The Sidebar

UPDATE: Son of famed New Rochelle doctor asks for Walk of Fame reconsideration by Lisa Reyes, Local12 TV News (Westchester, NY), May 8, 2017:

The son of a New Rochelle doctor credited with creating the Heimlich maneuver says inducting his father into the New Rochelle Walk of Fame would be a mistake.

Dr. Henry Heimlich, part of the New Rochelle High School class of 1937, is world-famous for developing the anti-choking method that bears his name. This year, the city is honoring him by inducting him into its Walk of Fame.

Dr. Heimlich's son, Peter, sent a letter to the city urging officials to reconsider the designation.

"My father was involved most of his career promoting a bunch of crackpot medical ideas that resulted in the significant loss of life," he says.

Click here to direct download a copy of my letter.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's The Henry J. Heimlich Award for Innovative Medicine

When the history books are written, I predict that my father will finally be awarded the recognition he deserves as a spectacular medical con man and master media manipulator.

As I told the LA Weekly, "My father is such a brilliant promoter, he could teach P.T. Barnum a few tricks."

But last week the master may have gone too far.

On Thursday evening, this headline was attached to a Cincinnati Enquirer article by staff reporter Kevin Grasha:


Less than 24 hours later, the headline and the article were substantially rewritten.

Via the body of the article, here's why (emphasis added):
The first time?

Not according to what my father told these four reporters in articles from 2001 through 2006.

Via Private Clubs Newsletter June/August 2001 (via The Wayback Machine):

TO THE RESCUE
The story sounds like it could be an urban legend, but it actually happened in the dining room of the Bankers Club in Cincinnati. During a busy lunchtime, a guest of the club began choking as he sat eating at a table. A member sitting at another table promptly rushed to the aid of the victim, wrapped his arms around the man’s waist, and pressed his fist upward into his abdomen, expelling the trapped object from the clogged airway. The quick-thinking member was none other than Dr. Henry Heimlich, who surprisingly had never before performed his namesake Heimlich maneuver in an emergency situation. But the good doctor says performing the maneuver in this scenario was “as easy as that. I’ve practiced enough, I guess, in my life"...At 81 years old, Dr. Heimlich stays active playing tennis, works daily at the Heimlich Institute, and speaks at medical meetings to promote ongoing research being done at the Institute. And if the lunchtime menu includes saving a life, he will always make room for that too. — Louis Marroquin

Via Heimlich: Still saving lives at 83 by Jane Elliott, BBC News, March 9, 2003:

But despite being the inventor of one of the most significant medical techniques, Dr Heimlich told BBC News Online that he has only been called upon once to carry it out himself - and that was just three years ago.

"I was in this club restaurant eating when I heard someone calling Dr Heimlich. I turned around and saw a man choking so I did the Heimlich Manoeuvre and got it out and then went on and had my lunch."

Via Yes, There Really is a Dr. Heimlich And He's Pushing More Uses for his Famous Maneuver by Jim Ritter, Chicago Sun-Times, October 7, 2001:

Twenty-six years after inventing the Heimlich maneuver, Dr. Henry Heimlich finally had an opportunity to try it himself.

Heimlich was having lunch last year when he was urgently called to the side of a man choking on his food. Heimlich wrapped his arms around the man and made a fist against his upper abdomen. He thrust upward and out popped the food. Another life saved.

"I just did it and went back to eating," Heimlich said.

Heimlich said anyone could have done it.

Dr. Heimlich himself said the other day that he has performed the move only once, in Cincinnati.

In a corrections request I e-mailed Friday afternoon to Mr. Grasha and copied Enquirer News Director Michael Kilian, I provided the above articles and also wrote:

It looks like you've been punk'd, but it's unclear how badly. As you may know, for decades my father has provided all sorts of false information to reporters at the Enquirer and plenty of other media outlets. Former Enquirer Robert Anglen busted him on one such fabrication in this March 16, 2003 Sunday front-pager: http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/03/16/loc_heimlich16.html

...The New Yorker interview was only a decade ago and although my father's getting up there in years, knowing his keen memory, I'd be surprised if he would have completely forgotten the incident.

Also, this morning you wrote me that my brother Phil Heimlich told you that this was the first time my father ever revived a choking victim using "the Heimlich." As you may know, as longtime vice president of the Heimlich Institute, my brother has a close professional as well as personal relationship with my father and has always lived in Cincinnati. Frankly, it doesn't make sense that Phil would be unaware of my father's choking rescue at the Banker's Club.

Coincidentally, according to this website, this Wednesday June 1 is "National Heimlich Maneuver Day": http://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/days-2/national-heimlich-maneuver-day-june-1/ Did my father, Phil, or anyone else mention that to you?

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About an hour later I received this:

From: Michael Kilian <mkilian@CINCINNA.GANNETT.COM>
To: Peter M. Heimlich <peter.heimlich@gmail.com>
CC: Kevin Grasha <kgrasha@CINCINNA.GANNETT.COM>
Subject: RE: corrections request and two quick questions
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 20:36:59 +0000

Dear Sir –

We will be updating our story before long. Thank you for sharing this information with us.

Mr. Grasha is out of the office for several days. Please refrain from emailing him over the holiday weekend.

Sincerely,

Michael Kilian

Later that evening at the same link, the Enquirer disappeared the original story and substituted a significant rewrite co-bylined by Mr. Grasha and staff reporter Bowdeya Tweh that included much of the information provided in my corrections request. (Click here for a copy of the now-MIA original version.)

Here's the current headline, updated from the original At 96, Dr. Heimlich finally uses his life-saving technique:

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In other words, when the Enquirer realized that my father had punk'd them, the paper responded by reminding readers about this singular March 16, 2003 expose (based on research by my wife Karen and me, and my outreach to the Enquirer in 2002):



In order to promote the recent choking rescue story, Episcopal Retirement Services prepared this promotional package of videos and photographs and a downloadable copy of my father's 2014 memoir, Heimlich's Maneuvers:


Click here to download a copy of the book.

What's missing?

My father included no mention of his alleged 2001 Banker's Club choking rescue.

In other words, my father punk'd the Enquirer, my brother Phil, and Episcopal Retirement Services.

My father may not be the master scammer he used to be -- the Banker's Club turned out to be an exploding cigar -- but that's not too shabby for a 96-year-old.


Big hat tip to McKinight's editor James M. Berklan for his lively column today, This lifesaving coincidence definitely makes you swallow deeply, which steered me to the ERS promo kit. Don't miss reading his skeptical  review of the Deupree House event, today's National Heimlich Maneuver Day festivities, and my brother Phil's involvement. 

My favorite line? A better-timed rescue P.T. Barnum couldn't have orchestrated.

Here's Phil's bemused, chin-rubbing take on the coincidence:

Via Heimlich's Latest Maneuvers by Cleveland writer Mary Mihaly in Health Monitor, December 2009/January 2010:

Dr. “Hank” Heimlich may be the most famous doctor in the world...Inevitably, talk turns to his “latest maneuver”- his upcoming autobiography, Heimlich’s Maneuvers, to be published shortly by Bartleby Press.

The book never appeared, so presumably Bartleby preferred not to publish.

Four years and another publisher later, the wait may be over.

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According to Amazon, my father's 230-page autobiography is scheduled to be released by Prometheus Books, based in Amherst, New York, on February 11, a week after his 94th birthday.

Last week at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (source)

Here's the Table of Contents which I received from Lisa Michalski, Senior Publicist at Prometheus:

Foreword by Guy Carpico
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1: Heeeeere’s Heimlich!
CHAPTER 2: My Beginnings
CHAPTER 3: The Depression, Anti-Semitism, and Visits to Sing Sing Prison
CHAPTER 4: Medical School Challenges and a Strange Internship
CHAPTER 5: En Route to China
CHAPTER 6: A Health Clinic in the Gobi Desert
CHAPTER 7: A Medical Newbie Searches for a Surgical Residency
CHAPTER 8: Saving a Life and Finding Love
CHAPTER 9: Restoring the Ability to Swallow: The Reversed Gastric Tube Operation
CHAPTER 10: Taking the Reversed Gastric Tube Operation behind the Iron Curtain
CHAPTER 11: A Promise to a Dead Soldier Kept: The Heimlich Chest Drain Valve
CHAPTER 12: A Boy Named Hayani
CHAPTER 13: Saving the Lives of Choking Victims: The Heimlich Maneuver
CHAPTER 14: The American Red Cross and Back Blows
CHAPTER 15: The Gift of Breath: The Heimlich MicroTrach
CHAPTER 16: Making the Most of Good Ideas
CHAPTER 17: Working toward a Caring World
Notes
Index

Hey, where's "malariotherapy," the notorious human experiments conducted for decades by Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute in which U.S. and foreign nationals suffering from cancer, Lyme Disease, and AIDS were infected with malaria, resulting in investigations by three federal agencies and UCLA?

And I don't see a chapter heading about my father's decades of relentless campaigning to promote the use of the Heimlich maneuver to revive near-drowning victims, a depraved crusade based on dubious case reports that resulted in who knows how many dead kids.

How about when he was dismissed as Director of Surgery at Cincinnati's Jewish Hospital in May 1977? Does he tell about the outrageous episode that precipitated his firing? That would probably increase sales.

What about his close relationships with doctors who lost their licenses for massive overprescribing of narcotics? One was Marilyn Monroe's Dr. Feelgood and two did jail stretches. Wouldn't that make a lively chapter?

And Chapter 8's "Finding Love," does that refer to his marriage or to his reckless sexual promiscuity, some of which my mother, the late Jane Heimlich, shared in her memoir?


And what about the late Edward A. Patrick MD PhD, my father's 30-year colleague and co-author?

During his singular career, Dr. Patrick obtained a string of state medical licenses using squiffy credentials provided by my father, was involved in every aspect of the Heimlich maneuver, and, per his full-page obituary in the March 13, 2010 British Medical Journal, claimed to be the uncredited co-developer of the treatment -- which he called "the Patrick-Heimlich maneuver."

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I asked Ms. Michalski, who replied:

There is no mention of Edward A. Patrick.

Wha?

How about my father's widely-published claim that in 2001 he rescued a choking victim at a Cincinnati restaurant by performing "the Heimlich maneuver"? That's a headline-maker sure to sell plenty of copies.

Via Ms. Michalski:

We have not found any mention of a 2001 incident of Dr. Heimlich saving someone with the Heimlich maneuver in a Cincinnati restaurant.

Ruh-roh.

Then there's this March 16, 2003 front-page Cincinnati Enquirer article:

For more than 40 years, Cincinnati icon Dr. Henry Heimlich has been taking credit for a world-famous operation that was actually developed first by a Romanian surgeon behind the Iron Curtain.

In interviews, biographies and promotional materials, Heimlich has told anyone who would listen that he performed the world's first total organ replacement. But even before Heimlich wrote his first article about the "Heimlich Operation" on dogs in 1955, the procedure had been performed dozens of times on humans by Romanian surgeon Dr. Dan Gavriliu, an Enquirer investigation has found.

Gavriliu now calls Heimlich a "liar and a thief." He says Heimlich not only took credit for the operation, but also lied when he said they co-authored a paper for an international surgery conference.

..."Let Heimlich be a pig if he wants to steal an operation and put his name on it," says retired New York surgeon Eugene Albu. "He changed the name from the Gavriliu Operation to the Gavriliu-Heimlich Operation. Then it became the Heimlich Operation later on."

Six years later, from the 2009 article about the (aborted) Bartleby book:

Among other highlights, the book recounts how, in 1953, Dr. Heimlich launched his career by creating a surgical procedure for replacing the esophagus....

And via a Cincinnati TV report this year:



So which version is Prometheus running with?

Ms. Michalski:

Dr. Heimlich does credit Dr. Dan Gavriliu, in fact, it’s the basis of chapter 10, “Taking the Reversed Gastric Tube Operation behind the Iron Curtain.” According to the manuscript, Dr. Gavriliu had been performing the operation since 1951 (Heimlich first performed it in 1955).

Finally, here's her reply when I asked for the name of the Prometheus editor responsible for the content and accuracy of the book:

Our authors are, first and foremost, responsible for the content of their books. During the production process, if the editors working on the book have questions about accuracy, clarity, sources, or the like, these are sent to the author for review and response.

Psst, a word to the wise for those editors....

Re: "questions about accuracy, clarity, sources, or the like," I have a pretty good idea what's in these chapters:

CHAPTER 6: A Health Clinic in the Gobi Desert
CHAPTER 11: A Promise to a Dead Soldier Kept: The Heimlich Chest Drain Valve 

I'd strongly recommend you ask my father to provide you with a release to obtain his service records from the United States Navy.

And I'll bet you a Heimlich valve that he won't.

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