As Sidebar readers know, my father was badly busted by investigative reporter Robert Anglen in this March 16, 2003 Cincinnati Enquirer front-pager:


A decade after that  drubbing, my father's still trying to falsely claim credit for inventing the Reversed Gastric Tube operation (RGT) to replace a damaged esopahagus.

Click here for an e-mail I received from Lisa Michalski, Senior Publicist at Prometheus Books, that includes my father's version of events about the invention of the RGT that's slated to be published next week in his autobiography, Heimlich's Maneuvers.

I'm not going to go into the weeds, but here's the tallest one in Dr. Maneuver's garden:
One hand giveth while the other hand taketh credit -- and putteth his own name first.

Then there's this:

Still, I am proud of the fact that I was the first surgeon in the Western world to perform the reversed gastric tube operation.

According to the website of  Greg Burke, who was quoted in the Enquirer expose, that may also be fertilizer:

The first doctor to use the gastric tube in North America was Dr. James Fallis from Canada.

source

Miruna Munteanu is a prominent print and broadcast journalist in Bucharest who reported these two articles in Romanian news outlets about my father's attempt to steal credit from Dr. Gavriliu. (The links lead to English versions via Google Translate.)

The Genius of a Romanian Surgeon is Recognized, ZIUA, April 1, 2006, which includes an interview with me.

A Miserable Pension for a Legendary Surgeon, November 7, 2008, Jurnalul.ro:

Acclaimed professor Dan Gavriliu the first surgeon in the world who succeeded in 1951, complete replacement of an organ inventing reverse gastric tube procedure, lives today at age 93 with a pension of 749 lei per month.

...Professor Dan Gavriliu receives the monthly equivalent of about 250 (US) dollars. And a not unimportant detail, Dr. Henry Heimlich is a multimillionaire.

Last week Ms. Munteanu sent this e-mail:

Dear Mrs. Michalski,

I've just learned that Prometheus Books is about to publish an autobiography of Dr. Henry Heimlich, who is famous in my native Romania not for his choking maneuver, but for trying to steal credit for the RGT surgical procedure from Dr. Dan Gavriliu. I'm afraid not only the paternity of this procedure has been established beyond any possible doubt, but also the fact that - for decades - Dr. Heimlich disingenuously posed as its inventor (for American audiences, at least).

As a journalist, I've documented the whole affair back in 2006. You can surely understand my interest for the way Dr. Heimlich's autobiography is dealing with this shameful episode. Dr. Gavriliu might be now dead, but his legacy is not at all forgotten.

In Europe (and anywhere else except for the US) there never was a Heimlich-Gavriliu procedure. Dr. Heimlich was just one of (approximately) 60 foreign surgeons allowed in the 50's to assist Dr. Gavriliu while performing his innovative RGT procedure. He might have been the first American to perform it after seeing it done in Bucharest, but this gives him no right to name it.

To continue to fraudulently attach Heimlich's name to Gavriliu's is highly offensive. I hope the book you are about to publish will not perpetuate this injustice. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Best regards,

Miruna Munteanu

 As of last night, she hasn't received a reply.

Dr. Dan Gavriliu (right) being inducted into the Royal College of Surgeons by Sir Rodney Smith (center), Leeds, 1976 (photo courtesy of Dr. Gavriliu)

Click here for Part I: Publishers Weekly and Kirkus get it wrong, then update their reviews of my father's memoir to credit Dr. Dan Gavriliu.

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