The Sidebar: heimlich institute

Showing posts with label heimlich institute. Show all posts

Saturday, June 1, 2024

It's "Heimlich Maneuver Day" - meanwhile Cincinnati's notorious Heimlich Institute continues to crumble

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

As Sidebar readers know, the Heimlich Institute is a Cincinnati nonprofit which for decades circulated my father's deadly quackery: infecting patients with malaria to supposedly "cure" cancer, Lyme Disease, and AIDS; the Heimlich maneuver for drowning rescue, whose use resulted in dozens of poor outcome cases including children; the Heimlich maneuver to treat asthma and cystic fibrosis, and other frauds.

Therefore, in the spirit of National Say Something Nice Day, I have something nice to say about this vile enterprise.

It's on life support.

From Letter from Henry J. Heimlich, M.D., published in the Winter 1998 issue of the Heimlich Institute's "Caring World" newsletter, here's some history (emphasis added):

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.

From the same newsletter:

The work of one of the century’s most influential physicians will continue through a new partnership. In June, The Heimlich Institute became a member of Deaconess Associations Inc. Deaconess will assume responsibility for advancing and promoting the mission and vision of The Heimlich Institute in perpetuity.

Four years later, my wife Karen Shulman and I, along other determined critics, started chipping away at the dangerous scams being run out of the Heimlich Institute (HI), an effort that resulted in scores of mainstream print and broadcast reports.

Per this first-rate ABC7 Chicago expose by Chicago investigative reporter Chuck Goudie - in which "one of the century’s most influential physicians" hid behind my mother - by 2005 the HI was a shell; an empty office with no employees.

Since then, it's been an "in name only" organization: no assets, no income, no nothing - except filing near-blank annual IRS filings like this most recent 990-PF dated March 21, 2024.

In other words, "perpetuity" lasted less than seven years.

Here are the two remaining principals, my brother Phil Heimlich (a former high-profile elected official), and E. Anthony "Tony" Woods, the Cincinnati tycoon responsible for making the HI part of Deaconess Associations Inc. about 25 years ago.

Here's a good question.

Decades after the Heimlich Institute collapsed, why are they keeping this defunct organization alive, if only on paper?

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

My letter today to Portsmouth, VA, Navy medical program under fire from "fanatical animal rights group" (PCRM)

Click here to download a pdf version.

August 14, 2019

John Devlin MD, Director
Emergency Medicine Residency Program
Naval Medical Center Portsmouth
620 John Paul Jones Circle
Portsmouth, VA 23708

Dear Dr. Devlin:

I’m the son of the late Henry J. Heimlich MD, known for “the Heimlich maneuver” anti-choking treatment. I have a journalism background and since 2003 research into my father’s career by my wife and me has resulted in scores of mainstream print and broadcast news reports that exposed my father as a remarkable – and dangerous – humbug.

Via an August 9, 2019 press release, Doctors Ask DoD to Investigate Naval Medical Center Portsmouths Live Animal Use:

(The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) has filed a petition for enforcement with the Department of Defense (DoD), requesting that the DoD immediately investigate the use of live animals in medical training occurring at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP).

...“Studies and individuals from the Navy, Army, and Air Force have all concluded that simulator-based training is equivalent to or even superior to live tissue training ,” said John Pippin, MD, FACC, Physicians Committee director of academic affairs.

Per my website and blog, I’ve been a critic of the Washington, DC-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and it’s founding president, Neal Barnard MD, because of his group’s problematic three-decade relationship with my father.

Since PCRM is on the warpath against your program, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share some information which in my opinion raises reasonable questions about whether PCRM’s actions are motivated by evidence-based science or emotion-drivcn allegiance to our four-legged friends.

I’m also including a 1991 letter in which my father appears to thank Dr. Barnard for helping to fund notorious offshore experiments conducted by Cincinnati’s now-defunct Heimlich Institute in which U.S. Lyme Disease patients were infected with malaria, a quack “cure” dad called “malariotherapy.”

Via PCRM’s website:

Mission

The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving and improving human and animal lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research.

Vision

Creating a healthier world through a new emphasis on plant-based nutrition and scientific research conducted ethically, without using animals.

Via a 2011 column, junk science debunker Joseph A."Dr. Joe" Schwarcz PhD, Director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society, expressed a somewhat different opinion:

I consider PCRM to be a fanatical animal rights group with a clear cut agenda of promoting a vegan lifestyle and eliminating all animal experimentation.

Via numerous published articles from 1994 to the present which I’ve compiled on my blog, PCRM has been called an “animal rights” activist group, a perspective that presumably triggered their attempt to disrupt your program.

Along those lines, via this profile of him in the Spring 2011 issue of American Dog magazine, Dr. Pippin minced no words about his priorities:

“I am about animal protection, a position that focuses on ending our abuse and killing of animals for food, research, drug and product testing, education, entertainment, hunting, and all other human purposes,” (Dr. Pippin) says. “I’m also about a fundamental level of animal rights, because I believe that all sentient creatures - human and nonhuman - have an inherent right to freedom from abuse and killing. This means, of course, that I support the no-kill animal shelter movement.”

Two pivotal events led Dr. Pippin to a life of protecting and saving animals. The first was in 1987 when he realized that animal research is not only horribly cruel, but also a fraud that cannot prevent or cure human diseases. This epiphany changed his career and made him a vocal critic of animal experimentation. The second was in 2004, when Dr. Pippin had to choose between continuing to advocate publicly against animal research and keeping his career as founding director of cardiology at Cooper Clinic in Dallas. He chose the animals, and has never regretted the choice.

“Animals have nobody but the animal protection community between them and egregious misuse, abuse, and death at the hands of our species,” he says. “For those of us with true hearts for animals, such evils as eating, wearing, fighting, breeding, imprisoning, hunting, and experimenting on our animal kin must be ended.”

For the past six years, Dr. Pippin has worked full time with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine…

Some may disagree that eating a BLT or wearing leather shoes is “evil,” but clearly Dr. Pippin brings strongly-held personal convictions to his work.

Back to my father, who in 1977 was fired for misconduct from his last hospital job, arguably dad’s most notorious scam was “malariotherapy.” Despite having no background in immunology, from the early 1980s until his death in 2016, dad claimed infecting patients with malaria could cure a variety of diseases.[1]

From the late 1980s until at least 2005, dad’s shady Heimlich Institute conducted a series of unsupervised offshore experiments in which U.S. and foreign nationals suffering from cancer, Lyme Disease, and AIDS were infected with malaria.

Via Scientists Linked to Heimlich Investigated by Robert Anglen, Cincinnati Sunday Enquirer, February 16, 2003:

(Dr. Heimlich's experiments) 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.''

Further, via a 2014 Hollywood Reporter expose, How Dr. Heimlich Maneuvered Hollywood Into Backing His Dangerous AIDS "Cure":

(An) investigation into Heimlich's fundraising efforts was undertaken by the major frauds section of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Fast forward to the day after dad died via a December 17, 2016 media release, The Physicians Committee Remembers Henry J. Heimlich for Innovative Medicine:

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine salutes the life and career of Henry J. Heimlich, M.D., a tremendously innovative and creative scientist. The Heimlich maneuver, for which he is known, has saved countless lives. But it was Dr. Heimlich's unwavering compassion, and his steadfast refusal to support animal experiments, which consistently impressed his colleagues.

In 2005, he gave his name for the Physicians Committee’s Henry J. Heimlich Award for Innovative Medicine, [2] an award that recognizes the ability to see innovative and surprisingly simple solutions to seemingly insurmountable medical issues.

...“Dr. Heimlich was the embodiment of innovation, compassion, and getting the job done,” says Physicians Committee president Neal Barnard, M.D., F.A.C.C. “His work has inspired researchers and medical students to break convention, think creatively, and focus on what counts: saving lives.”

I can’t account for PCRM’s unwavering admiration for my dad which presumably includes “malariotherapy,” described by Lyme Disease patient Cyndi Monahan of New Jersey in Heimlich's Maneuver?, an article in the June 1991 issue of American Health:

"Within two days I started to get fevers as high as 106 degrees"...After Monahan's return from Mexico City, life consisted of hours of fever followed by chills - and intense pain. "My lower back felt like a truck slammed into it and I found that a malaria headache is the most excruciating pain you can imagine." Her New Jersey doctor allowed the malaria to persist untreated for five weeks. During that time she logged 130 "fever hours," when her temperature exceeded 101 degrees. She vomited constantly, lost 40 lb. and required intravenous fluids to compensate for dehydration. "We went until my body couldn't take it anymore," she recalled, "and then I took the antimalarial drug"...

"I'm going back for another treatment," she says. "Dr. Heimlich told me I may have to do it again. He's made all the arrangements with the doctors in Panama."

As it happens, per this letter donated by my dad to the University of Cincinnati’s Henry J. Heimlich Archival Collection, Dr. Barnard may have helped pay for Ms. Monahan’s “treatment”:

May 30, 1991

Neal D. Bernard, M.D.
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
P.O. Box 6322
Washington, D.C. 20015

Dear Neal:

I received your generous donation of $1,000.00 on May 20. Thank you so much for your continuing support of our research projects.

I'm pleased to report our first group of Lyme disease patients has completed malariatherapy at the clinic in Panama and their induced malaria is being cured. In fact, I leave tomorrow so that I can be there this weekend. The results so far are gratifying, and we hope to see even more progress in the weeks to come.

In about an hour, Susan and I will be meeting with Mike Handley to discuss the PSA's to focus on responsible medicine.[3]

Keep in touch. As soon as I have finished documenting our recent malariatherapy group, a report will be sent to you for your interest.

Thought you might care to see the enclosed speech given at graduation of Eastern Virginia Medical College.

Thank you again for your support.

Sincerely,

Henry J. Heimlich
President
The Heimlich Institute
2368 Victory Parkway Suite 410
Cincinnati, OH 45206

Further, for decades Dr. Barnard and his organization advocated my father’s reckless 40-year promotion of the Heimlich maneuver (abdominal thrusts) as a treatment for near-drowning.

Even after research by my wife and me revealed that since 1974 dad used fraudulent case reports to promote his now thoroughly-discredited claims, in letters to newspapers and on ABC 20/20, Dr. Barnard continued to hype the treatment, whose use has reportedly been associated with dozens of poor outcome cases, including children.

So much for “responsible medicine.”

Finally, regarding the use of animals for training or for medical research, I have zero knowledge of the subject, therefore no opinion.

I do, however, have a devil’s advocate question.

Via Pop Goes the Cafe Coronary published in the June 1974 issue of Emergency Medicine in which dad first described the treatment he subsequently named "the Heimlich maneuver."

Every year in the United States, 3900 healthy people strangle on food stuck in their tracheas. That’s more people, by the way, than are killed each year in accidental shootings.

...What's really needed then is a first aid procedure that doesn't require specialized instruments or equipment and can be performed by any informed layman - or even considered by a physician before resorting to tracheostomy with its attendant hazards. So, experimentally at least, I have developed such a procedure. It's been tested only on dogs but I believe the logic of the concept and the favorable findings warrant public dissemination.

...Standing behind the victim, the rescuer puts both arms around him just above the belt line, allowing head, arms, and upper torso to hang forward. Then, grasping his own right wrist with his left hand, the rescuer rapidly and strongly presses into the victim's abdomen, forcing the diaphragm upward, compressing the lungs, and expelling the obstructing bolus.

...The procedure is adapted from experimental work with four 38-pound beagles, in which I was assisted by surgical research technician Michael H. McNeal. After being given an intravenous anesthetic, each dog was "strangled" with a size 32 cuffed endotracheal tube inserted into the larynx. After the cuff was distended to create total obstruction of the trachea, the animal went into immediate respiratory distress as evidenced by spasmodic, paradoxical respiratory movements of the chest and diaphragm. At this point, with a sudden thrust. I pressed the palm of my hand deeply and firmly into the abdomen of the animal a short distance below the rib cage, thereby pushing upward on the diaphragm. The endotracheal tube popped out of the trachea and, after several labored respirations, the animal began to breathe normally. This procedure was even more effective when the other hand maintained constant pressure on the lower abdomen directing almost all the pressure toward the diaphragm.

We repeated the experiment more than 20 times on each animal with the same excellent results When a bolus of raw hamburger was substituted for the endotracheal tube, it, too, was ejected by the same procedure, always after one or two compressions.

Since dad used beagles in his research, if they’d had been around at the time, would PCRM have attempted to shut down the research and thereby presumably derail the development of the Heimlich maneuver which, according to PCRM’s remembrance of my father, “has saved countless lives”?

If someone poses that question to Drs. Barnard, Pippin, and/or Reina Pohl MPH (the media contact on PCRM’s press release about your program), I’d be curious to know the response.

Thanks for your time/attention and I’d welcome your thoughts/questions.

Sincerely,

Peter M. Heimlich
[REDACTED]
Peachtree Corners, GA 30096 USA
ph: (208)474-7283
website: http://medfraud.info
blog: http://the-sidebar.com
e-mail: peter.heimlich@gmail.com
Twitter: @medfraud_pmh
bio: http://tinyurl.com/ych7o7dr

[1] My father credited the work of Julius Wagner-Jauregg, a German eugenicist and Nazi sympathizer as his inspiration.

[2] To my knowledge, PCRM hasn’t presented the award since 2010 at a celebrity-studded event that was reported by the LA Weekly.

[3] Presumably dad was referring to a series of video PSAs promoting PCRM in which he appeared.

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

National girls organization "highly endorses" controversial first aid training that "may cause injuries" to babies

source

According to a press release they issued about a year ago, the Cincinnati-area American Heritage Girls is the "premier national character development organization for young women that embraces Christian values...Currently, American Heritage Girls has over 43,000 Members [sic] located in every state..."

According to a 2014 press release, the American Heritage Girls formed a "National Cooperative Venture" with Heimlich Heroes, a "Deaconess Associations, Inc. and Heimlich Institute initiative that teaches kids as young as seven how to become a hero by learning to perform the Heimlich Maneuver correctly in order to save a life. Both organizations are based in Cincinnati."

Via American Heritage Girls Adult Training, Heimlich Heroes blog, December 12, 2017:

In honor of Heimlich Heroes week American Heritage Girls corporate office trained their staff using our Teen and Adult program!

Kristi Tatro, National Director of Girl Impact, spearheaded the training to set an example for their members and community.

AHG staff members went through the Heimlich Heroes Teen and Adult training using our new training video...

Tatro said, “AHG highly endorses and encourages this program. It’s easy and fun to learn!”

Via this clip from the Heimlich Heroes "new training video," here's the problem:

I'm unaware of any medical organization or medical expert that recommends performing "the Heimlich" (abdominal thrusts) on choking infants.

Why not?

According to recent e-mails I received from executives at the American Heart Association and American Red Cross, doing so "may cause injuries."

Further, I'm unaware of any published research on the subject.

In other words, the American Heritage Girls "highly endorses and encourages" teaching the public to perform an unapproved, potentially harmful medical procedure on babies.

I'm e-mailing this item to Ms. Tatro with an invitation to respond.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

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

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.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Ohio Secretary of State (again) cancels existence of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute; is the organization finally down for the count? [UPDATED]

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.

Saturday, July 2, 2016

VA cops successfully responded to choking victim using back blows/Heimlich combo -- and provided the opportunity to revisit my father's clandestine bankrolling of discredited Yale choking study

Via Police officers come to the rescue of choking man at Subway restaurant by Kendra Mann, WJLA News, July 2nd 2016:

Fairfax police officers came to the rescue of a choking man at a Subway restaurant on Thursday.

...Police said in a statement, "Officer Mulhern utilized his training and administered back blows and Heimlich maneuver. Due to the officers' quick actions, the man's airway was cleared and all were able to finish enjoying their meals."

Via Heimlich maneuver's creator fights Red Cross by Cliff Radel, Cincinnati Enquirer, January 21, 2013:

The American Red Cross' first-aid procedure recommends five back slaps and then five abdominal thrusts for someone who's choking.

...Those recommendations "horrify" (Dr. Henry) Heimlich..."Many scientific studies" have proven "if a person is choking and the food is in the airway, if you hit them on the back, it causes the food to go deeper and tighter into the airway."

Via Red Cross reverses policy on choking aid by Abram Katz, October 23, 2006 (based on my research and tip):

(The) only known study comparing the Heimlich maneuver and back blows was performed by three Yale scientists: Richard L. Day, Edmund S. Crelin and Arthur B. DuBois.

Richard L. Day MD (source)

The paper, published in 1982 in the journal Pediatrics, concluded that the Heimlich is superior. Back blows are not merely ineffective, they can force blockages down the throat and toward the larynx - exactly the wrong direction, the researchers concluded.

"Choking: The Heimlich Abdominal Thrust vs Back Blows: An Approach to Measurement of Inertial and Aerodynamic Forces," by Day, Crelin and DuBois, could well have been the final word.

Except that in acknowledgements at the end of the paper, the authors credit support from the "Dysphagia Foundation Inc. of Cincinnati Inc."

And records from the Ohio Secretary of State's office show that the Dysphagia Foundation was renamed "The Heimlich Institute" Aug. 30, 1982.

source

In other words, the Yale experts studying the Heimlich maneuver were apparently assisted by Dr. Henry J. Heimlich, developer and tireless promoter of the Heimlich maneuver. He referred to back blows as "death blows."

The connection between Heimlich and the Yale scientists appears to pose at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.

...(Dr. Heimlich) did not return phone calls.

Via a June 7, 1982 letter from my father to Dr. Day (embedded below):

I've already reported that my father's financial arrangement with Day was part of a bizarre campaign to eliminate backblows from choking rescue protocols.

"To win," as reporter Tom Francis put it, "the choking rescue crown."

And beginning in 1986 and for the next two decades, my father wore that crown. During those years, U.S. first aid guidelines recommended only his namesake treatment.

But if current first aid guidelines and the Fairfax cops are any indication, despite the efforts of my crooked father and his cronies, science appears to have righted itself.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Should two Cincinnati nonprofits promoting unapproved, experimental medical treatments be granted tax-exempt status? Today I asked the IRS and the OH Attorney General

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.

Monday, July 27, 2015

SALF/Melongo update: ABC Atlanta exposes $3m inside job at the CDC -- plus Carol "The Nurse" Spizzirri lawyers up in Chicago

FBI Director James B. Comey presents 2014 Director’s Community Leadership Award to WSB-TV investigative Jodie Fleischer "for her extraordinary contributions to preventing crime and violence in the Atlanta area and throughout the state of Georgia...Ms. Fleischer further demonstrated leadership by coordinating her investigative reporting with investigative efforts of law enforcement, to include the FBI." (source)

On July 15, WSB-TV (Atlanta's ABC affiliate) aired CDC gives millions of tax dollars to shady nonprofit by investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer, the latest chapter in the $9 million Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) scandal and the sweeping federal civil rights lawsuit filed by former SALF employee, Annabel Melongo.

Don't miss the video, but here's the takeaway:

The (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) is refusing to answer Channel 2 Action News' questions about a high-ranking employee who served on the board of a now-defunct nonprofit that's been the subject of a series of scandals.

The Save A Life Foundation (SALF) also happened to receive more than $3 million in CDC funding, much of it while that same employee (Doug Browne of Doraville, GA) was serving as the nonprofit's treasurer.

"Save A Life was a fraud, it can't be described as anything but a total fraud," said attorney Jennifer Bonjean, who represents a whistleblower who used to work there.

The nonprofit was based in a Chicago suburb, and in its heyday, claimed to have helped teach more than a million school children various first aid techniques.

But beginning in 2006, a series of investigations by the ABC station in Chicago debunked the nonprofit's founder as a fraud.

Carol Spizzirri had claimed to be a registered nurse in her bio on the SALF website and on various grant applications; but she wasn't. She's also accused of lying about the circumstances of her daughter's tragic accident that was the motivating force behind the creation of SALF.

Screenshot from SALF's now-defunct website -- the correct spelling of Spizzirri's alleged alma mater -- also defunct -- is Mt. Senario College in Ladysmith, Wisconsin

Spizzirri was born Carol Jean Niemann and grew up in Milwaukee where in 1968, according to his 2009 affidavit, she met and married her first husband, the late Gordon T. Pratt, with whom she had three daughters and who divorced her in 1980. About seven years later, she moved to Grayslake, Illinois, with her second husband, David T. Spizzirri, who divorced her in 1993, the year she started SALF.

Around the time the IL Attorney General's investigation was made public, Spizzirri beat feat to San Marcos, California, where she and former SALF executive Scott Anderson co-own a property in a mobile home park at which Spizzirri is vice president of the residents association.

Re: the Melongo lawsuit, as I reported last month, Ms. Bonjean told me, "Carol Spizzirri has been served and I will be filing a motion for default judgement against her."

Here's proof of service from November:

Via SALF's year 2000 Annual Report:

Via the print edition of the San Diego Reader:

Click here for the June 16, 2015 motion of default filed against Spizzirri.

Donald J. Angelini, Jr. (source)

That apparently made Spizzirri snap to because about a month later, her Chicago attorney Donald J. Angelini, Jr. filed this motion on her behalf:

As it happens, her lawyer and I have something in common.

Both of our fathers worked the dark side of the street.

Via FBI: Mob boss on tape in McCormick Place case, an April 25, 2010 ABC7 Chicago story by investigative reporter Chuck Goudie who coincidentally (per the Atlanta CDC expose) was responsible for the "series of investigations by the ABC station in Chicago that) debunked (Spizzirri) as a fraud.":

The FBI recorded more than 50 conversations involving Chicago Outfit boss Rudy "The Chin" Fratto during an investigation of alleged bid-rigging at the city's McCormick Place.

...Fratto, 66, the leader of the Mob's Elmwood Park crew according to federal authorities, was indicted with another man last month on charges that he used inside information to score a forklift deal at McCormick Place.

...An attached affidavit from Donald Angelini, Jr., the attorney handling the sweetheart contract case, states that Fratto's defense would be "greatly hampered" if he was imprisoned and couldn't assist in the preparation.

...Angelini Jr. (is the) son of the late Mob bookmaker Don "the Wizard of Odds" Angelini....

Via Donald J. Angelini, Odds Wizard Who Ran Gambling For Chicago Mob by Cam Simpson, a December 8, 2000 obituary published by the Chicago Tribune:

Dubbed the "Wizard of Odds" in the Chicago Outfit, the name organized crime members for decades have given to the city's Mafia faction, (Donald Angelini Sr.) was viewed by authorities as one of the top money makers in Chicago crime syndicate history.

...Mr. Angelini (Sr.) pleaded guilty to federal gambling charges in 1989 and was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

Prosecutors alleged that Mr. Angelini (Sr.), along with the late Dominic Cortina, reigned as gambling czar over a $20 million per-year sports betting empire.

Mr. Angelini (Sr.) and his attorney scoffed at the government's figures, but government agents insisted their numbers may even have been conservative.

The Heimlich Institute's notorious "malariotherapy" experiments were the subject of three federal investigations (CDC, FDA, Justice Department), but my pa never did time.

However, via a 2003 Reuters story about vulnerable AIDS patients being infected with malaria, at least one expert thought he deserved to:

"If (Dr.) Heimlich is really doing this, he should be put in jail," said Mark Harrington, executive director of Treatment Action Group, an AIDS research advocacy organization.

In any event, I don't know how Spizzirri came to choose the younger Angelini to represent her, but of course everyone's entitled to hire any lawyer willing to represent them, be they Rudy "The Chin" or Carol "The Nurse."

Friday, June 12, 2015

My complaints to the IRS, Ohio Attorney General, others re: "Christ-centered alternative to Girl Scouts" group that may be circulating experimental medical treatment to thousands of girls

source

Via American Heritage Girls Forms National Cooperative Venture with Heimlich Heroes, a March 17, 2014 press release issued by the American Heritage Girls Inc.:

Cincinnati-based American Heritage Girls (AHG), an international faith-based character-development program for girls ages 5 through 18, has joined with Heimlich Heroes to teach its members how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver when a person chokes on food or a small object. The training will be available free to all AHG troops nationwide.

Here's my concern.

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

(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.

Via a January 6, 2015 e-mail to me from Eric Perez MD, an emergency medicine expert in New York City who reviews medical treatment information for the National Institutes of Health:

To my knowledge, there is no definitive evidence for or against performing abdominal thrusts (on an) unconscious patient.

Further, apparently the "unconscious Heimlich" protocol has never been the subject of any published research, therefore it's experimental.

Public health and/or liability risk if someone gets hurt?

Since the announcement of the Heimlich Heroes/American Heritage Girls partnership last year, I've made multiple attempts -- most recently last week after seeing the above Facebook post -- in order to obtain a position statement and comment from AHG representatives if they're teaching their members to "Heimlich" unconscious choking victims.

If they are, AHG is using unwitting kids and troop leaders to circulate an unapproved, experimental medical treatment.

I've never received a response from AHG (why not?), so I just filed complaints against the organization with the IRS (posted below), the Ohio Attorney General's Charitable Law Section, and two organizations that accredit AHG -- the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance, and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

I'll report the results in a future item.

If any parents of AHG kids or AHG troop members want to jump in, I'd encourage you to ask National Executive Director and Founder Patti Garibay for answers.

If you do and want me to consider publishing the results on The Sidebar, click here to e-mail me.

UPDATE, 6/16/15: According to their website, the AHG is endorsed by a number of religious organizations, so yesterday I sent similar letters of concern to two of them, the Archdiocese of St. Louis, MO and the Lutheran Synod of Missouri.

This item has been slightly revised.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

"Fanatical animal rights group" partners with the city of Little Rock, Arkansas Department of Health, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to promote veganism -- and I need an Arkansan to help me with FOIA requests!

PCRM founder/president Neal Barnard MD, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola, Christie Beck MD and her husband Jason Beck MD (source)

Via A Tiff with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a September 21, 2011 blog item by chemist and junk science debunker Joe "Dr. Joe" Schwarcz PhD, Director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society:

I consider PCRM to be a fanatical animal rights group with a clear cut agenda of promoting a vegan lifestyle and eliminating all animal experimentation.

Via Project promotes 21-day vegan diet by Bobby Ampezzan in yesterday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

This is the first in a series of articles about Kickstart Your Health Little Rock, a campaign to encourage residents to adopt a plant-based diet. Developed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the program is endorsed by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, the Arkansas Department of Health, Baptist Health Medical Center and the city of Little Rock.

Here's more from the article (which is behind a subscription paywall):

(Dr. Neal) Barnard, founding president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, flew in to help (Chrissie Beck MD and her husband Jason Beck MD) and others, including the mayor’s office, generate some momentum for a campaign to encourage city residents to take a stab at veganism....

...(Dr. Chrissie Beck:) “I think it [meat eating] is going to be more like tobacco. Where we look back and go, ‘Remember when we thought maybe tobacco was bad, but all the companies were telling us it was OK...?...I hope we can look back and say, ‘I can’t believe we ever questioned whether or not it was safe to give kids hot dogs in schools.'”

For some photos of the kind of meal plan that Mayor Stodola and the rest have in mind for Arkansans, don't miss How George Washington University’s Dr. Neal Barnard Eats for a Day by Melissa Romero, The Washingtonian, March 25, 2014.

For example, here's what the gaunt Dr. Barnard calls his "favorite meal," a bean burrito with leafy green salad:

For my page about PCRM's 30-year relationship with my father; how the organizations turns a blind eye to the Heimlich Institute's notorious experiments in which patients suffering from cancer, Lyme disease, and AIDS were infected with malaria; and the reckless recommendation by Dr. Barnard -- whose background is in psychiatry -- that the Heimlich maneuver should be used to resuscitate drowning victims, click here.

Calling all Sidebar readers! I need some help so I can report more about this.

I've filed public records requests with the city of Little Rock, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and the Arkansas Department of Health, but under Arkansas's FOIA law, agencies are only required to respond to state residents, and ~~at least one~~ two of my requests ~~has~~ have already been rejected.

If there are any readers with Arkansas addresses who are willing to file requests, please e-mail me.

source

Monday, September 29, 2014

Why I'm not participating in Jason Schmidt's dubious documentary project about my father [Part II]: The project was funded by my father's press agent, who says she's personal friends with Schmidt

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

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

Friday, March 14, 2014

Hype tripe: Cincinnati press agent claims "Heimlich Heroes" first aid training program "expanding nationwide" via partnerships with the YMCA and two other national nonprofits -- the program's manager says "NOT"

source

Via a March 5 article bylined by "PR professional" Melinda Zemper published in the Cincinnati Enquirer's "Community News" (yellow highlighting added):

A few days ago I e-mailed media reps at the American Heritage Girls, the YMCA, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and asked for details about the partnerships.

I also e-mailed some questions to "Heimlich Heroes" program manager Terri Huntington.

source

Via an e-mail I received yesterday from Ms. Huntington:

I want you to know that the nature of the relationship with the organizations you mention was overstated...Heimlich Heroes has NOT formed a formal partnership with any of the organizations listed.

###

Also see my February 26, item, "Heimlich Heroes" program teaches Ohio students a choking rescue treatment NOT recommended by Heart Association and Red Cross -- I've asked the OH and Hamilton County Health Departments to review the program.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

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

source

Via a September 9th Riverfront Times article by Sam Levin:

With the support of a National Institutes of Health grant, Saint Louis University is partnering with a controversial Chinese doctor who once infected AIDS patients with malaria as part of a widely criticized practice.

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

...The "malariotherapy" experiments in China, conducted for over a decade by Dr. Chen in conjunction with Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute, have been called "atrocities" by the World Health Organization. Medical experts have condemned the work as "charlatanism of the highest order." Research subjects included prisoners who were controlled by hired guards. In one case, a woman with full-blown AIDS, suffering from pneumonia and hooked up to oxygen, was infected with malaria.

...SLU's school of medicine was awarded a $566,640 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant...A (SLU) spokeswoman confirms to Daily RFT that this grant is part of the GIBH project.

"Why are U.S. tax dollars funding research by a doctor responsible for conducting what a World Health Organization report called medical 'atrocities?'" (Peter) Heimlich says....

Page down for a letter I sent today to the NIH requesting a review of the grant. Click here to download a copy.

Here's an interesting twist.

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

source

As it happens, NIAID's director is Dr. Anthony Fauci, an outspoken critic of my father's "malariotherapy" experiments since at least 1994, when he told Los Angeles Times reporter Pamela Warrick:

"Heimlich's life-saving maneuver for people who aspirate food doesn't qualify one as an HIV expert," said leading AIDS researcher Dr. Anthony Fauci, who called malaria therapy "quite dangerous and scientifically unsound."

About 13 years later, here's a clip of Dr. Fauci being interviewed about "malariotherapy" by Brian Ross for the June 8, 2007 ABC 20/20 report about my father's dangerous medical claims, Is Dr. Heimlich Really a Savior?:

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

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

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

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

This item has been updated.