that Senator Durbin visited SALF's Schiller Park offices in approximately January 2006. Has Senator Durbin ever visited SALF's offices? If so, on what date(s) and for what purpose(s)?

10/9/11 UPDATE: From the Federal Register, I just found this notation about the appropriation Sen. Durbin helped arrange:

Assistance for this project will be provided only to the Save a Life Foundation. FY 2001 Federal appropriations specifically directs CDC to award funds to the Save a Life Foundation. No other applications are solicited.

How I helped right a resolution in the Louisiana House of Representatives

2011-06-30T15:34:00.005-04:00

To Heimlich of Not?, Part II (re: the late Angela Henley), KTVO, Kirkland MO, 11/16/05

A few weeks ago, my Google News alert steered me to this line item from a long list of pending state business published in the Advocate, the daily paper in Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana:

HCR106 Extols the benefits of the Heimlich maneuver and encourages schools to teach this lifesaving technique.

At the legislature's website, I learned that HCR106 was a resolution introduced by Rep. Frank A. Hoffman, who represents District 15 which is in NE Louisiana. Click here to read the original version of the resolution.


Rep. Frank A. Hoffman

This caught my eye:

I recognized the 50,000 statistic and assumed it originated from the Heimlich Institute. I don't know how many choking victims have been saved by the Heimlich maneuver and I don't know where that 50,000 number originated. (Any statisticians out there?)

But according to this recent Washington Post article by reporter Tom Jackman, the tally for drowning victims is decidedly in the red:

The Heimlich maneuver became famous as a way for people to dislodge a foreign object from a choking person’s airway. But it’s been utterly discredited as a way of rescuing a person who is drowning, and can actually do serious harm to someone who has just been pulled from the water, numerous experts say.

...The list of experts who reject the Heimlich maneuver is lengthy: The American Red Cross; the United States Lifesaving Association; the American Heart Association; the Institute of Medicine; the International Life Saving Federation and many experienced doctors and academics have strongly inveighed against doing “abdominal thrusts” for drowning victims.

...In Tampa, which has one of the highest drowning rates in the country, Dr. James Orlowski said he has documented nearly 40 cases where rescuers performing the Heimlich maneuver have caused complications for the victim. Orlowski is chief of pediatrics and pediatric intensive care at University Community Hospital in Tampa.

So I e-mailed the WaPo article and other information to Rep. Hoffman, including Some of the Victims, my web page that compiles a half-dozen young people who died in drowning events after having had the Heimlich maneuver (a/k/a abdominal thrusts) performed on them.

What followed was a friendly and productive first-name basis correspondence with Frank.

Sorry, I mean Rep. Hoffman.

Seriously, he responded immediately to my initial e-mail and expressed his appreciation that I'd reached out. He was very interested in learning more and wanted to get it right.

And I'm not even a constituent.

I shared with him the WaPo article and this compilation of statements from medical and water safety organizations about the dangers of doing the Heimlich maneuver on drowning victims.

Rep. Hoffman had been unaware of these concerns, but he assured me he took the matter seriously, promised to promptly review the information, and that he'd make any appropriate changes to the resolution.

Via this June 22 Senate floor amendment, he did just that:

Click here or page down to read the final version of the Heimlich resolution, now scrubbed of any mention of drowning.

The results of my participation? Two words were scrubbed from the original draft.

Was I pleased? You better believe it.

That's why I posted this item, to say thank you to Rep. Hoffman.

Sorry, I mean Frank.

HCR106 Final Enrolled version, Louisiana House of Representatives (June 22, 2011)

Prior to confirming Gery Chico to head State Board of Education, Illinois senators asked about his ties to nonprofit under investigation by IL Attorney General

2011-06-20T13:21:00.015-04:00

From the June 18 Chicago Tribune:

Illinois lawmakers have a few other items to tackle besides keeping summer construction projects rolling when they return to Springfield on Wednesday...The Senate also is expected to act on a handful of recent Quinn appointments, including naming former Chicago mayoral candidate Gery Chico to head the Illinois State Board of Education.

Today Texas political writer Lee Cary asked the members of the Senate's Education Committee if, prior to confirming him for job, they intend to ask Chico about his ties to the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a high-profile, politically-connected nonprofit which has been the subject of dozens of media exposes and is reportedly under investigation by the IL Attorney General's Charitable Trust Bureau.

According to his letter to the ten senators, in in the past six months, Cary sent multiple inquiries to Chico asking him to answer some straightforward questions about SALF, but never received a reply.

Cary's letter, which was copied to a handful of Illinois reporters including ABC Chicago Chuck Goudie (and to me), includes this pull from Goudie's first report about SALF:

One of Illinois' highest profile charities teaches the Heimlich maneuver to children while maneuvering the truth to get money from government and big business.

It's called the Save-A-Life Foundation and is known across Illinois as an organization that teaches schoolchildren how to respond in emergencies. For the past few years, Save-A-Life has received millions of dollars in government funds and corporate donations. An ABC7 I-Team investigation has uncovered a series of misleading claims and deceptive credentials that raise doubts about Save-A-Life's integrity, funding and training.

Cary's letter also cited this Huffington Post article from February when Chico was a candidate in the Chicago mayoral race: Save A Life Foundation Connection: What Was (Chico's) Role At Troubled Charity? which reported:

When asked about Chico's involvement with the foundation, campaign spokeswoman Brooke Anderson flatly denied his involvement. "Gery wasn't on this board," she said. When presented with page 53 of the above document, Anderson responded, "That link you sent is wrong. Gery was not on that board."

According to Maura Possley, the deputy press secretary for the Illinois Attorney General's Office, a nonprofit misrepresenting the makeup of its board of directors in an annual report would be perjury, a Class 3 felony.

The Huffington Post asked the Chico campaign if it was willing to accuse Save A Life of perjury, and if so, whether it would be willing to publicly call for an investigation into the matter. So far, his campaign has not responded on that question, despite several further attempts at contact.

Chico served as the president of the school board from 1995 to 2001. He also appeared at SALF's "Bridge the Gap" Summit in 2003, where he received a 10th Year Anniversary Award from the organization.

In a news release from that same year, Chico's wife, Sunny, described her husband as "instrumental to bringing SALF to the Chicago Public Schools" during his tenure there.

It is unclear at this point why Chico would deny he was on the board, or, if indeed he was not, why he would be unwilling to press for further investigation, given his forceful campaigning on ethics reform.

Gery Chico accepts award from SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri, reportedly a twice-convicted shoplifter who claimed non-existent medical credentials and a bogus college degree. (Source document here.)

Cary's letter also suggested to the committee members that they ask Chico about a 1999 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) resolution he signed (along with Paul Vallas) that invited SALF into CPS, stating:

(SALF) has trained 35,000 statement in 1998, including 10.000 Chicago children and 23,000 more students who are schedule to complete the Save a Life Training by April 1999.

Cary's letter pointed out that "the only records the Chicago Schools have been able to produce indicate that at best a few hundred students were trained," so where did Chico come up with the numbers?

The letter also informed the senators that on August 27, 1999, just three months after Mr. Chico signed the CPS resolution, the State Board of Education (ILBOE) awarded $600,000 to SALF. However, in response to a FOIA request, the ILBOE's public information officer has repeatedly stated that no records except this ledger showing the payout. Per Cary's letter, "There are no applications, no review forms, no follow-up reports, no correspondence – nothing."

Cary's final request to the senators:

I'd also appreciate you asking (Chico) that if he's appointed to run the State Board of Education, will he investigate what happened to the $600,000 awarded to SALF?

Download a copy of his letter here or via the Scribd link below.
inquiry to IL state education committee members re: Gery Chico, Save-A-Life Foundation, 6/20/11

SALF founder/president, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, 2/18/05

Disbarment recommended for Heimlich "family friend" Stan Chesley

2011-06-15T07:27:00.004-04:00

Kentucky Bar recommends disbarment for Stan Chesley by Jim Hannah, June 14, 2011

The Kentucky Bar Association Board of Governors handed down a potential professional death sentence Tuesday when it voted that famed Cincinnati lawyer Stan Chesley should be permanently disbarred in the state.

Two proffer letters from Stan Chesley to me and my wife, August-September 2004

From ‘Master of Disaster’ Helps Finance Heimlich Campaign by Kevin Osborne, Cincinnati CityBeat, August 16, 2006

Stan Chesley has a reputation as a "limousine liberal" who provides copious amounts of money to Democratic issues and candidates, but one of the nationally renowned lawyer's latest pet causes is helping re-elect arch-conservative Hamilton County Commission President Phil Heimlich.

Campaign finance records show that Chesley has donated $12,500 to Heimlich's campaign.

...Chesley also has ties to Heimlich and Hamilton County government. Chesley is representing Hamilton County in its legal challenges against the Bengals and the National Football League about the construction and lease terms of the county-owned Paul Brown Stadium. The county alleged the team and the NFL violated anti-trust laws by using trade restraints to force the county to pay far more to build the $458 million stadium than a free marketplace would have required.

...Also, Chesley held a fundraiser for Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro in his failed Republican gubernatorial bid. Heimlich was briefly Petro's running mate. Later, Petro appointed Chesley's law firm to represent the Ohio Tuition Trust Authority in its lawsuit against a pension investment fund.

From Heimlich Family Feud: Commissioner offers to settle 'defamation' claim by Kevin Osborne, Cincinnati CityBeat, November 1, 2006

As if the reelection campaign of Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich hasn't had enough trouble in recent weeks, CityBeat has learned that Heimlich's insurance company offered a $3,000 payment to settle a claim that the commissioner allegedly defamed his estranged brother.

Phil Heimlich's brother, Peter, has rejected the offer and is instead demanding a public retraction and apology from the commissioner for telling newspaper reporters and others that Peter has mental problems.

..."For some time Phil has been circulating false and defamatory statements about me," says Peter, who lives in an Atlanta suburb with his wife, Karen Shulman. "For instance, last year Phil told an Enquirer reporter that I 'had a history of mental illness and that the family was dealing with it.'

"My reputation's not for sale, and I think smearing somebody to stop them from telling the truth is contemptible. Phil has a history of stepping on people. This time he went too far."

my attorney Louis Sirkin's cease & desist, apology demand letter to my brother Phil Heimlich, 2/7/06

my attorney Louis Sirkin's letter to my brother Phil Heimlich re: Stan Chesley's interference, 3/28/06

From Phil Heimlich Registers As City Hall Lobbyist: Dead GOP Political Career Puts Heimlich to Work For Concrete Company by Bill Sloat, The Daily Bellwether, October 6, 2010

Almost four years after he was voted out of office as a Hamilton County Commissioner, Phil Heimlich is back, or sort of back. The one-time star of conservative GOP politics in SW Ohio has signed on as a City Hall legislative agent -- lobbyist -- for Hilltop Companies, which runs a ready mixed concrete business in Cincinnati.

...The new gig for Heimlich -- the son of Dr. Henry Heimlich -- marks another leg on the long downward trajectory of his political career. In 2006, Heimlich was riding high and was the running mate of former Ohio Atty. Gen. Jim Petro, who wanted to move into the governor's mansion. Their campaign flopped. Heimlich quit the ticket and sought reelection as commissioner. He was whipped by Democrat David Pepper. Two years ago, Heimlich tried to run for Congress in OH-02 against Jean Schmidt. He quit that race, too.

From Chesley Inc. by Lucy May, Cincinnati Business Courier, December 6, 2004

In the (1994) American Lawyer article, Seattle attorney Leonard Schroeter called Chesley "the ultimate grotesque, exaggerated perversion of what it means to be a lawyer."

He is no more charitable now.

"I've known him for 40 years, and I've always thought he was an opportunist and just a nasty son of a bitch."

Zeroes among us: American Red Cross & Bay City, Michigan newspaper circulate dangerous medical misinformation, then refuse to clean up their mess

2011-06-13T09:06:00.005-04:00

Rotary International, Bay City, MI, 2006: incoming president Gena Gates (left), source

Per the June 3, 2011 Washington Post, the American Red Cross warns that performing the Heimlich maneuver on someone who's drowning is "unnecessary and potentially dangerous."

How dangerous? From the same article, this body count:

In Tampa, which has one of the highest drowning rates in the country, Dr. James Orlowski said he has documented nearly 40 cases where rescuers performing the Heimlich maneuver have caused complications for the victim. Orlowski is chief of pediatrics and pediatric intensive care at University Community Hospital in Tampa.

Complications = brain damage or death.

Meanwhile in Bay City, Michigan, as reported by Holly Setter in the Bay City Times:

This year’s recipient of the Teamwork Hero award from the Red Cross “Heroes Among Us” recognition program, (Heather) Irish put her medical training to good use and saved a man who would have drowned without aid...Irish pulled him above water and began administering the Heimlich maneuver to clear his airway. Just as he finished vomiting water, Irish said he went into a grand mal seizure.

...While she said she is thankful that she was able to step in and save a life, Irish said she’s a bit befuddled by the Red Cross hero designation.

“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said.

Absolutely ridiculous indeed. Please read on.

After seeing Ms. Setter's article, I wanted to learn why the American Red Cross (ARC) would present an award to someone who misguidedly performed a discredited medical treatment that their organization warned against.

So I e-mailed these questions to Gena Gates, Executive Director of Michigan's East Shoreline ARC chapter, which presented the award:

1) Based on this description (in the Bay City Times article), it's unclear whether or not Ms. Irish was taught to apply the Heimlich maneuver (a/k/a abdominal thrusts) to clear water from the airway of a near-drowning victim in a Red Cross training class, perhaps via your chapter. Can you clarify?

2) Based on the presentation of the award, my understanding is that your chapter endorses the use of the Heimlich maneuver for near-drowning rescue. Is that accurate?

3) When Ms. Setter was reporting her article, did any representatives of your organization make her aware of the American Red Cross's position on the use of the Heimlich maneuver for near-drowning per the attached August 2005 ARC "hot topics" memo and per this 2006 policy statement?

Her answers:

1. I don’t know whether Ms. Irish was taught to use abdominal thrusts to clear water from the airway of a near-drowning victim. As she is quoted, if she had simply followed her training, she would not have thought to use this method. I do not know what training Ms. Irish has had.

2. Our chapter follows the guidelines established by the American National Red Cross for lifesaving skills training, as we are required to do.

3. There was no discussion with Ms. Setter or with any of our heroes about the Red Cross position on any lifesaving techniques.

...Ms. Irish did not actually receive an award at our event yesterday. After her initial interview with our staff, she did not respond to phone calls....

In other words, Ms. Gates didn't do her homework and the recipient didn't even want the award.

Assuming she'd want to fix her goof so that Bay City Times readers didn't get the idea that they should perform the Heimlich on a drowning victim and perhaps add more names to Dr. Orlowski's casualty list, I then sent Ms. Gates this modest request:

Under the circumstances, do you or any other Red Cross representatives intend to write a clarification letter to the editor of the Bay City Times or to request a published clarification?

I didn't receive a reply. So I sent her a follow-up.

I didn't receive a reply to that either, so I sent her another follow-up. I didn't receive a reply to that either.

Okay, I thought. Since Ms. Gates is playing ostrich, I'll bring this to Red Cross national in Washington.

Remember their slogan? "Together, We Can Save a Life." Surely they'd encourage her to put pen to paper to correct the record or maybe they'd write to the paper themselves?

Here's what came back:

Subject: RE: media inquiry
From: LauritzenD@usa.redcross.org
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2011 17:00:54 -0400
To: pmh@medfraud.info
CC: JantzM@usa.redcross.org, david_markenson@nymc.edu, gatesg@redcross-esc.org

Mr. Peter Heimlich:

After reading your email and reviewing the correspondence you submitted, I spoke with Ms. Gena Gates on the phone. Ms. Gates confirmed that the East Shoreline Chapter will not be submitting a letter to the editor of the Bay City Times regarding this matter.

The intent of the chapter was to recognize Ms. Irish for her selfless, heroic actions of helping someone in need and for saving the gentleman’s life. We do not intend to diminish the efforts of Ms. Irish by asking clarification of exactly what skills she performed that day.

Sincerely,

Don Lauritzen
Officer, Preparedness and Health and Safety Services Communications
American Red Cross National Headquarters
Address: 431 18th Street NW, Washington DC 20006
Phone: 202.303.4775 Fax: 202.303.6604
Email: lauritzend@usa.redcross.org

Unless I'm missing something, the American Red Cross is now on the record supporting the application of dangerous and improper medical treatments if the victim survives.

As for these awards, which the Red Cross hands out endlessly, situations like make it seem like they're less for the benefit of the recipients - remember that Ms. Irish didn't even want hers? - and more of an opportunity to generate positive media coverage and attract donations.

Fine, business is business. But in this case, by failing to clean up their mess, the Red Cross is putting lives at risk. Also, is writing a quick letter to the editor such a challenge, Ms. Gates? Mr. Lauritzen?

How about the Bay City Times? Surely they'd would want to correct the record with a quick clarification in order to protect the health and welfare of their readers.

How about this? "To our readers: Holly Setter's report about the East Shoreline Red Cross's 'Heroes Among Us' award may have created the impression that the Heimlich maneuver was an acceptable treatment for drowning rescue. In fact, performing the treatment might kill someone. Don't do it, folks."

Or words to that effect.

After all, the Bay City Times claims to be all about helping their community. Says so here on their website:

Holly Setter, Bay City Times

After being fully informed about the issues, including that the ARC warns against the use of the Heimlich maneuver for drowning rescue, how did they repond?

Subject: Re: author inquiry
From: Holly Setter <setter@boothmidmichigan.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 08:36:59 -0400
To: Peter M. Heimlich <pmh@medfraud.info>

Mr. Heimlich,

I appreciate your follow through on this particular issue. In my article, I did not imply that the Red Cross advocates using the Heimlich maneuver as an effect means of saving someone who has nearly drowned nor did I dispute that. The woman featured in the article described her actions as similar to the Heimlich and that was how it was presented to me by staff at the Red Cross prior to their decision to not give her the award.

My editor and I do not feel there is any need for a correction or clarification as the information in the article was accurate to what both the Red Cross and Ms. Irish know to have happened and there is no assertion that it is the proper method for responding to a drowning situation.

If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me.

-Holly
---
Holly Setter
Booth Mid-Michigan
hsetter@boothmidmichigan.com
(989) 513-6907

So much for the community.

I then asked Ms. Setter for her editor's name so I could include it in the item you're now reading. She told me his name is Rob Clark. I wanted to include a photo, so I Googled his name.

This information that turned up prompts me to take a brief detour into media criticism:

Did the fact that Mr. Clark succeeded Ms. Gates as president of the local Rotary affiliate have any bearing on his decision not to publish a clarification regarding his paper's Heimlich for drowning snafu?

I have no idea. And that's the problem.

Simply by being a Rotary member, Mr. Clark opens the door for readers to accuse him of bias. Does he deep-six critical reporting about other Rotarian's businesses? Is he hustling for ads at Rotary lunches?, etc.

Obviously the smart move for journalists is to circumvent the problem by not joining, let alone heading, such an organization.

By the way, for a possible future item, if you know any other mainstream media journalists who are Rotarians, please e-mail me the details.

End of detour. Back on the main road.

After I publish this item, I'm sending a link to officials at Red Cross national with the following request:

Would you please send a memo to your chapters asking them to stop honoring people who perform the Heimlich maneuver on near-drowning victims?

Because as much as I thrive on newsworthy stories to blog about, I'd prefer not writing any more about young people who died in drownings after they received the Heimlich maneuver, like the ones posted on my website.

Here's one from Ms. Gates's home state:

Derrick Kelly lay unconscious on the deck of Eastern Michigan University’s Jones Pool, bloody foam oozing from his mouth and nose.

At that moment on the night of Jan. 31, 2003, decades’ worth of effort on the part of Dr. Henry J. Heimlich came into play when the maneuver bearing his name was performed in a desperate attempt to get the 17-year-old Detroit high school student breathing.

As part of an investigation into the incident, one of the lifeguards who tried to revive Kelly provided this written account of her efforts:

“I proceeded to give the victim rescue breaths, the breaths did not go in. The reason being was because the male’s jaw was locked shut and his tongue was swollen and stuck to the roof of his mouth. When I unlocked his jaw and moved his tongue I gave another rescue breath. As soon as I backed away to check his pulse, bloody foam came pouring from his nose and mouth. I then proceeded to do abdominal thrusts to remove the bloody foam, and then rescue breathing after the thrusts.”

She continued the routine for about three minutes. The effort failed. Kelly never drew another breath.

PCRM's Senior Medical Adviser protects ferrets at Cincinnati Hospital, but continues to ignore atrocity experiments on humans conducted by nearby Heimlich Institute

2011-06-03T17:50:00.002-04:00

John J. Pippin MD FACC, Senior Medical and Research Adviser, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

From a recent profile of Dr. John J. Pippin in The American Dog Magazine (emphasis added):

"I believe that all sentient creatures - human and nonhuman - have an inherent right to freedom from abuse and killing"... For the past six years, Dr. (John ) Pippin has worked full time with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a physician-led advocacy organization that promotes best scientific, medical, and ethical practices regarding human and nonhuman animals.

How does the information in this LA Weekly article from last April fit into that portrait of compassion?

In both its mission statement and its IRS filings, the Washington, D.C.-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) says it is "strongly opposed to unethical human research."

But the group is throwing a private Hollywood Art of Compassion bash Sunday night to hand out a major award named after Dr. Henry Heimlich, who has been condemned by mainstream medical organizations around the world for his 20-year program of trying to cure cancer and AIDS by injecting people with malaria-infected blood.

...Peter Heimlich says his father's malariotherapy research has been denounced as dangerous and irresponsible by the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. In 2002 the WHO called malariotherapy "an example of clearly unscrupulous and opportune research." Five years later, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said: "It is scientifically unsound, and I think it would be ethically questionable ... and it does have the fundamental potential of killing you."

Now the younger Heimlich asks, "How can the PCRM reconcile all that criticism with its position against unethical research? Why won't my father or anyone at PCRM answer that question?"

...Heimlich has not denied reports in the Cincinnati Beacon, an Internet magazine, that he is trying to resume the so-called malariotherapy experiments, which were first introduced in 1985 in Mexico - where he charged patients $10,000. The experiments were last conducted in 2005 in Gabon and Ethiopia.

In late 2008, Eric Matteson MD, a prominent Mayo Clinic physician and medical historian, exchanged letters with Dr. Pippin, asking him if he had any concerns about the notorious Heimlich atrocity experiments and his organization's relationship with my father.

Pippin's limp, pass-the-buck-to-his-boss responses are chronicled in my previous item that asked, Why does Dr. John J. Pippin turn a blind eye to the Heimlich medical atrocity experiments?

The answer to that question may have been answered this week. He's been busy doing work that's more vital to him, protecting the rights of sentient nonhuman creatures at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, just a couple of miles from the Heimlich Institute:

In a letter dated today, John Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C., PCRM’s medical education and senior medical adviser, who worked with the hospital to adopt this curriculum change, congratulates CEO Michael Fisher on his institution's decision to end the use of ferrets.

As the LA Weekly reported, my father has been a member of PCRM's medical advisory board since 1986. Here's some of what he was up to during those years.

Cyndi Monahan

Cyndi Monahan of Rockaway NJ, who underwent "malariotherapy":

"Within two days I started to get fevers as high as 106 degrees"...After Monahan's return from Mexico City, life consisted of hours of fever followed by chills - and intense pain. "My lower back felt like a truck slammed into it and I found that a malaria headache is the most excruciating pain you can imagine." Her New Jersey doctor allowed the malaria to persist untreated for five weeks. During that time she logged 130 "fever hours," when her temperature exceeded 101 degrees. She vomited constantly, lost 40 lb. and required intravenous fluids to compensate for dehydration. "We went until my body couldn't take it anymore," she recalled, "and then I took the antimalarial drug...I'm going back for another treatment," she says. "Dr. Heimlich told me I may have to do it again. He's made all the arrangements with the doctors in Panama."

From Outmaneuvered by Thomas Francis, Radar Magazine, November 10-11, 2005:

Mekbib Wondewossen is an Ethiopian immigrant who makes his living renting out cars in the San Francisco area, but in his spare time he works for Dr. Heimlich, doing everything from "recruiting the patients to working with the doctors here and there and everywhere," Wondewossen says. The two countries he names are Ethiopia and the small equatorial nation of Gabon, on Africa's west coast.

"The Heimlich Institute is part of the work there - the main people, actually, in the research," Wondewossen says. "They're the ones who consult with us on everything. They tell us what to do."

Wondewossen says that the project does not involve syringes full of malaria parasites. "We never induce the malaria," he says. "We go to an epidemic area where there is a lot of malaria, and then we look for patients that have HIV too. We find commercial sex workers or people who play around in that area." Such people are high-risk for HIV, and numerous studies show the virus makes its victims more vulnerable to malaria.

A key to containing malaria is speedy treatment. In the most resource-poor areas, clinicians who lack the equipment necessary for diagnosing malaria will engage in presumptive treatment at the first signs of fever. This, says Wondewossen, runs contrary to Heimlich's interests. What physicians in Africa usually do "is terminate the malaria quickly when someone gets sick," he says. "But now we ask them to prolong it, and when we ask them to do that, the difference is very, very big."

Untreated malaria is horrible and includes periods of 105-degree fever, excessive sweating followed by chills and uncontrollable shivering, blinding headaches, vomiting, body aches, anemia, and even dementia. Heimlich's malariotherapy literature recommends the patient go two to four weeks without treatment. Delay in treatment, warns the CDC, is a leading cause of death.

Wondewossen say that the researchers involved in the study are not doctors. He refuses to name members of the research team, because he says it would get them into trouble with the local authorities. "The government over there is a bad government," he says. "They can make you disappear."

Wondewossen won't reveal the source of funding for this malariotherapy research. "There are private funders," he says. But as to their identity? "I can't tell you that, because that's the deal we make with them, you know?" He scoffs at the question of whether his team got approval to conduct this research from a local ethics review board. Bribery on that scale, he says, is much too expensive: "If you want the government to get involved there, you have to give them a few million - and then they don't care what you do."

From a January 24, 2011 NBC News report:

PCRM has been criticized by others as being a "PETA front group" and even promotes a vegan diet on their web site.

"I'd say they're fools," said Dr. Pippin. '"We don't have any relationships with any industries. We don't do this for money. We do it because it's the right thing to do."

Arne Duncan asked if he supports investigation of embattled Illinois nonprofit

2011-06-01T12:41:00.006-04:00

9/2/06: Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer, Arne Duncan, received his second sponsorship award from the Save A Life Foundation (SALF)...Duncan was moved by SALF’s efforts to train 67,000 schoolchildren under his command stating, “I really appreciate the skills SALF is teaching the students of Chicago.” Duncan holds SALF’s Founder and CEO, Carol Spizzirri in the highest regard, stating, “Carol is one of my heroes.” (source)

Two months later....

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"The Maneuver Part I" by Chuck Goudie, ABC7 11/16/06

Today Michigan educator Michael Paul Goldenberg asked US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan if he supports my request for an investigation into what happened to $49,000 he awarded to the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF).

Goldenberg, who lives in Ann Arbor, copied me on his open letter to Duncan which is posted on his blog, Rational Mathematics Education.

For supporting documents, Goldenberg linked to my web page, Did Arne Duncan unknowingly help a bogus nonprofit rip off $174,000 from the Chicago Schools & McDonald's Charities?

From his letter to Secretary Duncan, here's the beef (links and emphasis added):

You'll recall that SALF's charter was to provide in-class first aid training to students. According to an October 11, 2009 Chicago Tribune article, SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri claimed “2 million children took the classes, many of them from the Chicago Public Schools.”

...In response to a federal court subpoena and FOIA requests, the only records produced by CPS indicate that at best a few dozen students ever participated in SALF training classes. As result, Chicago Schools Inspector General James M. Sullivan has been asked to investigate what happened to approximately $62,000 CPS awarded to SALF, most of which was arranged by you.

Records show that you contracted with Spizzirri to provide first-aid training for approximately 18,000 students from 2004-2006. You signed off on $49,000 in CPS funds and Ronald McDonald House Charities provided an additional $125,000, making a total of $174,000 paid to SALF for what appears to be a program that never happened.

Given the facts, do you think Inspector General Sullivan should proceed with an investigation? And would you co-operate with such an investigation?

Shortly after I received my copy of his letter, Goldenberg forwarded this to me:

Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2011 06:33:07 -0500
From: "Duncan, Arne" <Arne.Duncan@ed.gov>
Subject: RE: Information request re: Save-A-Life Foundation
To: Michael Paul Goldenberg <mikegold@umich.edu>

Dear Mr. Goldenberg:

Thank you for your e-mail to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. We appreciate hearing from you.

Your message has been forwarded to the appropriate staff member for review.

Thank you again for contacting us.

Sincerely,

Edgar Mayes
Director of Correspondence and Communications Control Unit
Office of the Secretary
U.S. Department of Education
Washington, DC 20202

Will Duncan take any responsibility for what may be a six-figure rip-off of public and private dollars that he unknowingly facilitated?

If so, he'll be a standout among this bipartisan gallery of Illinois elected officials who helped award almost $9 million in state and federal funds to SALF and/or promoted the organization. All are aware of the concerns surrounding SALF. None have managed to find the resolve to request investigations.

Click the links for details. Click here for photos.

US Sen. Dick Durbin (link, link)
US Sen. Mark Kirk (link)
US Rep. John Shimkus (link)
US Rep. Jan Schakowsky (link)
US Rep. Tim Johnson (link)
IL Sen. Emil Jones Jr., retired (link)
IL Sen. Donne Trotter (link)
IL Sen. Raymond Poe (link)

Re: Goldenberg's letter, I'll be following up and will post any interesting developments here.

Until then, bear this in mind:

The coach, as a leader, has to take personal responsibility - Arne Duncan (source)

6/1/11 letter to Arne Duncan e: Save-A-Life Foundation from Michael Paul Goldenberg

Another Heimlich Institute in Arizona - but go to Cincinnati if you want to get infected with malaria

2011-05-30T13:13:00.013-04:00

From the website of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute:

In June 1998, The Heimlich Institute became a member of Deaconess Associations Inc., to help advance and promote the mission and vision of The Heimlich Institute in perpetuity.

Since then, per the ABC News story below, the mission/vision have fallen on hard times. For years the so-called institute has been nothing more than a web site used to promote my father's potentially lethal crackpot medical claims: the use of the Heimlich maneuver for near-drowning victims, to stop asthma attacks, and to treat cystic fibrosis patients - and to "cure" AIDS by infecting patients with malaria.

Deaconess is a medical services corporation that claims to "enhance the well-being of our patients and communities where DAI has a presence."

It remains unclear how circulating quack claims that may seriously injure or kill people enhances those communities, but according to a recent Cincinnati Business Courier article, there's definitely enhancement in play:

As Deaconess Hospital failed, the man controlling it, Anthony Woods, did well. Woods, chairman and CEO of the hospital’s parent organization, the nonprofit Deaconess Associations Inc., had total pay of nearly $3 million in 2008, according to a tax filing.

By the way, Woods is responsible for bringing the Heimlich Institute into the Deaconess fold in 1998 and is now the HI's Chairman of the Board. Much of the responsibility for the organization's activities clearly rests on his shoulders.

E. Anthony Woods, Chairman, The Heimlich Institute (Cincinnati)

But wait! It turns out that there's another Heimlich Institute, this one operated by Scottsdale, Arizona chiropractor Chris Heimlich:

Based on this paragraph on his website, when it comes to claims about medical care, this other Dr. H is no slouch:

In practice for over 18 years, Dr. Heimlich deals with patients with nearly every type of illness and chronic pain disorder. His areas of interest include low back pain due to herniated discs, neck pain due to herniated discs, spinal stenosis, carpal tunnel syndrome, migraine headaches, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, insomnia/sleep disorders, vertigo/dizziness/balance disorders, restless leg syndrome, IBS also known as irritable bowel syndrome, auto-immune diseases, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, gastrointestinal issues, cardiovascular wellness, diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, developmental learning disorders from ADHD and ADD to Dyslexia, Asperger’s, PDD/NOS, and Autism.

I didn't come across anything on Arizona's Heimlich Institute website about drowning rescue, asthma attacks, or cystic fibrosis. For recommendations on how to treat those ailments - or if you want to be contract malaria - you can contact these people (source):

Texas Legislature: Heimlich posters no longer required by resturants

2011-05-20T09:37:00.004-04:00

From Lawmakers May End Anti-Choking Poster Law by Susy Solis, KXAS-TV News (Dallas//Fort Worth NBC affiliate):

A bill before the Texas Legislature would no longer require restaurants to have a poster showing the Heimlich Maneuver.

The state law requiring the posters has been in place for 22 years, but Rep. Ralph Sheffield, R-Temple, says the posters are not necessary.

He says the Heimlich isn't the only way to help a choking victim, as many people can dislodge a stuck piece of food with a swat to the back.

...The American Red Cross teaches both techniques -- the abdominal thrust and the back blows.

"Neither of those methods are better than the other; they are all effective," said Andria Butler, an instructor of a training and preparedness class at the American Red Cross.

From Senate passes Heimlich poster bill by Chuck Lindell, Austin Statesman-American, May 19, 2011

The Senate this morning passed a bill rescinding the requirement that Texas restaurants display a poster showing how to perform the Heimlich maneuver to save choking victims.

We wrote about the bill - and the behind-the-scenes controversy over how best to treat choking - Monday.

Click here to track the history of the bill (HB 3065) via Texas Legislature Online.

Update: On June 17, 2011, the bill was signed by the governor and made effective immediately.

###

The Cincinnati Business Courier reported the story on May 16 (before the Senate vote) and included this:

In 2006, the Red Cross reverted to back slaps as an effective first step to help someone who can’t breathe.

(Dr. Henry) Heimlich is one of Cincinnati’s most famous physicians. He has been harshly criticized for his later work. That includes his campaign to convince the medical community that the Heimlich maneuver should be used on drowning victims, and his experiments that attempted to treat AIDS by inducing malaria in patients.

No other Queen City media reported the Texas poster law story.

The 2006 Red Cross update has never been reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer or by any Cincinnati TV news station.

Homeland Security apologizes to me for FOIA snafu, but there's a bigger issue in the weeds

2011-04-19T09:12:00.004-04:00

6/18/11: From On Second Thought by Ben Kaufman, Cincinnati CityBeat's media critic:

(Anthony M. Bennett, disclosure branch chief of the Department of Homeland Security wrote) to Peter M. Heimlich, who was pursuing the cozy relationship between federal officials and funding of the dubious Save-A-Life Foundation. Because it’s the latest entry in my “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” file, I will quote Bennett’s exercise in critical thinking a couple weeks ago:

"This letter pertains to your (Peter Heimlich’s) Jan. 20, 2010, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/Federal Emergency Management Agency...By a letter dated March 19, 2010, we advised you of the estimated fee of $410.00 for processing your FOIA request. Because the estimated fee exceeded $250.00, we required an advance payment of the estimated fee for us to continue processing your request. We also advised you in that letter that if payment was not received within 14 business days, we would consider your request withdrawn. To date, we have not received your payment. As a result, we are administratively closing this case.

"Additionally, please be advised that because we have not received a payment of $410.00, we will not process any future requests you submit to this office. Moreover, in accordance with 6 C.F.R. 5.11(g), we may charge interest on any unpaid bill starting on the 31st day following the date of this letter. Interest charges will be assessed at the rate provided in 31 U.S.C. 3717 and will accrue from the date of the billing, in this case March 19, 2010, until payment is received by FEMA.

"FEMA shall follow the provisions of the Debt Collection Act of1982, as amended, and its administrative procedures, including the use of consumer reporting agencies, collection agencies, and offset. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this matter, please feel free to contact this office..."

Click here to view a copy of Dr. Bennett's March 31, 2011 letter.

Kaufman's publishing date coincided with the following correspondence:
my 4/18/11 inquiry/response to Dept. of Homeland Security

4/18/11 apology from Homeland Security

While I'm pleased to get an apology from DHS and to once again be permitted to file FOIA requests with that agency, during the course of this dust-up, I took a closer look at 6 C.F.R. 5.11, cited in Dr. Bennett's letter. That's the section in DHS's FOIA guidelines which governs fees.

This caught my eye (emphasis added):

(l) Payment of outstanding fees. The Department shall not process a FOIA request from persons with an unpaid fee from any previous FOIA request to any Federal agency until that outstanding fee has been paid in full to the agency.

In other words, if you owe a fee to another federal agency, for example, the Department of the Navy, DHS can refuse to fill your FOIA request.

Some Googling led to an interesting preliminary result. DHS appears to be the only federal agency whose FOIA guidelines include this cross-agency right to deny which in effect allows DHS to play the role of collection agency for any other branch of the government: "Want us to fill your FOIA? Not until you settle your bill with the Department of ____________."

I'm doing some snooping and if anything interesting turns up, I'll post the results.

St. John Ambulance Australia: Heimlich maneuver "can lead to serious consequences...even death."

2011-04-05T11:32:00.000-04:00

From Basic first aid may save a life by Bianca Clare, Sunshine Coast Daily (Australia), April 4, 2011:

Darryl Clare is not surprised that a new survey has found one in three people have no idea how to administer first aid. The St John Ambulance first aid training officer says "Dr Google" and Hollywood blockbuster movies are increasingly misleading the public on what to do when things go wrong.

"The most common mistake made is thinking the Heimlich manoeuvre is the best way to treat someone who is choking," he said. " This is incorrect. The correct method is to give the patient five back blows between the shoulder blades.

"The Heimlich manoeuvre has been widely criticised, even by the founder's son.

"It can work it some cases, but it can lead to serious consequences...even death."

The survey revealed 36% of 1134 respondents would immediately think of the Heimlich manoeuvre when someone was choking.

From worksheet for 2010 ILCOR Evidence-Based Review of Science for Emergency Cardiac Care (p.7-8):

Case reports of complications from abdominal thrusts

Agia GA, Hurst DJ. Pneumomediastinum following the Heimlich maneuver. JACEP. 1979;8:473-475.

Ayerdi J, Gupta SK, Sampson LN, Deshmukh N. Acute abdominal aortic thrombosis following the Heimlich maneuver. Cardiovasc Surg. 2002;10:154-156.

Bintz M, Cogbill TH. Gastric rupture after the Heimlich maneuver. J Trauma. 1996;40:159-160.

Chapman JH, Menapace FJ, Howell RR. Ruptured aortic valve cusp: a complication of the Heimlich maneuver. Ann Emerg Med 1983; 12: 446-448.

Cowan M, Bardole J, Dlesk A. Perforated stomach following the Heimlich maneuver. Am J Emerg Med. 1987;5:121-122.

Croom DW. Rupture of stomach after attempted Heimlich maneuver. Jama. 1983;250:2602-2603.

Desai SC, Chute DJ, Desai BC, Koloski ER. Traumatic dissection and rupture of the abdominal aorta as a complication of the Heimlich maneuver. J Vasc Surg 2008; 48: 1325-1327.

Drinka P. TBroken ribs following CPR or the Heimlich maneuver. J Am Med Directors Association 2009;10:283-284.

Dupre MW, Silva E, Brotman S. Traumatic rupture of the stomach secondary to Heimlich maneuver. Am J Emerg Med. 1993;11:611-612.

Feeney SN, Pegoli W, Gesting ML. Pancreatic transection as a complication of the Heimlich maneuver: case report and literature review. J Trauma 2007; 62: 252-254.

Feldman T, Mallon SM, Bolooki H. Fatal acute aortic regurgitation in a person performing the Heimlich maneuver. N Engl J Med; 1986; 315: 1613.

Gallardo A, Rosado R, Ramirez D, Medina P, Mezquita S, Sanchez J. Rupture of the lesser gastric curvature after a Heimlich maneuver. Surg Endosc. 2003;17:1495.

Haynes DE, Haynes BE, Yong YV. Esophageal rupture complicating Heimlich maneuver. Am J Emerg Med 1984; 2: 507-509.

Kirshner RL, Green RM. Acute thrombosis of abdominal aortic aneurysm subsequent to Heimlich maneuver: a case report. J Vasc Surg. 1985;2:594-596.

Lee SL, Kim SS, Shekherdimian S, Ledbetter DJ. Complications as a result of the Heimlich maneuver. J Trauma 2009;66:E34-E35.

Mack L, Forbes TL, Harris KA. Acute aortic thrombosis following incorrect application of the Heimlich maneuver. Ann Vasc Surg. 2002;16:130-133.

Majumdar A, Sedman PC. Gastric rupture secondary to successful Heimlich manoeuvre. Postgrad Med J. 1998;74:609-610.

Martin TJ, Bobba RK, Metzger R, Madalina M, Bollu M, Patel BG, Kazemi MM. Acute abdominal aortic thrombosis as a complication of the Heimlich maneuver. J Am Geriatr Soc 2007; 55: 1146−1147.

Meredith MJ, Liebowitz R. Rupture of the esophagus caused by the Heimlich maneuver. Ann Emerg Med. 1986;15:106-107.

Nowitz A, Lewer BM, Galletly DC. An interesting complication of the Heimlich manoeuvre. Resuscitation 1998;39:129--131.

Olenchock SA, Rowlands DM, Reed JF, Garzia FM, Zasik JM. Dysphagia after Heimlich maneuver. Chest 2004; 125: 302-304.

Orlowski JP. Vomiting as a complication of the Heimlich maneuver. JAMA. 1987;258:512-513.

Palleiro MMO, López CB, Pretel MCF, Fernández JS Hepatic rupture after Heimlich maneuver. Annal Emerg Med 2007; 49: 825-826.

Rakotoharinandrasana H, Petit E, Dumas P, Vandermarcq P, Gil R, Neau JP. [Internal carotid artery dissection after Heimlich maneuver]. Ann Fr Anesth Reanim. 2003;22:43-45.

Rich GH. Pneumomediastinum following the Heimlich maneuver. Ann Emerg Med. 1980;9:279-820.

Roehm EF, Twiest MW, Williams RC. Abdominal aortic thrombosis in association with an attempted Heimlich maneuver. JAMA. 1983;249:1186-1187.

Tung PH, Law S, Chu KM, Law WL, Wong J. Gastric rupture after Heimlich maneuver and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Hepatogastroenterology. 2001;48:109-111.

Ujjin V, Ratanasit S, Nagendran T. Diaphragmatic hernia as a complication of the Heimlich maneuver. Int Surg. 1984;69:175-176.

Valero V. Mesenteric laceration complicating a Heimlich maneuver. Ann Emerg Med. 1986;15:105-106.

van der Ham AC, Lange JF. Traumatic rupture of the stomach after Heimlich maneuver. J Emerg Med. 1990;8:713-715.

Visintine RE, Baick CH. Ruptured stomach after Heimlich maneuver. JAMA. 1975;234:415.