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If I come across factual information in mainstream press reports that I know is false, I do what I can to fix it.

In fact, according to Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple, I may hold the record for published corrections for a single news topic.

That's one reason it bugs me when journalists refuse to publish corrections for straightforward factual errors.

And that's one reason why the other day I filed a misconduct complaint against Margaret Holt, Standards Editor at the Chicago Tribune and a prominent figure in the newspaper business.

The tale starts with a July 16, 2018 Tribune story, Family members of Dr. Henry Heimlich say Red Cross guidance on choking victims could end in death by reporter Ese Olumhense. 

The article's about a campaign against the American Red Cross (ARC) launched last month by my sister Janet Heimlich, a journalist/author/nonprofit executive in Austin, Texas, and my brother Phil Heimlich, a former elected official in Cincinnati.

They're on the warpath because the ARC recommends performing back blows along with our dad's namesake maneuver (abdominal thrusts) to respond to a choking emergency.

In my opinion, Ms. Olumhense's story has some serious reportorial problems. (Re: the medical issues, visit my web page for links to related published documents.)

For example, the ARC's current protocol has been in place since 2005, a fact that's not mentioned in her article, so it's unclear if Ms. Olumhense was even aware of that.

If she was, presumably she would have asked Janet and Phil why they waited 13 years to voice their concerns. (In e-mails last month I asked Janet and Phil about that and about other aspects of their campaign; I haven't received a reply from either.)

Moving right along, here's the problem at hand:

(Leading) U.S. medical and first-aid groups, including the American Heart Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians and the National Safety Council all advise people to use Heimlich-style abdominal thrusts only...

What's the problem? 

It's this word: only.

I wasn't sure about the National Safety Council (NSC), and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), but I knew that in addition to our dad's famous treatment, current American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines recommend back blows and chest thrusts for responding to choking emergencies. 

So the day her article appeared, I e-mailed a friendly note to Ms. Olumhense, explained that I had questions, and politely asked her to provide her editor's name and e-mail address so I could copy her/him on my correspondence.

A short time later I received this:

From: Margaret C. Holt <mcholt@chicagotribune.com>
To: Peter Heimlich <peter.heimlich@gmail.com>
Subject: Tribune follow-up
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2018 16:37:49 +0000

Mr. Heimlich:
Your email was referred to me for response. The story is straightforward in quoting people about the topic, including a reference to a disagreement between some family members and the Red Cross. There is nothing further beyond what is in the published article.
Sincerely,
Margaret Holt
Standards Editor

Since I knew the part of the sentence about the AHA was wrong, I realized Ms. Holt didn't know what she was talking about.

And since she didn't ask what my concerns might be, presumably she didn't care, so I same-day replied:

Margaret,

Would you please provide me with your superior's name and e-mail address?

Thank you for your continued attention and I look forward to your reply.

Cheers, Peter

A week later I hadn't received a reply, so on July 23 I sent a friendly "can you help me?" e- mail to Tribune Managing Editor Peter Kendall who some years ago had capably assisted me with an unrelated editorial problem.

He passed the baton back to Ms. Holt:

Mr. Heimlich,
Thank you for your email.
I am copying Margaret on this so you can share any specific questions or concerns about the story.
She is the appropriate person to handle this.

After thanking him, I e-mailed media representatives at the AHA, NSC, and ACEP and asked for their organizations' positions.

An AHA Vice President e-mailed me this, taken from the organization's current guidelines (my emphasis):

“…chest thrusts, back slaps, and abdominal thrusts are feasible and effective for relieving severe FBAO [Foreign Body Airway Obstruction] in conscious (responsive) adults and children over 1 year of age.

The NSC rep replied that their organization adheres to AHA guidelines.

And an ACEP manager in that organization's communications department e-mailed me that their organization "does not have a formal policy on the Heimlich maneuver."

Based on those e-mails, the Tribune's claim that the three organizations "all advise people to use Heimlich-style abdominal thrusts only" is unequivocally wrong, ain't it?

Along the way I also identified what may be the source of Ms. Olumhense's error. 

Her article was apparently triggered by a July 10 e-mail and press release snet by a publicist representing Janet and Phil which included this sentence:

The American Heart Association teaches the Heimlich Maneuver as the only method to be used to save a choking victim, as does the National Safety Council and the American College of Emergency Physicians.

In any event, after obtaining the information from the AHA, NSC, and ACEP, I was on firm ground, so on August 7 I e-mailed the facts to Ms. Holt and requested a published clarification.

A week later I hadn't received a reply from Ms. Holt, so -- you guessed it -- on August 15, I asked Peter Kendall to step in.
 
A short time later I received this...

Mr. Heimlich:
We have reviewed your correspondence and disagree with your conclusion about factual
errors. There is no correction planned.
Sincerely,
Margaret Holt

...to which I replied:

The information I provided to you from the AHA, the NSC, and ACEP clearly contradicts the sentence in Ms. Olumhense's article, therefore please clearly state the basis for your disagreement.
If you intend to provide me with an adequate, professional response, please do so before this weekend so I may know how to proceed. 

Over a week later, no reply (click here for the entire e-mail trail of tears) and I could think of only one other available avenue of  possible recourse.

So a couple days ago, I phoned the Tribune's switchboard and explained that I wanted to file a misconduct complaint against a newsroom employee. 

I was transferred to a representative of a company that handles complaints for the Tribune, NAVEX Global Inc., based in Lake Oswego, Oregon, a Portland suburb.

The NAVEX rep was a helpful, articulate fellow who informed me that they didn't accept written complaints. That struck me as odd and I wanted a record of the transaction, so I recorded the call.

I explained the situation and he patiently and courteously took notes. 

Next he put me on a brief hold to arrange his notes into a formal complaint, then came back on the line and read it to me for my approval. 

I suggested a few tweaks which he incorporated in this final version:



I'll report any developments in a future item but even if my complaint falls on deaf ears, the excursion was worth my time because Ms. Holt's incompetent, unprofessional handling of such a small problem may signal deeper rot.

That is, if Ms. Holt buries easy-to-fix factual errors like this, how does she handle serious editorial problems?

With that in mind, if you've had any related experiences with her, drop me a line. 


This item has been slightly revised.

UPDATE, 11/10/16: Via Management of Airway Obstruction by Michael R. Sayre MD, Contemporary Cardiology: Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Humana Press (2005)

Despite widespread education on the use of the Heimlich maneuver and other techniques for treatment of acute airway obstruction, the (US) death rate remains stable.

Here's an interesting question for statistics experts.

How many people have been saved from choking to death by the Heimlich maneuver? 

Via At 96, Dr. Heimlich Uses His Own Maneuver on Choking Victim by Christine Hauser, New York Times, May 27, 2016:

In 1974, (Dr. Henry Heimlich) developed the method that compresses the lungs, causing a flow of air that carries the stuck object out of the airway and then the mouth. More than 100,000 people owe their lives to the technique, by some estimates.

I've come across that "100,000 lives saved" number many times. I've also seen 50,000.

To the best of my knowledge, both numbers originated with the Heimlich Institute, a Cincinnati nonprofit whose sole activity appears to be running Heimlich Heroes, a program that teaches young people how to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

Via the Heimlich Heroes website

Via the Heimlich Heroes website

Ever since my wife and I started researching my father's unusual career, I've wondered if there was a way to determine how many choking deaths have been prevented by his namesake treatment.

My math skills are challenged when I have to balance my checkbook, but the only approach that made sense to me was to look at choking death statistics.

That is, if the deaths of 100,000 or 50,000 choking victims had been prevented, presumably there would be a statistical decrease in the number of choking deaths since my father introduced the treatment.

And to adjust for population growth, it seemed to me that the only useful numbers would be choking deaths per capita.

The National Safety Council (NSC) compiles statistics on various unintentional injury-related deaths: motor vehicles, falls, drowning, fires, firearms, poisonings, etc.

According to the organization's 2016 Injury Facts, the NSC has been compiling choking death statistics from 1943 to the present.

That's three decades before my father introduced the treatment and four decades since, which seems like a reasonable and perhaps useful date range.

I first reported about the NSC's choking death statistics in an October 21, 2013 item about a problematic audio documentary about my father produced by Radiolab, a syndicated NPR program.

At the time, here's what Radiolab reporter/producer Pat Walters (who has since left the program) e-mailed me:

I checked my NSC stats, and it looks like I was wrong. I’d had an intern run the numbers for me initially, with the intention of checking them later, which I always do. Here’s what I’ve found: I only have data up to 2009 (from the 2011 report), which I believe you said you have, too. I’m waiting on the 2012 report from the com people at NSC so I can avoid paying 90 bucks for it. But anyway, according to that data and my back of the envelope calculations using population estimates from the US Census, in 1973 (pre-Heimlich manuever [sic]), choking was listed as the cause for 1.42 deaths per 100,000 people in the US. In 2009? The rate was 1.49 per 100,000.

So, if anything, the rate has gone up a bit. But just a bit. Not even significant, if you ask me. My take on this is that, essentially, almost nothing has changed.

Interesting.

But Mr. Walters isn't a statistics expert, so I'm hoping this item finds its way onto the screens of some capable number crunchers who might be able to shed some light on the subject.

Page down for the NSC's most recent (2016) per capita choking deaths per 100,000 population. Click here to download a copy.

I'm going to forward this to Nate Silver's crew at FiveThirtyEight.com, but if you know any other stats experts who might want to chime in, I'd welcome any thoughtful analysis for a future item.

Click here for my contact info.

This item has been revised for simplicity. 

Jad Abumrad & Robert Krulwich, Radiolab co-hosts and co-investigators on the $1.5m NSF grant (source)

In his May 1st CityBeat column, veteran reporter/journalism professor/media critic Ben Kaufman addressed some serious reportorial problems in an audio  documentary about my father produced by Radiolab, a widely-syndicated NPR show that's based at WNYC.

As documented in an investigation request letter I sent today to the National Science Foundation, those problems were just the tip of the iceberg.

NSF Award #1114623, Radiolab: What Curiosity Sounds Like; Discovering, Challenging, And Sharing Scientific Ideas

From my letter, addressed to Richard Duschl PhD, director of the NSF division that oversees the grant:

I'm troubled that this program is supported by tax dollars. Based on the following information, Radiolab's brand of journalism includes: failing to correct provably false information; reporting information known to be false; reporting fabricated information; cutting unethical deals to obtain interviews; obtaining interviews and information under false pretenses; and censorship.

Astoundingly, all that malfeasance occurred in the reporting of a single story, The Man Behind the Maneuver, a 25-minute documentary about my father, Henry J. Heimlich MD, known for "the Heimlich maneuver."

...(This) is to request that the NSF conduct a thorough review of Radiolab's editorial policies and NSF's oversight of the grant, and that further funding be frozen until the review is completed.

For details, click here to download a copy or page down to view my letter, an eight-page shopping list of the story's junk reporting.

[10/28/13 UPDATE: This morning I sent a near-identical investigation request to Dean Cappello, Chief Content Officer and Senior Vice President of Programming at WNYC Radio, the NPR flagship station that produces Radiolab. Click here to view, click here to download.]

Even if you don't want to go into those weeds, check out this go-round I had with Pat Walters, who reported and produced the story because it leads to information that may surprise you: 

(During a two-hour interview he conducted with me last December, Mr. Walters) asked me whether I thought that “the good my father had accomplished outweighed the bad.” I asked him to clarify – that is, what “good” and “bad” was he referring to? He replied that regardless of the harm for which my father may be responsible, “the Heimlich maneuver has saved the lives of many thousands of choking victims.”

I then asked him for the source of that number. He replied that it came from choking death statistics published by the National Safety Council. (I'm familiar with those statistics, so I realized he didn't know what he was talking about.) I replied that I'd answer his question after he reviewed those figures and got back to me.

About a week later, I received this in a December 27, 2012 e-mail from Mr. Walters:

I checked my NSC stats, and it looks like I was wrong. I’d had an intern run the numbers for me initially, with the intention of checking them later, which I always do. Here’s what I’ve found: I only have data up to 2009 (from the 2011 report), which I believe you said you have, too. I’m waiting on the 2012 report from the com people at NSC so I can avoid paying 90 bucks for it. But anyway, according to that data and my back of the envelope calculations using population estimates from the US Census, in 1973 (pre-Heimlich manuever [sic]), choking was listed as the cause for 1.42 deaths per 100,000 people in the US. In 2009? The rate was 1.49 per 100,000.

So, if anything, the rate has gone up a bit. But just a bit. Not even significant, if you ask me. My take on this is that, essentially, almost nothing has changed.

Interesting.

...But here's what Mr. Walters reported:

(Thousands) and thousands – maybe even millions – have been rescued by the Heimlich maneuver.

In an e-mail to Mr. Walters shortly after his story aired, I asked how he arrived at the “thousands and thousands – maybe even millions” figure? From his March 8 reply:

The maneuver has been around for 38 years. If 52 people have been saved by it in each year of its existence, it has saved “thousands” of lives over the course of its existence.

In other words, he ignored his own conclusion about the NSC data, and chose to make up and report his own.

My highlighting (source)

Squiffy reporting aside, take another look at what he wrote:

(Since the introduction of the Heimlich maneuver in 1974) the rate (of choking deaths) has gone up a bit. But just a bit. Not even significant, if you ask me. My take on this is that, essentially, almost nothing has changed.

Click here for the NSC's 2011 edition of Injury Facts. Choking deaths per capita, collected from 1943-2009, are on pages 55-56.

I have no expertise in statistics, but that's how the numbers look to me, too. 

But according to Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute:

Since its introduction, the Heimlich Maneuver has saved over 50,000 people in the United States alone.

Any statistics experts want to chime in?
 



This item has been slightly revised.