Phil Heimlich was the politician he's come to despise.
"I regret not showing more courage," he told Politics Extra.
It's a harsh reality Heimlich has come to grips with since he left public office 10 years ago this month.
...Heimlich, 64, has never come back to politics since that bruising and brutally expensive 2006 loss to Democrat David Pepper in the commissioner's race. Heimlich has no plans to come back, but the Republican still loves to talk politics.
Phil:Just to fully give you my kind of priorities. I'm also what you'd call
an Evangelical. I'm a Christ follower. But...and I got something to say
to my fellow Evangelicals.And I'll quote the words of a commentator, a
liberal commentator. But I'll quote him but it's true. What he said was,
and I agree, "Our support for Donald Trump exposes us as the shameless
hypocrites we've always been."
11/16/18 UPDATE: Hat tip to an attentive reader who informed me that in 2009 Maher was the recipient of the Atheist Alliance of America's Richard Dawkins Award.
From: Peter Heimlich <peter.heimlich@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Questions for an item I'm blogging
To: Phil Heimlich <philheimlich1@gmail.com>
Cc: Justin Wise, Charles W. Guildner MD, [Enquirer opinion editor] Kevin Aldridge, Robert Anglen, Gregory Korte, [Enquirer politics reporter] Jason Williams, [Hamilton County, Ohio, Commissioner] Todd Portune
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2018 13:20:09 -0400
Phil,
I didn't receive your reply to my June 15 e-mail re: whether or not you're still doing the Hard Truths With Phil Heimlich podcast. Would you please get back to me on that?
1) Based on the commitment to democratic values you expressed in your column, do you have any comments re: any of the information in these Enquirer articles from when you held elected office?
“It means more of the same and it makes me nervous,” says Jenny Laster, president of the Grass Roots Leadership Academy, which trains community leaders and which recently fell into Mr. Heimlich's sights. “If he becomes a commissioner, I'll be the first person he wants to run out of town on a rail.”
She says Mr. Heimlich is divisive and destructive, and cites his inquiries about the academy as an example. He started by questioning how much the city was paying the academy to train community leaders and then tersely derided the program as being more expensive than Harvard.
“I haven't seen him accomplish anything, other than to further polarize this community,” Ms. Laster says. “There's a way to get information without stripping dignity from people.”
And she says he operates with impunity against minority organizations.
“If that sounds like I'm calling him a racist, well, if the shoe fits, then I'm sorry,” Ms. Laster says.
...Last year, four black civic and business leaders wanted Mr. Heimlich gagged and called for city officials to investigate him.
Representatives of the Urban League, the African American Chamber of Commerce, Genesis Redevelopment and the Riverfront Classic and Jamboree claimed that Mr. Heimlich had used his office as a tool of intimidation by persistently seeking information about groups that serve the black community.
He demanded financial statements, questioned salaries, probed expenses. Black leaders claimed that he unfairly targeted their organizations. While City Council refused to investigate Mr. Heimlich, some members questioned his methods and his manner as rude and unproductive.
“It has been a real problem,” Urban League President Sheila Adams says of Mr. Heimlich. “But I am not going to use his tactics.
Conservative activists fighting a gay rights ballot measure in Cincinnati bought more than $500,000 worth of television ads on Sept. 30, local stations say.
...The Focus on the Family Cincinnati Committee has bought several full-page ads in Cincinnati newspapers featuring Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich.
...In the ad, Heimlich rebuts claims from repeal supporters that Article XII has cost the city millions in lost convention business.
Heimlich conducted the study while he was a paid consultant to the Citizens for Community Values. CCV paid Heimlich $55,000 in 2002, according to the group's tax return and Heimlich's state ethics disclosure form.
Incoming Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich has been employed by CCV as a paid consultant for the past year since leaving his Cincinnati City Council seat.
...He says he developed a close relationship with CCV as a city councilman, after Mr. Burress suggested that Cincinnati needed zoning measures to keep sexually-oriented businesses out of the central business district. Mr. Heimlich then successfully spearheaded legislation to do just that in 1996.
3) Based on the commitment to a free press which you expressed in your column, per my previous e-mail, a source informed me that you helped kill a KING5 News (Seattle) report about a 1976 research study about foreign body airway obstruction by Dr. Charles W. Guildner by threatening executives at the station with legal action. Is that true? If so, why did you do it?
4) Does (your wife and my sister-in-law Rebecca Simpson Heimlich, a longtime Koch brothers employee) plan to join you in voting for Democrats in national races in the upcoming mid-terms? Also, re: the photo of Rebecca and Corey Lewandowski (above), was that taken at the 2016 National Republican Convention? If not, what's the source?
5) Who's your supervising editor at the Enquirer?
Thanks for your continued time/attention and if you intend to respond, would you please get back to me by end of the day tomorrow?
Your brother, Peter
Peter M. Heimlich
Peachtree Corners, GA 30096
ph: (208)474-7283
website: http://medfraud.info
blog: http://the-sidebar.com
e-mail: peter.heimlich@gmail.com
Twitter: @medfraud_pmh
I haven't received a reply. Also I left a voice message and sent a couple of e-mails to Kevin Aldridge, the Enquirer's opinion editor, asking for the name of Phil's supervising editor. I haven't received a reply -- PMH
A few months ago, the Cincinnati Enquirer's Politics Extra column ran an item by reporter Jason Williams about the latest media venture by my older brother Phil, Heimlich maneuvers to 'radical middle':
Heimlich, 64, has never come back to politics since that bruising and brutally expensive 2006 loss to Democrat David Pepper in the commissioner's race. Heimlich has no plans to come back, but the Republican still loves to talk politics. Last fall, he resurrected his "Hard Truths" podcast on iTunes and philheimlich.com. It's where you can get your fill of Phil.
...Politics Extra isn't sure anyone's listening yet, but Heimlich is hoping to gain a national following.
Based on articles in the New York Times and New York Daily News, both dated August 29, 1941, Phil (and his engineer/announcer Rob Reider) give big ups to our dad for having saved the life of a man in a dramatic high-profile train wreck the previous day.
At
age 21, after spending the summer working as a counselor at a summer
camp in Lenox, Massachusetts, he and hundreds of campers were heading
home when the train derailed in South Kent, Connecticut. Cars overturned
into the adjacent Hatch Pond, leaving two train workers dead and one
pinned down in four feet of water, his leg trapped under a car. Dad told
the reporters he held the man's head above the water until help
arrived. (To the best of my knowledge, he was interviewed at the train
terminal in New York City, presumably Grand Central.)
Phil also mentions this September 25, 1941 item in the Times. (Note the lab coat. Nice touch by our pa, media-savvy even then.)
What makes this interesting -- and a little spooky -- is that the same day the podcast aired, the newsletter of Connecticut's Kent Historical Society (KHS) published Who Saved Otto Klug? Investigating a 75-year-old mystery, my article about the train wreck.
My dad was no slouch when it came to singing his own praises to anyone in earshot and I was no exception. Most of our time together consisted of him telling me about his achievements and awards, especially after he became famous.
And that was my first problem with the train wreck story – over the decades he never mentioned it to me. I only learned about it in the early months of our research when (my wife Karen Shulman) and I happened upon the 1941 New York Times articles.
My interest was piqued, so about 14 years ago, I decided to take a closer look.
Via public libraries in Connecticut, I obtained copies of every article I could find about the headline-making disaster. I also contacted Marge Smith at the Kent Historical Society who sent me some paperwork from their files and put me in touch with Emily Krizan, whose husband, Joseph Krizan Jr., reportedly participated in rescue efforts at the train wreck, including helping the trapped fireman, whose name was Otto Klug.
Interestingly, none of the articles and none of the people with whom I communicated said anything about any camp counselor (or my father by name) being involved in the rescue.
Instead, they near-unanimously identified a local resident named Jack Bartovic as the person responsible for holding Klug’s head above water for hours.
Presumably Phil was unaware of these facts so last week I e-mailed him my article and these questions:
1) I'd be curious to know your thoughts about the contradictory claims I reported and in the articles posted on this web page I made: http://medfraud.info/OttoKlug.html Please feel free to elaborate.
2) Per my article, Henry never told Karen or me about the train wreck and no one else in the family (including you) ever mentioned it. We only learned about it in the early months of our research into Henry's career when we happened upon the two 1941 New York Times articles. Approximately when did you first become aware of the train wreck story and how did you hear about it?
3) In your podcast you read from the August 29, 1941 New York Daily News article about the wreck. I'd seen that article pasted-up in Henry's 2014 memoir [see below] but the text is too small to read. I haven't yet been able to obtain a copy of the article, so I was pleased to learn you've got one. Would you please send me a copy so I can check it out and add it to my web page?
I got a confirmation of receipt but no further communications.
I was especially interested in his answer to my second question.
That is, when did Phil first become aware of the train wreck story? Did dad keep him in the dark, too?
Here's a video clip of Phil relating the train wreck story while introducing dad at a January 27, 2015 event hosted by the Cincinnati Business Courier. (He was receiving the newspaper's Health Care Hero award, an honor reportedly arranged by his longtime attorney, Joe Dehner).
The way Phil tells it, it sounds like the first time he heard about the train wreck may have been eight months earlier when he came across the New York Times in the course of helping our parents move.
So I e-mailed the video clip from the awards event to Phil and asked if that was accurate.
Again I received his confirmation of receipt, but no further communications.
Apparently I'm on my brother's do-not-respond list, so if anyone asks Mr. Hard Truths about this, I'm curious to know how he responds. Click here for my contact info.
Via my father's 2014 memoir, Heimlich's Maneuvers.
Also in part I, on Tuesday I fact-checked what appeared to be these factual errors.
Radel claimed that the American Red Cross (ARC) did not use the term "Heimlich maneuver" in their first aid literature because my father demanded that they remove his name. In an e-mail in which I copied Bhatia, I asked the ARC if that was accurate.
Radel also reported that the Wright Brothers and George Washington Carver received the Lasker Award. I e-mailed the Lasker Foundation and got a prompt, courteous reply from David Keegan, the organization's Awards Program Director who confirmed Radel got that wrong.
Peter: We will run a correction on the Lasker awards. I would note it was correct that your father won the award. We already fixed the bad headline. Otherwise, we leave you to your blog.
Peter Bhatia Editor and Vice President, The Cincinnati Enquirer, and Ohio editor for the USA TODAY Network
Thank you for the heads-up and for the fixes, although I didn't appreciate your snide remark. Why blame me for catching reportorial errors when a lightweight like Cliff was assigned to write an obituary for someone as newsworthy and important as my father?
Based on your recent e-mail, my understanding is that the Enquirer has no intention of correcting the Belle Jacobson error; no interest in addressing Fred Webster's contradiction of my father's
dubious tale about the Chinese soldier; and no interest in including anything about my father falsely claiming credit for inventing the esophagus operation.
I also asked you for the name of Cliff's editor on the obit. Can you share that, please?
Finally, re: this from Cliff's article:
The Red Cross’ inclusion of the back
slaps offended Heimlich. So, in 1976, he asked the organization to remove his name from their first-aid literature for choking. That’s why the term "abdominal thrusts" is used.
Per my Monday inquiry to you, that last sentence is contradicted by information from the American Red Cross. I have an inquiry to the ARC and will let you know the result.
A journalist and reader's representative doesn't care whether or not his newspaper is providing readers with accurate information and also refuses to disclose the name of a supervising editor?
Whose idea was it to revisit this obscure story? I wanted to learn how it got into the paper, who was the supervising editor, and shouldn't the article be appended with a note informing readers that the treatment was unapproved and might injure or perhaps kill someone?
Joanne Lipman Senior Vice President, Chief Content Officer Gannett Inc.
Dear Ms. Lipman:
This is a complaint against Peter Bhattia of the Cincinnati Enquirer for professional misconduct. Would you please review the following and forward this e-mail to the responsible human resources managers at Gannett and the Enquirer? I would appreciate being copied on those e-mails.
Per the e-mails below my signature, today I fact-checked and tagged one of those errors -- Mr. Radel incorrectly reported that the Wright Brother and George Washington Carver received the Lasker Award. After I shared that information with Mr. Bhatia -- an e-mail to me from an executive at the Lasker Foundation -- he agreed to publish a correction for that error. He also agreed to correct the headline on Mr. Radel's article which erroneously identified my father as a Cincinnati native. (Per my e-mail to Mr. Bhatia, the headline error was tagged and reported by former Enquirer reporter Ben Kaufman in his most recent Cincinnati CityBeat media watch column.)
However, for reasons that remain unclear, Mr. Bhatia refused to address the other apparent errors I brought to his attention.
Further -- and considerably more disconcerting -- in an e-mail this afternoon he terminated our correspondence despite the fact that in an e-mail a few minutes earlier, I informed him that I had a fact-checking inquiry in to the American Red Cross (ARC) regarding this questionable information in Mr. Radel's article:
The Red Cross’ inclusion of the back slaps offended (Dr.) Heimlich. So, in 1976, he asked the organization to remove his name from their first-aid literature for choking. That’s why the term “abdominal thrusts” is used.
To reiterate, Mr. Bhatia made it clear he did not care how the ARC might respond to my inquiry. In other words, he did not care whether the information in Radel's article was accurate or not.
Shortly after receiving Mr. Bhatia's e-mail terminating our correspondence, I received the following e-mail. Please note that Mr. Bhatia was copied by Mr. Lauritzen.
Please accept our condolences regarding the passing of your father.
Following are responses to your questions.
Throughout history, the American Red Cross has recommended different protocols for removing foreign body obstructions blocking airways based on the most up-to-date science available on First Aid, CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care. Our current recommendation is using cycles of 5 back blows and 5 abdominal thrusts to treat conscious choking children and adults. For conscious choking infants, the Red Cross recommends using cycles of 5 back blows and 5 chest thrusts.
The American Red Cross uses the term ‘abdominal thrusts’ in our training materials because it describes the action that people are performing. The term represents the correct medical and generic term used in evidence reviews and guidelines documents. We do not have any record of Dr. Heimlich prohibiting us from using the term ‘Heimlich Maneuver’ and are not aware of the use of the term in any American Red Cross training materials including those developed before 1976.
Thank you.
Don Lauritzen
Communications Officer
American Red Cross
National Headquarters
431 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
202.303.4775
Since Mr. Bhatia terminated his correspondence
with me, this is to request that you contact a responsible editor
at the Enquirer and arrange for a published correction to Mr.
Radel's article based on Mr. Lauritzen's e-mail.
2) As you may recall from my correspondence with
you last summer, in response to multiple polite requests,
without explanation Mr. Bhatia refused to provide me with the
name of the supervising editor for this August 18, 2016
Enquirer article, 15 years later: Lifeguard, swimmer recall close call by Brett Milam.
Today Mr. Bhatia also refused to provide me with name of the
editor responsible for Mr. Radel's obituary of my father.
This is to request that you contact a responsible
editor at the Enquirer, obtain the names of the supervising
editors on those two articles, and that you provide me with
those names.
3) In order to determine if Mr. Radel's article requires further
correcting, would you also please ask a responsible editor to
review the other reportorial concerns about Mr. Radel's article
which I brought to Mr. Bhatia's attention and which he refused to
address?
4) Finally, this is to request that your office provide me with a
determination if Mr. Bhatia's actions are in compliance with
Gannett policy.
Thank you for your
time/consideration and I look forward to your reply.
Michael Kilian, The Enquirer
Ben Kaufman, Cincinnati CityBeat
Yesterday Ms. Lipman e-mailed me that she'd turned the matter over to Brent Jones.
Here's the original and the revised headline on Radel's article:
The article is now appended with:
Even though Bhatia was informed by Don Lauritzen, at this writing the false information about the American Red Cross acceding to my father's demands is still in Radel's article.
At this writing, the USA Today version of the obit still includes this error:
Finally, I sincerely appreciated Don Lauritzen's kind condolence note and I promptly e-mailed him a warm thank-you.
In e-mails he sent me yesterday, Cincinnati Enquirer editor Peter Bhatia made it clear that -- and I am not exaggerating -- he did not care whether or not information in a published article was factually correct or accurately reported.
I've never filed a complaint against a journalist, but I thought his behavior merited it, so yesterday I filed a complaint of professional misconduct against Bhatia with Joanne Lipman, senior vice president and chief content officer of Gannett Inc., the Enquirer's parent company.
Here's what happened.
According to a 2015 Enquirer item,
"(Bhatia helped) lead newsrooms that won nine Pulitzer Prizes, including
(six at the Portland Oregonian). He also is a six-time Pulitzer juror."
Based on that impressive resume, I wanted to solicit and blog his expert opinion about what appeared to be a number of reportorial problems and factual errors in reporter Cliff Radel's obituary of my father in the December 17, 2016 Enquirer, Cincy native Dr. Henry Heimlich dies at 96.
After graduating from Cornell Medical College in 1943, Heimlich enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Before he could be assigned to a ship, he volunteered to go to China on a mission...
He treated Chinese civilians and soldiers. “One night as the war was coming to an end in 1945, a Chinese soldier was brought to me with a chest wound,” Heimlich said. “I operated on him. But he died in my hands.
“The next day, I was feeling terrible.” Hoping to lift his spirits, he went for a ride on one of the horses assigned to the 12 American GIs. As he rode toward a nearby town, the Navy surgeon crossed paths with an oxcart.
“The cart was carrying the remains of that Chinese soldier,” Heimlich said. His voice quaked with emotion 68 years after the first seeing that cart.
“I never forgot that sight,” he said. “And, I never forgot how he died in my hands.” He wondered if he could have done more. He worried that if he had known more about draining chest wounds, the man might have lived."
As I informed Bhatia, that tale was disputed in an article (for which I was a source), Henry Heimlich: Polarizing Doctor by veteran Cincinnati reporter Lucy May, WCPO Insider Monthly, March 2014:
Heimlich has spoken publicly many times about how a Chinese soldier dying in his arms inspired his invention of the Heimlich Chest Drain Valve years later. He told WCPO he trained Chinese soldiers to form their first-ever medical corps for the guerilla army, an account repeated in his book.
Frederick Webster said he served as assistant to “Doc Heimlich” at Camp 4. Webster said he doesn’t recall the dying soldier or any medical corps training, although he said there were a few weeks where the men’s service there did not overlap.
“You really can’t believe any of the stories the veterans tell you,” said Webster, who is 93 and lives in (Orleans) Vermont. “The Chinese soldiers never seriously needed help.”
Webster told WCPO detailed stories of how Heimlich treated the Chinese and life at the camp.
Heimlich said he doesn’t remember Webster and questioned whether the two men actually served together.
“He doesn’t mean anything to me at all,” Heimlich said.
I didn't expect Radel to have been aware of the information in May's report, but since my father's story had been contradicted two years ago in a mainstream Queen City news source, I was curious to know if Bhatia thought the obituary should be updated to include Webster's version of events.
Radel's article also failed to report that in a March 16, 2003 Sunday Enquirer front page expose (based on research by my wife and me and our outreach to reporter Robert Anglen), Dr. Dan Gavriliu of Bucharest called my father "a liar and a thief" because, for decades my father falsely claimed credit for a surgical procedure Gavriliu invented.
I'd appreciate your help with a clarification, please. If you can get back to me by tomorrow (Wednesday), that would be great. If you need more time, please advise and I'll do my best to accommodate.
Current (American) Red Cross first-aid protocol for someone who's choking calls for five back slaps first. Then, if needed, follow with five of the maneuver's abdominal thrusts. The Red Cross's inclusion of the back slaps offended Heimlich. So, in 1976, (Dr. Heimlich) asked the (American Red Cross) to remove his name from their first-aid literature for choking.That's why the term "abdominal thrusts" is used.
According to ARC materials and media reports I've seen, your organization's decision to use the term abdominal thrusts had nothing to do with any demands made by my father.
1) Per my blog yesterday, I brought the matter to the attention of Enquirer editor/VP Peter Bhatia.
2) My wife and I have been invited to write an article about the history of my father's namesake maneuver and we may wish to include this issue.
In order to resolve the matter, would you please provide me with a straightforward, unambiguous statement explaining why the ARC uses the term abdominal thrusts and whether or not input from my father had anything to do with that decision?
Thanks much for your time/consideration and I look forward to your reply.
Tomorrow in I'll publish the ARC's response, but I won't keep you in suspense.
Radel got it all wrong, probably because, rather than asking the Red Cross, he took dictation from my nonagenarian father who -- and I've credited him for this -- has been punking Enquirer reporters for four decades, most recently last May.
Yesterday I e-mailed the Lasker Foundation and asked if/when the Wilbur, Orville, and George Washington Carver received the award.
I received this prompt reply which I forwarded to Bhatia and USA Today's Standards & Ethics Editor, Brent Jones:
Dear Peter,
Neither the Wright Brothers nor George Washington Carver were ever recognized with Lasker Awards.
The Lasker Awards program dates to 1945. The first Basic and Clinical Lasker Awards were given in 1946.
A complete list of Lasker awardees can be found on our website: http://www.laskerfoundation.org/awards/ (and you can search any name using the “search” tool in the top navigation).
Hope that helps.
Best wishes,
David
David Keegan Awards Program Director Lasker Foundation 405 Lexington Avenue, 32nd Floor New York, NY 10174 212-286-0222 dkeegan@laskerfoundation.org
1) Heimlich decided to become a doctor, as he related in 2013,
“when I was a child. We had a female physician, Dr. Belle
Jacobson, who came to the house. A female doctor was a rarity
back then. And female doctors were viewed with great prejudice.
But having her for my doctor seemed normal to me.” Dr. Jacobson served as calming influence in the Heimlich
household. “When someone was sick or injured in the house, there
was a feeling of terror,” he recalled. “But, when she walked
into the house, everybody calmed down. They knew everything
would be taken care of.”
"I think some of his (Henry
Heimlich's) ideas are delusional," said Robert S. Baratz,
physician president of the Massachusetts-based National Council
Against Health Fraud...
Perhaps my father's recollection of Dr.
Jacobson was one of those delusions? In any event, do you think
Cliff's article should be updated with the information that she
was his business partner in the Heimlich Medical Group? 2) “One night as the war was coming to an
end in 1945, a Chinese soldier was brought to me with a chest
wound,” (Dr.) Heimlich said. “I operated on him. But he died in
my hands. “The next day, I was feeling terrible.”
Hoping to lift his spirits, he went for a ride on one of the
horses assigned to the 12 American GIs. As he rode toward a
nearby town, the Navy surgeon crossed paths with an oxcart. “The cart was carrying the remains of
that Chinese soldier,” Heimlich said. His voice quaked with
emotion 68 years after the first seeing that cart. “I never forgot that sight,” he said.
“And, I never forgot how he died in my hands.” He wondered if he
could have done more. He worried that if he had known more about
draining chest wounds, the man might have lived.
Via Polarizing
Doctor by Lucy May, WCPO Insider Monthly, March 2014:
Dr. Heimlich zealously promoted
lifesaving procedures and techniques he invented or refined.
Besides the first-aid rescue maneuver introduced in 1974, these
advances included a...surgical procedure he helped develop in
the 1950s for people with severe esophageal damage
...In later decades, a dispute arose over whether Dr. Heimlich
had purposely underplayed the contribution of a Romanian surgeon
who performed the procedure on a person before he did. That
doctor, Dan Gavriliu, called Dr. Heimlich a “liar and thief”
when the Cincinnati Enquirer contacted him in 2003 for an investigative story
about Dr. Heimlich’s career.
Cliff's article includes no mention of the esophagus
operation or my father getting busted by Enquirer. (As
you know, Robert Anglen's 2003 expose was based on research by
my wife and me.) And last
May the Enquirer again reported the information. Therefore,
to some readers, Cliff's failure to report the information may
seem conspicuous by its absence.
What's your opinion?
4) The Red Cross’ inclusion of the back slaps offended
Heimlich. So, in 1976, he asked the organizationto remove his name from their first-aid literature for
choking. That’s why the term “abdominal thrusts” is used.
That last sentence is contradicted by published information from
the American Red Cross (ARC), so I'm trying to verify the accuracy
of Cliff's assertion. Who at the ARC provided him with the
information and on what date?
5) From data
complied by the Cincinnati-based Heimlich Institute, the
(Heimlich maneuver) has saved the lives of more than 100,000
choking victims...
My wife and I have been researching my father's career since
2002 and we've never heard of the Heimlich Institute compiling
any such data. Would you please ask Cliff if he has any more
information and, if not, would you please ask him or another
Enquirer staffer to contact the Heimlich Institute to
substantiate what specific data was collected (the data
sources?, during what years?, etc.) and let me know the results?
Before coming to the Queen City,
the Wilmington, Delaware native...
...so presumably it was the headline writer's goof.
In any event, do you think the online headline should be
corrected? 7)The Lasker
Awards, dubbed, “America’s Nobels” recognize scientists,
including the Wright Brothers and George Washington Carver, “who
have made major advances in the understanding, diagnosis,
treatment, cure and prevention of human disease.”
In what years were the Wright Brothers and George Washington
Carver awarded the Lasker? 8) Who was the supervising editor on Cliff's
article?
Believe it or not, there are other problems with the article, but
I don't want to take up more of my time or yours. (If you're
curious, just ask and I'll fill you in.)
Big thanks for your time/attention and I look forward to receiving
your answers. If you can get back to me by Friday, that would be
great, but if you need more time, please advise and I'll do my
best to accommodate.
Robert S. Baratz MD PhD
Ben Kaufman
Lucy May Cindy Capitani, New Rochelle
Daily Voice Maya Brainard PhD,
Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation
Joanne Lipman, Senior
Vice President and Chief Content Officer, Gannett Inc. Brent Jones, Standards Editor, USA Today
The IRS filed personal income tax liens on his Indian Hill home and another condo downtown for a total of nearly $9.5 million, according to filings with the Hamilton County Recorder’s office.
Earlier this month, Chesley and his wife, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott, put the 21,000-foot Indian Hill home up for sale for $8 million, which would make it one of the most expensive houses in Hamilton County history.
As I reported a few years ago, in 2004 on behalf of my family Chesley sent two proffer letters to my wife Karen and me which -- based on our previous (and subsequent) interactions with him -- we interpreted as an attempt to arrange a deal to try and stop us from exposing my father as a dangerous charlatan.
A recent Cincinnati Enquirer story
went global, aided and abetted by the Associated Press. It was perfect
click bait. The story said that at 96, Cincinnatian Henry Heimlich used
his Maneuver for the first time to save a life (of a purported choking victim, 87-year-old Patty Ris, at the Deupree House senior residence*).
...After Peter Heimlich alerted The Enquirer and others to a similar claim (his father had made) years ago, the paper backed away from the novelty. It assigned a second reporter to redo the story, adding and explaining doubts about the “first” in the longest crawl-back I can remember.
Peter Heimlich told me that in addition to The Enquirer and AP, “these are some of the news outlets I filed corrections requests with last week: CNN, NBC News, The New York Daily News, and WCPO-TV. At this writing, none have corrected the errors.”
* Reporters at McKnight's and Slate have questioned the veracity of the Deupree House story. So have I.
#####
Since Spring 2003, my father has been thoroughly exposed as a medical charlatan, a serial liar, and a con man in scores of media reports, two of the first being these Sunday front-pagers in the Cincinnati Enquirer (based on research by my wife Karen and me).
It's tough to prove someone intentionally lied and Rosemeyer's story included some verbal acrobatics perhaps intended to step around that dead elephant in the room:
Maybe Henry Heimlich simply misremembered. Or maybe news reports from the early 2000s simply weren't true.
Either way, there's an irresolvable conflict: When did Dr. Heimlich first perform his namesake maneuver?
A month ago, just a few days before National Heimlich Maneuver Day, the Cincinnati doctor said he'd finally used it for the first time. He's 96 years old, and he invented the move to help choking victims more than 40 years ago.
Pretty incredible that he hadn't used it before then, right?
Except Heimlich apparently told the BBC in 2003 he'd performed it three years earlier, in 2000.
...Several other media outlets also covered that earlier story.
...The doctor's son, Phil Heimlich, said he, his sister and father have no recollection of the incident 16 years ago.
"It would have been a major news story, so we would have remembered," he said.
Presumably the "irresolvable conflict" could be resolved by asking my father, but the story didn't include any quotes from Dr. Maneuver or any indication that he'd been contacted, so I asked Rosemeyer about that.
He replied, "Phil said Henry had some health problems since last month, so he was calling me back instead."
Is this the first time Dr. Heimlich has ever used the maneuver to save a life?
“Yes, this is,” he said Friday. “I originally did my research studies that led to my developing it, which was in 1974, and I never considered that I would be doing it myself.”
The record is murky in that regard. A BBC article in 2003 quoted the doctor, then 83, describing a similar encounter where he tried the maneuver on a fellow diner, a man, although the story lacked details such as a precise date, location and name. A New Yorker article in 2006 made reference to a similar incident, also without details. But a son, Phil Heimlich, said his father had never mentioned any previous incidents to him. The doctor himself did not return a follow-up call.
Finally, if my father's ill, I wish him a speedy recovery.
And when he's better, I'd encourage reporters to interview him to perhaps resolve the "irresolvable conflict."
And if any reporters need someone on the record calling him a liar, I'm available.
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):
When he heard that a resident was choking, Perry Gaines, maître d’ for the Deupree House dining room, ran toward the table.
...When Gaines arrived at the table, Dr. Henry Heimlich, a 96-year-old resident of the Deupree House who invented the famous technique for clearing a blocked airway, was standing behind the woman, ready to perform it.
Typically, a staff member would do it. “But,” Gaines said, pausing, “it is Dr. Heimlich.”
Heimlich, who swims and exercises regularly, was able to dislodge a piece of hamburger that had become stuck in 87-year-old Patty Ris’s airway.
...Monday’s incident at the Deupree House was the first time Heimlich...used it to stop someone from choking, he said.
The first time?
Not according to what my father told these four reporters in articles from 2001 through 2006.
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
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."
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.
Via Choke Artist by Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, May 8, 2006:
Dr. Heimlich himself said the other day that he has performed the move only once, in Cincinnati.
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.
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.)
Monday might not have been the first time Dr. Henry Heimlich performed his namesake medical procedure on a live choking victim.
...Heimlich told The Enquirer Thursday his encounter with Patty Ris at the Deupree House senior living facility, where they both live, was the first time he ever performed it on a person needing immediate aid. However, several published reports in the early 2000s from news outlets ranging from the BBC to the Chicago Sun-Times show interviews with Heimlich describing himself using the maneuver. In one interview, he said he helped a man at the former private dining club, the Banker's Club, in Downtown Cincinnati in 2001.
...Cincinnati.com initially published a story late Thursday about the incident, quoting Heimlich as saying this was the first time he'd ever performed his own maneuver on someone. But then one of his sons, Peter Heimlich, reached out to media organizations pointing out the existence of articles roughly 15 years ago.
Not even my brother Phil -- who for decades has been my father's right-hand man and attack dog -- would back him up this time:
Another son, local attorney Phil Heimlich, said he doesn't recall those media reports.
"All I can say is none of us had a recollection of it," Phil Heimlich said. "If dad did it, I would’ve heard about it."
This video clip may be the reason why.
It comes from a five-minute video interview of Phil that was widely-distributed to the media last week by Episcopal Retirement Services, which owns and operates Deupree House (more about that below):
Then the Enquirer's coup de grâce:
...It isn't the first time Heimlich's statements have been challenged. In 2003, The Enquirer reported that Romanian surgeon Dr. Dan Gavriliu disputed statements from the Cincinnati doctor that he developed an operation that uses a section of the stomach to bypass the esophagus. The Romanian doctor claimed Heimlich took credit for a procedure he developed years earlier.
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:
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:
