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Today, our nation celebrates National Heimlich Maneuver Day - along with National Nail Polish Day, National Olive Day, and National Say Something Nice Day. 

About a week ago I reported Ohio Secretary of State (again) cancels existence of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute; is the organization finally down for the count?

Ironically, as a result of me posing that question to Deaconess Associations (the Cincinnati corporation that wholly owns the Institute), they re-upped with the state.

source

Here's the August 3 response I got from Jackie Wiesman, assistant to Deaconess chairman Anthony Woods, a Queen City tycoon who who arranged the acquisition of the Institute in 1998:

Peter: Our office address changed and the recertification request that was sent this past month was not forwarded to the new address. It is being reinstated as we speak. Jackie

Per my previous item, the recertification notice from the state was dated March 22, not this past month -- so Ms. Wiesman got that wrong.

On the other hand, the Institute -- a 501(c)(3) nonprofit -- hasn't had any employees since 2005 when it became nothing but a website.

And as of 2015 the organization had zero assets, so presumably no one's minding the store.

Via the Heimlich Institute's most recent annual IRS filing (2015)

In flusher years, the Institute was the focus of investigations by the CDC, FDA, and the Justice Department for overseeing and funding notorious offshore experiments in which US and foreign patients suffering from Lyme Disease and AIDS were infected with malaria.

The "research" was paid for by hundreds of thousands of dollars from funders including director Ron Howard, actors Jack Nicholson and Bette Midler -- and even Muhammad Ali..

During those years, Woods and my brother Phil Heimlich (a former elected official who was tossed from office in 2006 after a bi-partisan landslide) served on the board of the Institute.

As of 2015, they still did.


Despite considerable related reporting (much of it based on research by my wife Karen and me), to my knowledge, neither Woods nor Phil have ever been asked by reporters about their knowledge and roles in the abusive experiments which bioethics experts have called medical "atrocities."

Moving right along, I sent Ms. Wiesman at Deaconess these follow up questions:

1) Are you able to provide me with the current assets of the Heimlich Institute (HI)? Per my blog item, the most recent IRS 990 (2015) shows bupkis.

2) Who are the current members of the HI board?

3) My understanding is that the HI has no employees. Is that accurate? If so, in what year did the organization last have employees?

4) My understanding is that the HI is currently an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Is that accurate? 

Her reply:

Peter: Not at liberty to disclose this information.

Here's another question.

Now that it's a shell of an organization, should the Heimlich Institute still be entitled to 501(c)(3) nonprofit status?

I'll ask the IRS and will report the results.

UPDATE: August 13, 2017, Dept. of Irony: The Heimlich Institute resuscitates itself after I informed them Ohio had terminated their corporate status.


Via A Letter from Henry J. Heimlich, M.D., The Heimlich Institute's Caring World newsletter, Vol. One, Issue One, Winter 1998:

The mission of The Heimlich Institute is "Benefiting Humanity Through Health and Peace." When Deaconess Associations Inc. invited the Institute to become affiliated and to move into the Deaconess Hospital complex, it brought together two organizations with the same goal – saving lives. Most meaningful for me is that the creativity of The Heimlich Institute research will now continue in perpetuity. Some say it will be for Cincinnati what the Pasteur Institute is for Paris.

If this letter dated yesterday (with a misspelling of my last name in the address) is any indication, "perpetuity" lasted about 19 years:




Per this 2006 ABC Chicago expose by investigative reporter Chuck Goudie, for over a decade the Institute has been a shell organization without any employees:




Per this screenshot from the Secretary of State's website, this isn't the first time the organization's corporate status has been cancelled and revived, so perhaps it's premature to cast the final shovelful of grave dirt:



On the other hand, from the Institute's most recent -- and perhaps final -- IRS filing (2015), the organization's paltry assets have been zeroed out:



From the same filing, here are the most recent officers of the corporation. As widely reported, my dad died in December, but I'll follow up with my brother Phil and perhaps the others and will report the results.

Via the website of the Heimlich Institute, hosted by Deaconess Associations

As Sidebar readers know, for decades Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute has funded and promoted violative offshore human experiments in which patients suffering from cancer, Lyme Disease, and AIDS have been infected with malaria, a crackpot cure my father called "malariotherapy."

For decades my father's organization also put the public at risk by hyping a string of baseless, experimental, thoroughly-discredited medical treatments such as claiming the Heimlich can revive drowning victims, stop asthma attacks, and cure cystic fibrosis.

His so-called institute -- which, according to IRS filings, hasn't had any employees for nearly a decade, currently has $1000 in assets and is apparently nothing but a website -- has been a subsidiary of Deaconess Associations Inc., a healthcare conglomerate in the Queen City, since June 1998.

A few years ago, Deaconess launched a new venture, a first aid training program called Heimlich Heroes, intended to teach the Heimlich maneuver to kids around the country.

As Sidebar readers also know, Heimlich Heroes is teaching kids -- here we go again -- to perform "the Heimlich" to revive unconscious choking victims, an untested experimental medical treatment that's not recommended by the American Red Cross or the American Heart Association.

Like his other bogus medical claims, apparently my father pulled this out of thin air.

So what happens if a Heimlich Heroes-trained kid hurts or kills someone using the treatment?

I'd rather not find out, so today I filed complaints against Deaconess and the Heimlich Institute -- both 501(c)(3) nonprofits registered with the state of Ohio -- with the IRS and the Ohio Attorney General's Charitable Law Bureau. (In June I filed similar complaints regarding the American Heritage Girls, a "Christ-centered alternative" to the Girl Scouts of America that's partnering with Heimlich Heroes.)

Page down or click here to download a pdf of both letters.

SOURCE

SOURCE

VIA THE HI's MOST RECENT IRS-990 (2011)

From an investigative report that aired last night on FOX-TV's New Jersey affiliate, WWOR:

BRENDA FLANAGAN: Swamped by complaints, Dr. Heimlich's own institute told us last week: 


Here's the complete must-see report, focusing on the National Aquatic Safety Company (NASCO), a Houston-area lifeguard training company that teaches lifeguards to perform the Heimlich (a/k/a abdominal thrusts) on drowning victims at four Jersey Shore water parks: Breakwater Beach (Seaside Heights); Thundering Surf (Beach Haven); Gillian's Island (Ocean City); and Splash Zone (Wildwood).




I'm on-camera at around timestamp 1:15, calling the Heimlich for drowning "a poison idea."


Click here for links to more published reports about NASCO and the Heimlich maneuver including a May 2012 editorial in Aquatics International magazine that includes:

(There) are times when science must be paramount, particularly when going with our gut means using people as guinea pigs. That is essentially what (NASCO) has decided to do in its use of the Heimlich maneuver for drowning rescues.

Here are the current members of the board of the Heimlich Institute:


This item has been updated.

38 years after my father and his cronies started faking case reports to promote the Heimlich maneuver as a drowning rescue method and on the heels of a Special Report by Aquatics International magazine, the Heimlich Institute may finally have given up promoting the treatment.

That's not definitive, but yesterday the main pages promoting the Heimlich for drowning were deleted from the organization's website.

Same goes for the organization's specious claims that the maneuver is effective for treating asthma and cystic fibrosis.


Both treatments have been thoroughly discredited as unproven, useless, and potentially lethal by medical experts and medical organizations including the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, and the American Lung Association.

At this writing, the deleted pages are still available via Google cache. If you click here for the cached version of the Heimlich home page, then hover over "The Heimlich Maneuver" on the main menu bar, here's what comes up:


But go to the Institute's home page today, hover over the same menu bar, and here's what you'll see:

 
If you clicked on the green bar labeled "drowning," it would take you to this contents page with links to articles and information, still available via Google's cache:


Here's what now comes up at http://heimlichinstitute.com/drowning.php, the URL for that page:


Same goes for http://heimlichinstitute.com/asthma.php, the Heimlich for asthma contents page that yesterday looked like this - screenshot courtesy of Google's cache - but is now also HTTP 404:


So has the Institute pulled the plug on both treatments?

That's inconclusive because the Heimlich website still hosts dozens of pages that had been linked to the main drowning and asthma pages. Click here for a list I made.

And the site's home page still includes...


I'll send an inquiry to Deaconess Associations Foundation, which since June 1998 has wholly owned the Heimlich Institute, and will report the results in a follow-up item.

UPDATE, 10:25AM:
my 5/16/12 inquiry to the Heimlich Institute re: whether the organization still promotes the Heimlich maneu...

Current Heimlich Institute corporate board

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):