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From Mystery Study by Shawn Cumberbatch, Barbados Today, August 7, 2013 (my emphasis):

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.

For the past several months Peter Heimlich, son of Henry Heimlich who is widely credited with developing the “choking rescue treatment” called the Heimlich Manoeuvre, has been requesting information from the Ministry of Health on the study.

...Last month Springer responded on the Ministry of Health’s behalf and told the younger Heimlich that there was no knowledge of the study which was said to have involved 67 minors.

..."(I) wish to acknowledge receipt of your correspondence and inform you that the matter is being investigated..."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 for a 156-page pdf file that documents the "alleged project," which was funded by Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute and the Rotary Foundation of Cincinnati.

Rotary?

From the organization's website:

Rotary is an organization of business and professional persons united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

So why did they fund an experiment on dozens of children in Barbados after the project was refused by a hospital in their home town, Deaconess of Cincinnati?

And, given their interest in "high ethical standards," did Cincy Rotary do any monitoring of the experiment or follow-up, such as checking on the condition of the dozens of children who were used as research subjects?

Hey, don't ask me -- ask them:


More questions via the following e-mail I sent this morning to Dr. Dexter James, CEO of Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where the "mystery study" was supposed to have been conducted.

Click here to download a copy.

Click here for my web page documenting all this.

Dr. Dexter James and Bishop of Barbados, the Right Reverend Dr. John Holder (source)

The Barbados Ministry of Health (MOH) just confirmed to me that they're investigating a medical research study conducted on dozens of children about a decade ago.

From the abstract of the unpublished study:

The study population consisted of 67 patients aged 6–16 years with a control group of 34 patients and a study group of 33 patients...This study has provided data to support the potential benefits of the modified Heimlich Manoeuvre as adjunctive therapy for asthma....

According to recently-available documents from my father's archives (maintained by the University of Cincinnati medical library), the study was rejected by Cincinnati's Deaconess Hospital, then offshored to Barbados after funding was obtained from  the Heimlich Institute and the Rotary Club of Cincinnati.

According to correspondence exchanged by my father, Anne St. John MD of Barbados's Queen Elizabeth Hospital (lead investigator), and Charles H. Pierce MD PhD of Cincinnati (who helped arrange the project) the experiment was:

1) Approved by the Ministry of Health's Ethics Board;
2) Overseen by an Institutional Review Board.

I simply wanted to verify those two claims, so in February I wrote to the Ministry of Health, the agency responsible for overseeing medical research conducted in Barbados.

Tennyson Springer (source)

Per the July 10 letter (which I received today) from MOH Permanent Secretary Tennyson Springer: 

(I) wish to acknowledge receipt of your correspondence and inform you that the matter is being investigated. So far, there has been no institutional memory or documentation of this research. However, the Ministry of Health will continue the probe into this alleged project.

Click here for my web page about the Barbados study, including links to articles published in the University of Cincinnati News Record and the Barbados Sunday Sun newspapers, and in Barbados Underground, a lively Bajan blog.

UPDATE: As a result of a recent general election, John Boyce MP replaced Donville Innis as Barbados Minister of Health.

Click here for my March 24, 2013 letter to Mr. Boyce requesting information about "the Heimlich maneuver for asthma" experiment reportedly conducted on dozens of children.

Per my December 20 item, according to the Sunday Sun (the leading daily newspaper in Barbados, West Indies), as a result of my recent media inquiries, the Ministry of Health was "carrying out an investigation" into a medical experiment conducted there about a decade ago.

According to the University of Cincinnati News Record, the unpublished study used 67 children, age six to 16, to test the effectiveness of the Heimlich maneuver to treat asthma attacks.

Records held by the University of Cincinnati's medical library show that the project was funded by the Rotary Foundation of Cincinnati and the Heimlich Institute, my father's nonprofit.

Unrelated to the Barbados study, as reported by numerous media outlets, the Heimlich Institute has a long history of conducting violative offshore medical experiments in China and Africa. For example, via the Cincinnati Enquirer:

(Dr. Heimlich's "malariotherapy") 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.''

Barbados Chief Medical Officer Joy St. John MD and Minister of Health Donville Inniss (source)

Back to the Barbados asthma study, in response to my media inquiries -- I was trying to get information to report here -- I received a January 5 e-mail from Minister of Health Donville Inniss.

He suggested that I submit a formal inquiry, so today I did -- click here to download a copy:




Here's the accompanying 156-page file referenced in my letter -- click here to download a copy:



Click here (and bookmark) my web page tracking the developing "Heimlich maneuver for asthma" experiment conducted on children in Barbados.

On December 6 the University of Cincinnati News Record published an article about a handful of media inquiries I'd sent re: a research study conducted in Barbados, West Indies:

The study tested whether or not a modified version of the Heimlich Maneuver could stop an acute asthma attack....The 67 children who participated were between the ages of six and 16....

"Since at least 1996, based on dubious evidence, my father has claimed that the Heimlich Maneuver can stop asthma attacks, but asthma experts have expressed strong doubts," Peter Heimlich said...."A couple weeks ago, I sent inquiries to Queen Elizabeth Hospital and to Donville Inniss, the Barbados Minister of Health, asking for the name of the IRB and when the (Ministry of Health's) Ethics Committee approved the study," Peter Heimlich said. "I haven't received any answers."

Professor Anne St. John accepting Distinguished Community Service Award from Steve Blackett, Barbados Minister of Social Care, Constituency Empowerment and Community Development, June 2012 (source)

On December 16, the Barbados Sunday Sun published a related article by reporter Maria Bradshaw that included (emphasis added):

The Barbados study was conducted by a team of researchers led by respected paediatrician, Professor Anne St John.

In an email to this newspaper, she stated that the study did receive approval from the local Institutional Review Board; that no harm was done to any of the 67 children who participated; and that the Ministry of Health was carrying out an investigation into the matter....

The Sun article didn't include the name of the IRB or the name of the Ministry of Health official who's in charge of the investigation.

Also from the Sun:

(Peter Heimlich says that his father) contributed US$1000 to the Barbados study....

To be precise, in response to an inquiry I received from Ms. Bradshaw, I wrote her that, based on documents in UC's Henry J. Heimlich Archival Collection, the Heimlich Institute (not my father) had contributed $1,000.

Also note his mentioning additional funding from Rotary. (More about that in a future item.) 





Finally, also from the Sun:

(Peter Heimlich) said he had evidence that in 1999 his father attempted to conduct a similar asthma study at Cincinnati’s Deaconess Hospital, but had been turned down by the hospital’s Institutional Review Board (IRB).

The University of Cincinnati News Record just published Questionable Study has UC Ties by reporter Benjamin Goldschmidt. 

Here's the takeaway:

On Nov. 19, the University of Cincinnati received one of five inquiry letters sent to organizations that could be linked to an offshore, potentially controversial experiment.

Peter Heimlich, son of Henry Heimlich - famous for the Heimlich Maneuver choking rescue treatment - sent the inquiry letters in hopes of obtaining more information on the experiment, which was performed on children in Barbados, according to a study published in the West Indian Medical Journal in 2005.

...The study tested whether or not a modified version of the Heimlich Maneuver could stop an acute asthma attack....The 67 children who participated were between the ages of six and 16.

Charles H. Pierce, MSc, MD, PhD, FCP, CPI

UC received one of the inquiry letters because Charles Pierce, adjunct professor of psychiatry at UC, was involved with applying for loans (sic) for the study....

Barbados Minister of Health Donville Inniss, MP

Other organizations and individuals also received the letters, including Rotary International, Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Donville Inniss, the minister of health in Barbados.

Records show that the study was funded by the Rotary Club of Cincinnati and the Heimlich Institute. (More about that in a future item.)

Dr. Anne St. John and HRH Prince Harry (January 2010)

...Pierce and Anne St. John, a doctor in Barbados who was involved in the study, claim (an Institutional Review Board) approved the project.

...“A couple weeks ago, I sent inquiries to Queen Elizabeth Hospital and to Donville Inniss, the Barbados Minister of Health, asking for the name of the IRB and when the (Ministry's) Ethics Committee approved the study,” Peter Heimlich said. “I haven't received any answers.”

More from the News Record:

(Dr. Pierce) said the modified version of the Heimlich Maneuver is harmless, and is meant to empty the lungs and give relief to an asthma patient and could prevent further asthma attacks.

Presumably Dr. St. John, the study's lead investigator, can clarify what sort of "modified version of the Heimlich maneuver" was performed on the child test subjects.

But here's what medical experts have said about the version of the treatment that my father has been hyping since at least 1996. (Click here for a Heimlich Institute press release.)

Loren Greenway, PhD

From a 2005 newsweekly article by Utah reporter Shane Johnson.

And in this clip from a November 17, 2006 ABC7 Chicago I-Team report by Chuck Goudie:

 The Heimlich maneuver will stop an asthma attack," (says Dr. Henry) Heimlich.

Heimlich also urges the maneuver be used on cystic fibrosis victims, all claims that have stunned the medical community and major medical organizations, which warn that the use of the Heimlich maneuver in those situations could be fatal.

The American Lung Association asked Chicago respiratory expert Dr. John Shannon to speak with us.

"It shouldn't be used at all in asthma or in cystic fibrosis or any other chronic inflamation disorder in the lung passages," said Dr. John Shannon, Stroger Cook County Hospital.

"There is a good possibility of making a person with asthma substantially worse."

To my knowledge, the only article about the treatment published in a medical magazine is Some Experts Are Skeptical About Reports That the Heimlich Maneuver Relieves Acute Asthma Attacks by Carolyn Gard from the February 1997 issue of Modern Medicine.

Click here to read the article, but regarding the Barbados study, this quote raises some reasonable questions:

(Asthma specialist Homer Boushey, MD says that he is) skeptical of studies that have not undergone peer review. Furthermore, he adds, the technique should first be tested on animals rather than humans.

Did the Barbados study undergo peer review? If so, by whom?

Has the "modified Heimlich for asthma" ever been tested on animals?

And has it ever been tested on adult subjects or just on the children in Barbados?