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Sounds nice except for this big problem.

Heimlich Heroes teaches the public to perform "the Heimlich" (abdominal thrusts) on infants.



To my knowledge, no legitimate medical organization or medical expert recommends the treatment for babies.

Why not?

According to e-mails I received from executives at the American Heart Association (Greg Donaldson) and the American Red Cross (Don Lauritzen), performing abdominal thrusts on infants "may cause injuries."

Further, to my knowledge there has never been any published research on the subject.

In other words, Heimlich Heroes has apparently taught 100,000 people that, when confronted with a life or death situation with your baby, you should perform an unapproved, experimental, potentially-harmful medical treatment.

Who would be reckless enough to recommend that?

As widely reported, my wife Karen and I helped expose my dad as a dangerous quack who, after he was fired for misconduct at his last medical job, spent the rest of his career as a celebrity doctor who used the press to circulate unfounded, experimental medical treatments that put lives at risk.

One was "the Heimlich" for choking infants, a claim he apparently pulled out of thin air.

Here's one good question.

Why is Cincinnati's nonprofit Deaconess Associations Inc. (DAI in the above graphic) funding and promoting this dangerous hokum?

Here's another.

Will a mainstream news outlet report this story before someone's baby is inadvertently injured or worse as a result of the Heimlich Heroes program?

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(From my letter today to the Texas Department of Public Health Services, posted below -- click here to download a copy.)

This is to request your help regarding a first aid program that's scheduled to be presented next month to thousands of Texas students.

1) Via Heimlich maneuver on unconscious persons causes controversy by Nick Kammerer, Rambler Newspapers (Irvine), November 24, 2014:

Heimlich Heroes, a Cincinnati-based first aid program developed partly by Henry Heimlich, is teaching students to perform the Heimlich maneuver on unconscious choking victims. This means that school children are being taught a medical practice that is not recommended by the American Heart Association or Red Cross, two highly credible public health organizations.

2) Eric Perez MD is an emergency medicine specialist at Mount Sinai St. Luke's Hospital in New York City who reviews medical treatments published by the National Library of Medicine (under the aegis of the National Institutes of Health). Per a February 3, 2015 item I reported on my blog, Dr. Perez recently wrote me, “To my knowledge, there is no definitive evidence for or against performing abdominal thrusts (on) unconscious patient(s).”

Further, to my knowledge the Heimlich Heroes program has never been reviewed or approved by any licensed physicians.

Therefore, it appears the program is using students to circulate an unapproved, experimental medical treatment.

Yesterday I blogged about the recklessness and incompetence of a Cincinnati first aid organization called Heimlich Heroes that's mistraining thousands of kids around the country.

Posted a couple days ago on the group's Facebook page:


Only one problem.

The story's a spoof that originated two years ago from an Onion-style "news" outlet:


Via:


2/10/15 UPDATE: How pathetic is this? 

Days after I blogged the above item, here's a screenshot of the same Facebook post, but with some added words:


Hey there, Heimlich Heroes! 

Even though you're an incompetent operation that's mistraining students around the country, I'm glad you're following my blog -- I can use all the readers I can get. 

But when you get snookered, why not just laugh it off instead of trying to lie your way out of it?

Via Heimlich family maneuvers by Peter Korn, Portland Tribune, April 12, 2007:

"(Dr. Heimlich's) ideas are insane," (said Robert Baratz MD PhD, president of the National Council Against Health Fraud). "Some of his ideas are delusional. He has been experimenting on human beings for most of his career, and he's no different than the Nazi experimenters. There isn't one iota of scientific basis for this except that Heimlich said so."

Per this screenshot from the website of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute, for decades my father has been recommending that the Heimlich maneuver (aka abdominal thrusts) be used to revive unconscious choking victims.

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I've been unable to locate any published research studies supporting that treatment recommendation. (If you know of any, please send me citations.)  

Via the website of the affiliated Heimlich Heroes first aid training program:


Click here for a page on the organization's website listing dozens of cities and towns where kids have been or will be trained. The list doesn't identify who conducted the training or at what facility or school.

Via this clip from training videos posted on their website, Heimlich Heroes is teaching kids around the country to "Heimlich" unconscious choking victims:



According to her LinkedIn bio, Heimlich Heroes program director Terri Huntington has no medical training and her last job was working for a multi-level marketing company called The Pampered Chef.

When I asked her for any evidence supporting the use of "the Heimlich" to revive unconscious choking victims, she instructed me to go away.

Eric Perez MD is an emergency medicine specialist at Mount Sinai St. Luke's Hospital in New York City who reviews medical treatments posted on the website of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (under the aegis of the National Institutes of Health).

Via a January 6, 2015 e-mail, he wrote me:

To my knowledge, there is no definitive evidence for or against performing abdominal thrusts in unconscious patients.

Via Heimlich maneuver on unconscious persons causes controversy by Nick Kammerer, Rambler Newspapers, Irvine, TX, November 24, 2014:

Certain entities, such as the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross, do not recommend using the Heimlich maneuver on unconscious patients......Heimlich Heroes, a Cincinnati-based first aid program developed partly by Henry Heimlich, is teaching students to perform the Heimlich maneuver on unconscious choking victims. This means that school children are being taught a medical practice that is not recommended by the American Heart Association or Red Cross, two highly credible public health organizations.

Based on the above, unless I'm missing something, Heimlich Heroes appears to be using young people around the country to circulate an experimental, unapproved medical treatment.

The program was also recently tagged by the National Institutes of Health for circulating false information.

Here's a claim that, until recently, was posted on the Heimlich Heroes website's FAQ page:


Via a recent FOIA request I filed with the NIH:



The Heimlich Heroes FAQ web page has since changed the claim to:


I'll fact-check that claim with those three organizations and report the results.


This item has been slightly revised for clarity.

Longtime Heimlich Institute publicist Melinda Zemper wrote me that she's personal friends with Jason Schmidt, who's making a documentary about my father -- she helped fund Schmidt's project and sent out a press release to help with his fundraising.

In my previous item, I explained my principal reason for refusing to be interviewed for The Maneuver: The Inside Story of Dr. Henry Heimlich. 

That's the title of a documentary about my father that freelance video editor Jason Schmidt is trying to get off the ground via Media Schmedia LLC, his New York City-based company.

When Schmidt first approached me in April, I bailed pronto after he e-mailed me that he had no problem accepting funding from my father or his "sympathetic associates." He even invited me to steer donors to him:

I imagine you're dancing around the question of whether or not this project is funded by your father or sympathetic associates? If that's the case, you can be assured that no such money has been offered or accepted. Perhaps that will change...and likewise, if you know of any deep-pocketed patrons/benefactors interested in supporting a great project, I'm all ears.

Clearly he's not bothered with pesky concerns like maintaining the appearance of objectivity. 

The part he wrote about "no such money has been offered or accepted. Perhaps that will change"?

In fact, that changed just a few months later, via the project's Kickstarter campaign, which raised about $32,000.

Via Kickstarter, here's one of the backers:


As Sidebar readers know, Melinda Zemper is longtime press agent for my father's nonprofit Heimlich Institute.

Here's a screen shot from Documentary film on Dr. Henry Heimlich in works, Zemper's June 4, 2014 press release hyping the project:


In other words, the Heimlich Institute's press agent funded Schmidt's project via Kickstarter and issued a press release hyping the project in which she steered potential donors to the project.

On June 28, I sent Zemper these questions:

1) I presume you sent out the press release on behalf of your clients, the Heimlich Institute and Deaconess Associations, and that Media Schmedia is not your client, correct?

2) How much money did you contribute via Kickstarter?

3) Do you have any other financial interest in the film?

4) Is your funding of the film your own money or are you being reimbursed by your clients?

Here's her complete reply, dated June 30.

Hello Mr. Heimlich,

You are making wrong assumptions in your email below.

1) I submitted a press release supporting MediaSchmedia [sic] based on a personal friendship I have with Jason Schmidt, not on behalf of any client.

2) How much money I contribute to a Kickstarter campaign is none of your business and not of interest to media you copied on this email. It was a personal donation that is rather small in comparison to his actual needs, but the donation was intended to encourage Schmidt’s first foray into creating independent films. Jason Schmidt is an ethical, competent journalist who has won a variety of awards for his film work. Please view his website: www.jasonschmidt.com

3) No, I do not.

4) The donation is personal; there are no clients involved in my donation to Schmidt’s documentary film on Dr. Heimlich. The film is an independent journalistic endeavor and not underwritten by the Heimlichs. That is why Schmidt implemented a Kickstarter campaign. Oak Tree Communications helped Dr. Heimlich obtain media coverage for his memoir. That project has since been completed and I am not working with Dr. Heimlich at this time.

Melinda Zemper
Oak Tree Communications

Some things I'd like to know.

Does "an ethical, competent journalist" making an ostensibly objective documentary about Henry Heimlich accept funding from Henry Heimlich's publicist?

Does "an ethical, competent journalist" allow Henry Heimlich's publicist to issue a press release hyping the film and encouraging donations?

Wouldn't "an ethical, competent journalist" be aware that these conflicts make him appear to be compromised?

And exactly how did Schmidt and Zemper get to be pals? 

Here's another of my father's "sympathetic associates" from whom Schmidt accepted funding via Kickstarter:


My sister Janet has been one of my father's most ardent defenders in the media, she edited his recently-published memoir, and she appears in this fund raising trailer for Schmidt's documentary. 



Part III: A Problematic "Heimlich Artwork" Kickstarter Premium and My Father's Relationships with Narco Docs

Part IV: Other problems with the film's Kickstarter fund raising campaign

Part V: Jason Schmidt refuses to answer my questions about false and/or problematic claims in his project's Kickstarter funding campaign 

As I reported last week, Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews published corrections to their reviews of my father's forthcoming autobiography being published in a few weeks by Prometheus Books, Heimlich's Maneuvers.

The updated reviews rightly credited the eminent Romanian surgeon, the late Dr. Dan Gavriliu, with inventing a surgical procedure that for decades my father falsely (and shamelessly) claimed to have invented.

Since then I've gotten two more published corrections -- and the book hasn't even been published yet!

Barrett Brunsman (source)

My first score was in Heimlich’s Maneuvers: Autobiography of Cincinnati doctor acknowledges controversy, a January 21st Cincinnati Business Courier feature by staff reporter Barrett Brunsman.

Before getting to that, let me give big ups to Brunsman for his recent article about Queen City attorney Christopher Finney's departure from his own law firm.

"(An) arch-conservative legal activist who has a history of working on anti-gay rights causes," Finney has been my father's attorney for at least a decade.

Per a must-read 2006 Cincinnati CityBeat story by Kevin Osborne about a fanny-slapping freak-out that made Finney the literal butt of ensuing jokes, he also co-owned a real estate business with my brother Phil called Three Centurions:

The company apparently is named after a term coined by millionaire evangelist Bill Gothard, whom (Phil) Heimlich admires.

Back to Brunsman's story about my father's long-delayed memoir, here's a screenshot from the original article:


But per this lengthy correction I obtained from the Voice of America re: reporter Adam Phillips's error-ridden 2009 story, Dr. Henry Heimlich, Medical Innovator:

After I sent him the VOA correction, Brunsman promptly e-mailed me a thank-you and informed me he'd changed "credited with saving the lives of thousands of wounded American soldiers" to:

I replied:

I'd suggest that "hundreds of" is more accurate and informative to readers. Your opinion?

No answer. No further update.

Hundreds of lives, thousands of lives? Like whatever, dude.

Psst, Barrett, if you're reading this, you probably did the right thing by not contradicting my father's claim.

Last year, after the Biz Courier published a story by staff reporter James Ritchie that included critical information about my father, the article was disappeared and editor Rob Daumeyer refused to discuss it.

That's too bad, because I wanted to ask him if someone at Deaconess Associations, the $350 million health care corporation that owns the Heimlich Institute, had pulled his choke chain.

I got another correction from an unexpected venue, a new website called HenryHeimlich.com, apparently set up to promote Heimlich's Maneuvers.

Here's a screen shot last week from my father's bio page on the site:


To quote Borat -- NOT!

Melinda Zemper (source)

So I sent the correct information (which I'd obtained from a New York State agency) to Melinda Zemper, press agent for the Heimlich Institute and Deaconess, and a board member of the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting.

Here's the resulting fix on the page as of today:



To anyone else writing about my father's career, if you need a fact-checker, per Chris Montez's groovy, improbable 1966 hit version of the classic song written by the great Tony Hatch, here's my invitation:

The May issue of Aquatics International, "the only publication devoted exclusively to the commercial and public swimming pool industries," just published Dangerous Maneuvers by Kendra Kozen, a senior editor at the magazine.

Kendra Kozen

Her article may be the stake in the heart of my father's 30-year campaign to promote the use of the Heimlich maneuver (aka abdominal thrusts) to resuscitate drowning victims.

The article is 50% a review of the Heimlich-for-drowning history and 50% about NASCO, a Houston-area lifeguard training company which, against all reason, has been teaching lifeguards to perform the Heimlich on drowning victims for decades. (Click here for a compendium of news reports about that.)

From the AI article:

Here’s what is known about the Heimlich as it relates to drowning prevention: It is not recommended by any medical authority as a rescue technique for drowning. Furthermore, evidence suggests that performing the Heimlich maneuver in an underwater submersion incident actually could be harmful.

Gerald Dworkin (source)

"The Heimlich is not an accepted medical practice as response for drowning victims. Unless the medical authorities - the American Heart Association, Red Cross - were to adopt it, I don’t see how anyone could advocate its use,” says Gerald Dworkin, a consultant with Lifesaving Resources Inc. in Kennebunkport, Maine.

...Heimlich began touting the technique as a means to revive drowning victims almost as soon as it was introduced. In a 1975 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he wrote about Victor H. Esch, MD, of Potomac, Md., claiming that Dr. Esch watched a lifeguard rescue a nearly dead drowning victim at Rehoboth Beach, Del., and then - somewhat miraculously - Esch stepped in to help by applying abdominal thrusts. He claimed to have gotten the idea after reading a recent article about Heimlich’s new choking rescue method, which had been introduced only three months earlier.

According to Heimlich, Esch’s actions revived the victim. Over the next several years he published articles in several other journals, describing at least one other case study where the victim also reportedly was saved by the use of the Heimlich maneuver.

...According to some investigative reports, correspondence from that time indicates that Heimlich operated by threatening other experts, and accusing them of fraud...But information uncovered by Peter Heimlich indicates that actually it was the case studies his father used to support his position that were at issue, and it appears fraudulent, in many instances. 

“For 30 years, my father endlessly trumpeted the cases in the media and in medical journals as proof of his claims,” Peter says. “I fact-checked all the cases and discovered that they ranged from dubious to outright fraud. For example, a couple of doctors who were the alleged rescuers in two of the 'miracle cases' just happened to be longtime buddies of my father, a fact that none of them disclosed.”

One of those was Esch, according to Peter, who says he received verbal confirmation in 2005 that Esch knew Heimlich for many years before the time of the rescue described in JAMA. Esch died in 2010.

The 2005 "verbal confirmation" was during a phone call I had with Dr. Esch. He told me he'd known my father since the early 1950s, but said he didn't remember how they met.

Victor H. Esch MD (1922-2010)

I first learned about their longtime relationship in 2003 from reporter Robert Anglen who interviewed Esch for a pending article for the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Anglen's story was spiked, but the information was eventually reported in Tom Francis's November 2005 two-part article published by Radar magazine:

Heimlich cites his own list of cases supporting his maneuver's efficacy against drowning, but the people reporting these cases have prior associations with Heimlich himself. Former Washington, DC, fire surgeon Victor Esch, for example, claimed to have saved a man from drowning at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, in August 1974 by using the Heimlich maneuver. Esch, who told me he has known Henry Heimlich for decades, can offer no hospital reports or witnesses. And he has told several different versions of the same story. During the course of one interview he told me that the incident happened at Rehoboth Beach, only to deny it five minutes later and insist that it happened at another beach.

Esch, whose primary residence was in Potomac, also owned a condo in Rehoboth Beach. According to Wiki:

The town often bills itself as "The Nation's Summer Capital" due to the fact that it is a frequent summer vacation destination for Washington, D.C., residents as well as visitors from Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Vacationers are drawn for many reasons, including the town's charm, artistic appeal, and nightlife.

Still famous for its beaches, wooden boardwalk, eclectic shops, amusements, and sporting activities, today's Rehoboth Beach is also known as one of the mid-Atlantic coast's popular gay and lesbian getaways because of the large number of gay-owned and operated businesses and because of the gay-frequented stretch of beach near Queen Street, known as Poodle Beach.

From reporter Tom Jackman's article last year in the Washington Post, here's one of the side effects of the phony case reports my father and his buddies cooked up and used to urge the public to perform the Heimlich on drowning victims:

In Tampa, which has one of the highest drowning rates in the country, Dr. James Orlowski said he has documented nearly 40 cases where rescuers performing the Heimlich maneuver have caused complications for the victim. Orlowski is chief of pediatrics and pediatric intensive care at University Community Hospital in Tampa.

Some of the victims were children. See for yourself.

In days to come, I'll be taking a closer look at the Esch case and my father's other "miracle cases," some of which are posted on the website of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute.

My father directs lifeguard Serena Levy as she demonstrates the Heimlich maneuver at Cincinnati's Coney Island pool (source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 7/10/99)

From the website of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute:

In June 1998, The Heimlich Institute became a member of Deaconess Associations Inc., to help advance and promote the mission and vision of The Heimlich Institute in perpetuity.

Since then, per the ABC News story below, the mission/vision have fallen on hard times. For years the so-called institute has been nothing more than a web site used to promote my father's potentially lethal crackpot medical claims: the use of the Heimlich maneuver for near-drowning victims, to stop asthma attacks, and to treat cystic fibrosis patients - and to "cure" AIDS by infecting patients with malaria.



Deaconess is a medical services corporation that claims to "enhance the well-being of our patients and communities where DAI has a presence."

It remains unclear how circulating quack claims that may seriously injure or kill people enhances those communities, but according to a recent Cincinnati Business Courier article, there's definitely enhancement in play:

As Deaconess Hospital failed, the man controlling it, Anthony Woods, did well. Woods, chairman and CEO of the hospital’s parent organization, the nonprofit Deaconess Associations Inc., had total pay of nearly $3 million in 2008, according to a tax filing.

By the way, Woods is responsible for bringing the Heimlich Institute into the Deaconess fold in 1998 and is now the HI's Chairman of the Board. Much of the responsibility for the organization's activities clearly rests on his shoulders.

E. Anthony Woods, Chairman, The Heimlich Institute (Cincinnati)

But wait! It turns out that there's another Heimlich Institute, this one operated by Scottsdale, Arizona chiropractor Chris Heimlich:



Based on this paragraph on his website, when it comes to claims about medical care, this other Dr. H is no slouch:

In practice for over 18 years, Dr. Heimlich deals with patients with nearly every type of illness and chronic pain disorder. His areas of interest include low back pain due to herniated discs, neck pain due to herniated discs, spinal stenosis, carpal tunnel syndrome, migraine headaches, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, insomnia/sleep disorders, vertigo/dizziness/balance disorders, restless leg syndrome, IBS also known as irritable bowel syndrome, auto-immune diseases, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, gastrointestinal issues, cardiovascular wellness, diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, developmental learning disorders from ADHD and ADD to Dyslexia, Asperger’s, PDD/NOS, and Autism.

I didn't come across anything on Arizona's Heimlich Institute website about drowning rescue, asthma attacks, or cystic fibrosis. For recommendations on how to treat those ailments - or if you want to be contract malaria - you can contact these people (source):