Showing posts with label saint louis university. Show all posts
Showing posts with label saint louis university. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Three ways the "ozone therapy for ebola" story is one degree from my parents -- and questions about Rotary International's involvement in dubious medical experiments conducted on vulnerable human subjects

Last week I blogged an item with this sprawl of a headline:


As it happens, there are at least three "one degree from my parents" connections.

1) Per a May 9, 2002 article the Indian Hill Journal -- a suburban Cincinnati paper -- my father used Rotary to help promote his claims that malaria could cure AIDS.


I don't know if the experiments moved forward in Gambia, but via Tom Francis's landmark November 2005 two-part Radar Magazine report, here's a description of how Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute conducted similar "research" in two other countries in Africa:
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 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."

source

For more information about the Heimlich Institute's notorious "malariotherapy" experiments on AIDS patients, check out these recent articles that resulted from research by me and Karen.

How Dr. Heimlich Maneuvered Hollywood Into Backing His Dangerous AIDS "Cure" by Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, August 14, 2014 


2) Here's another Rotary connection.

Via Mystery Study, an August 7, 2013 article published by the newspaper Barbados Today, about a government investigation that was triggered by my inquiries:

Tennyson Springer (source)
The Ministry of Health is officially probing the existence of a controversial asthma study purportedly done in Barbados and involving a famous American physician.
But amid continued external queries about whether the research “followed legal and ethical guidelines”, Acting Permanent Secretary Tennyson Springer said initial investigations had found no evidence of its existence.
...Last month Springer responded on the Ministry of Health’s behalf and told (Peter) Heimlich that there was no knowledge of the study which was said to have involved 67 minors.

“So far, there has been no institutional memory or documentation of this research. However, the Ministry of Health will continue to probe into this alleged project."
Click here to download a 156-page pdf of the documents from the Henry J. Heimlich Archival Collection at the University of Cincinnati that include the protocol and financial records showing that, after being rejected by Cincinnati's Deaconess Hospital, the Barbados study was funded by the Rotary Foundation of Cincinnati (and the Heimlich Institute).

As far as I know the Barbados Ministry of Health's investigation is ongoing.

The "malariotherapy for AIDS" and "Heimlich maneuver for asthma" experiments couldn't be conducted in the United States because they violate U.S. laws protecting the rights of human beings used as research subjects.

Here are some good questions.

How many other human experiments that would be illegal in the United States and other industrialized countries have been or are currently being funded by Rotary?

Does Rotary International have any policy in place to prohibit funding or participation by members in such medical experiments ? If not, why not?

If you've got any related information to share, click here to e-mail me.

3) Finally, back to "ozone therapy," here's an item from The Insiders' Guide to Cincinnati (2007) about my late mother:

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Today I asked the NIH to review a $566K grant awarded to Saint Louis University because the money's funding a partnership with the Chinese doctor who reportedly conducted medical "atrocities" on AIDS patients that were - ouch - funded by the NIH

source
Via a September 9th Riverfront Times article by Sam Levin:
With the support of a National Institutes of Health grant, Saint Louis University is partnering with a controversial Chinese doctor who once infected AIDS patients with malaria as part of a widely criticized practice.

The doctor in question is Xiaoping Chen of China's Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health (GIBH), which is partnering with the Center for World Health and Medicine at Saint Louis University to develop treatments for malaria. This collaboration is now facing scrutiny after Peter Heimlich -- son of the man behind the "Heimlich maneuver" -- began raising questions about Chen's past.

...The "malariotherapy" experiments in China, conducted for over a decade by Dr. Chen in conjunction with Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute, have been called "atrocities" by the World Health Organization. Medical experts have condemned the work as "charlatanism of the highest order." Research subjects included prisoners who were controlled by hired guards. In one case, a woman with full-blown AIDS, suffering from pneumonia and hooked up to oxygen, was infected with malaria.
...SLU's school of medicine was awarded a $566,640 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant...A (SLU) spokeswoman confirms to Daily RFT that this grant is part of the GIBH project.
"Why are U.S. tax dollars funding research by a doctor responsible for conducting what a World Health Organization report called medical 'atrocities?'" (Peter) Heimlich says.... 
Page down for a letter I sent today to the NIH requesting a review of the grant. Click here to download a copy.

Here's an interesting twist.

The grant -- click here for details -- is administered by this NIH division:

source
As it happens, NIAID's director is Dr. Anthony Fauci, an outspoken critic of my father's "malariotherapy" experiments since at least 1994, when he told Los Angeles Times reporter Pamela Warrick:
"Heimlich's life-saving maneuver for people who aspirate food doesn't qualify one as an HIV expert," said leading AIDS researcher Dr. Anthony Fauci, who called malaria therapy "quite dangerous and scientifically unsound."
About 13 years later, here's a clip of Dr. Fauci being interviewed about "malariotherapy" by Brian Ross for the June 8, 2007 ABC 20/20 report about my father's dangerous medical claims, Is Dr. Heimlich Really a Savior?:


Undoubtedly Dr. Fauci had no knowledge that Chen would be on the receiving end of the NIH's grant to SLU, so I copied him on my letter of today.

This isn't the first time the NIH has funded Dr. Chen.

Per an August 6, 1997 "Dear Henry" letter to my father from UCLA's John Fahey MD (whose involvement in the China experiments resulted in a widely-reported investigation about ten years ago), two NIH grants helped fund his "malariotherapy" experiments on Chinese AIDS patients:



For my web page documenting the developing SLU/Chen story, click here.




This item has been updated.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Saint Louis University claims medical "atrocites" conducted on AIDS patients were regulated by Chinese government; I've asked the school's Board of Trustees to substantiate the claim


Via St. Louis University Under Fire for Work with Doctor Who Infected AIDS Patients with Malaria by staff reporter Sam Levin of The Riverfront Times, published a couple days ago:
With the support of a National Institutes of Health grant, Saint Louis University is partnering with a controversial Chinese doctor who once infected AIDS patients with malaria as part of a widely criticized practice.

The doctor in question is Xiaoping Chen of China's Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health (GIBH), which is partnering with the Center for World Health and Medicine at Saint Louis University to develop treatments for malaria. This collaboration is now facing scrutiny after Peter Heimlich -- son of the man behind the "Heimlich maneuver" -- began raising questions about Chen's past.

...With specific citations, (Peter) Heimlich writes in an e-mail to Daily RFT:
The "malariotherapy" experiments in China, conducted for over a decade by Dr. Chen in conjunction with Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute, have been called "atrocities" by the World Health Organization. Medical experts have condemned the work as "charlatanism of the highest order." Research subjects included prisoners who were controlled by hired guards. In one case, a woman with full-blown AIDS, suffering from pneumonia and hooked up to oxygen, was infected with malaria.
...(A spokeswoman added), "Saint Louis University has no connection to the malaria and AIDS research conducted in the 1990s in question. Further we have looked into issues raised about Dr. Chen's previous research and have confirmed that this research was done in accordance with the regulatory authority of China at that time."
I bolded that last sentence because upon it hangs the university's credibility -- and maybe more.

I wanted to ask a SLU media representative to provide me with the name and job title of the Chinese government official who provided the university with that information.

Clayton Berry, Donald Linhorst (source)

But there's a little problem -- this e-mail I received the day after the SLU/Chen partnership story was broken by Associated Press reporter Alan Scher Zagier:



So yesterday I took it to the university's Board of Trustees.


Saturday, August 31, 2013

PCRM's Dr. Neal Barnard howls about infecting Chinese beagles with rabies, but honors/praises my father, whose notorious experiments infected Chinese AIDS patients with malaria


Via Global Outcry Against Injecting Beagle Puppies with Rabies by Neal Barnard MD, published in today's Huffington Post:
It sounds like a scene from a horror movie: injecting rabies into beagle puppies and watching as they succumb to one of the most miserable of diseases. This isn't fiction. It's a cruel experiment that is real and imminent. The Taiwanese Council of Agriculture wants to test whether a new strain of rabies will spread from ferret-badgers to dogs. It aims to inject rabies into at least 14 puppies, and it is hoping that the world will turn a blind eye to this awful experiment.
Via Scientists linked to Heimlich investigated Experiment infects AIDS patients in China with malaria by Robert Anglen, Cincinnati Enquirer, February 16, 2003
Two prominent Los Angeles AIDS researchers are being investigated for taking part in a controversial medical experiment with Cincinnati physician Henry Heimlich to infect AIDS patients in China with malaria.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.''
Via Heimlich maneuvers into AIDS therapy by Deena Beasley, CNN/Reuters, April 14, 2003:


Via Heimlich Maneuvered by Paul Teetor, LA Weekly, April 8, 2010:
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.

...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.
My father and Dr. Barnard at PCRM's April 2010 "Art of Compassion" fundraiser in Hollywood (source)

Via a letter to the editor written by Dr. Barnard published in the September 22, 2004 Philadelphia Weekly:
I am not surprised to see that my good friend and colleague Henry J. Heimlich, M.D., is involved in medical controversy. Every scientific pioneer has to weather plenty of adversity in bringing innovations forward, and Dr. Heimlich is certainly one of the leading medical pioneers of our time.

...Dr. Heimlich demonstrates that innovative thinking remains the best tool we have in research and in healthcare generally, and I always encourage medical students and young physicians to follow his example.

PCRM's "Henry J. Heimlich Award for Innovative Medicine" (source)

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Saint Louis University's medical research veep defends partnership with doctor who conducted medical "atrocity" on Chinese prisoners with AIDS

Raymond Tait PhD (source)

According to a letter I received yesterday from from Raymond Tait PhD, Vice President of Research at Saint Louis University's medical school, the college has no problem partnering with a doctor who conducted notorious offshore human experiments in which AIDS patients were infected with malaria.

Among the patients were prisoners overseen by hired security guards.

Lawrence Biondi S.J. (source)

Dr. Tait's letter was in response to my June 20 letter to college president Lawrence Biondi.

My letter informed Father Biondi that since 2011, SLU's Center for World Health and Medicine has partnered with Xiao Ping Chen (aka Chen Xiao Ping), the Guangzhou doctor who led the Heimlich Institute's notorious "malariotherapy" experiments in the 1990s.

The information I provided to Father Biondi included a 2003 Cincinnati Enquirer front page article that reported:
(The) 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.''
My letter also included the following information along with a pdf consisting of hundreds of pages of supporting documents. Click here to download those -- the parenthetical numbers correspond to the page numbers.


The Heimlich/Chen project was so radioactive that, as a result of an anonymous letter I sent ten years ago, UCLA investigated faculty members who were involved. That story was reported by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, ABC 20/20, and elsewhere.

I thought a prominent Jesuit university like SLU would be concerned about working with a doctor with Chen's background. (According to this, Washington University of St. Louis is also involved.)

source


In fact, according to Dr. Tait, the university is apparently proud to be partnering with Dr. Chen.

Although his letter -- click here to download a copy -- completely ignored the concerns I presented to Father Biondi, he did provide what I presume to be this intended reassurance.

Dr. Chen is using mice, not human beings, as research subjects.