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Click here for an incomplete compilation of court filings via my Scribd account.

Click here for my February 19, 2019 blog item, In search of the HEIMRICK, Fremont PA & 19 soap bar recyclers: My investigation request to the Pennsylvania Attorney General re: two high-profile Pittsburgh companies.


Would-be inventors accuse InventHelp of fraud, seek $36M by Bill Heltzel, Westfair Online,February 7, 2018

Pittsburgh invention promotion company accused of scamming thousands of inventors by Paul Van Osdol, WTAE News (ABC Pittsburgh affiliate), July 19, 2019

Inventors Suing InventHelp Want to Know Why George Foreman Represents the Company by Margaret Downing, Houston Press, September 4, 2018

There is a lawsuit and [Spring, Texas resident] Etta Calhoun’s name is on it, the lead name, in fact, on a class action lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania. There is another class action lawsuit in New York state. The defendants in both cases are InventHelp and associated companies in which Calhoun and others allege that InventHelp’s operation is a scam, that InventHelp and its associated companies prey upon low income people, often minorities, and either do nothing or deliver subpar work.

...InventHelp denies all allegations and has tried unsuccessfully to have both lawsuits thrown out of court, insisting in one case that the plaintiffs were clients of another company, not InventHelp. George Foreman is not named as a defendant, although (plaintiffs' attorney Julie Pecharsky) Plitt says he may be added later.

We were unable to reach (retired boxer George) Foreman.

...We did talk with his son George Foreman IV who said InventHelp was a great company and expressed surprise at our call. He said they’d never heard of any lawsuit against InventHelp. He said he’d see if his father would talk to us, but that never happened and instead in a subsequent call, Foreman IV politely referred us back to InventHelp.

The lawsuits each ask for a jury trial, $36 million in relief and punitive damages and another $72 million in compensatory damages.

...Asked if she believed more than a few clients – who paid anywhere from $700 to $30,000 for InventHelp’s assistance – bought into InventHelp because of Foreman’s representation, Plitt says “More than several. I would say the vast majority of them.

A retired engineer patented his own game, but thinks he may have been gamed by a marketing pitch by Courtney Linder, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 21, 2019

InventHelp Fraud Class Action Has Legs, Court Told by Matthew Santoni, Law360, February 1, 2019 (behind subscription paywall)

(Etta) Calhoun is represented by Marc S. Oxman and Julie Pechersky Plitt of Oxman Law Group PLLC, Richard J. Levan and Jon-Jorge Aras of Levan Legal LLC, and Stanley W. Greenfield of Greenfield & Kraut.

InventHelp is represented by David J. Garraux of Fox Rothschild LLC.

Thomas Frost is represented by James W. Kraus of Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti LLP.

The case is Calhoun v. Invention Submission Corp. et aI., case number 2: 18-cv-Ol022, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

KDKA Investigates: In Federal Lawsuit, Local Inventors Say InventHelp Let Them Down by Andy Sheehan, KDKA-TV CBS Pittsburgh (click title link for video), November 25, 2019:

Antonelli is one of several hundreds of plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court accusing InventHelp of “a deceptive and fraudulent inventing promotion scam that has bilked thousands of aspiring inventors into paying millions of dollars.”

The suit claims the company dangles the prospect of riches, pressures prospective clients into expensive contracts, then reneges on their promise to market the product through a so-called “databank” of participating companies.

“In truth and in fact, many of these companies on these lists do not even exist and/or are sham companies. Others have not agreed to ‘review new ideas in confidence,’ have not signed non-disclosure agreements, and have no relationship whatsoever with InventHelp,” the suit says.

Attorney Julie Pechersky Plitt said: “I would say this is fraud, pure and simple from start to finish. False promises, false companies, false licensing agreement. Everything about it is fraudulent.”

KDKA’s Andy Sheehan visited InventHelp’s headquarters here in Pittsburgh — he called and sent emails, seeking a response to these allegations but only received this short reply:

“InventHelp is very confident that it will prevail in (this) case, and is proud of the quality services it offers to inventors across the country.”

UPDATE: Via Aquatics Industry Finally Discontinues Heimlich Maneuver by Nate Traylor, Aquatics International, February 3, 2016:

One of the nation’s largest lifeguard certification agencies has stopped teaching a controversial drowning rescue technique that critics alleged was ineffective and potentially dangerous.

The National Aquatic Safety Co. has long championed the Heimlich maneuver as an effective way to remove water from the lungs before initiating CPR on a drowning victim. Developed in the mid ’90s by NASCO founder John Hunsucker, the drowning-rescue version of the Heimlich called for the lifeguard to first administer abdominal thrusts on a drowning victim in the water before extrication for CPR.

The technique came under intense scrutiny in recent years as aquatic and medical professionals called the practice into question, claiming that it was ineffective and that it could further endanger those in need of rescue.

Despite the criticism and the headlines in the mainstream media, NASCO stuck to its guns, even after the Heimlich Institute stopped advocating that the maneuver be used to treat drowning victims in 2012.

...Another development may have forced the decision: In recent years, health departments in New Jersey, Utah and Nevada, threatened to strip NASCO of its certification to to do business in those states unless it stopped teaching the Heimlich as part of its drowning rescue protocol, according to local media reports.

“Presumably, NASCO finally dumped the protocol because it was affecting their bottom line,” said Peter Heimlich, son of inventor Dr. Henry Heimlich, and the most outspoken critic of using the maneuver to address drowning, in a statement to AI.

Hunsucker declined to comment for this article.

...As for (Peter) Heimlich and his wife, Karen, who’ve been on a crusade to dissuade the public from using his father’s technique, this is chapter they’re relieved to see closed. It’s believed NASCO was the last such agency to perform what many considered an ill-advised rescue maneuver.

“I doubt there is another company reckless enough to take it up,” he stated, “so this likely ends my father’s bizarre 40-year campaign to promote the treatment.”

My original item is below the hash marks.



Today via Local Lifeguard Training Company No Longer Teaching Heimlich Maneuver by staff reporter Craig Malisow, Houston Press:

For years, the Dickinson-based NASCO Aquatics, one of the nation's largest lifeguard certification companies taught a debunked rescue technique, even as other professional and medical organizations said it could further endanger drowning victims.

But NASCO has dropped the technique — a version of the Heimlich maneuver done while a drowning victim is still in the water — from its most recent training manual, which pleases one of NASCO's biggest critics, Peter Heimlich, whose father gave the abdominal-thrusting technique its name.

NASCO founder John Hunsucker swore by the technique, even as the American Red Cross, American Heart Association, the United States Lifeguard Coalition, and the International Life Saving Federation. Most medical and aquatic experts have stated that applying the Heimlich maneuver to a drowning victim delays CPR and could cause a victim to aspirate vomit into the lungs. 

Until just recently, Hunsucker's response to the experts has been short and sweet: "Screw 'em."

...Peter Heimlich shared an email of his own, telling us:

"I'm relieved that NASCO has finally pulled the plug on its reckless 'Heimlich for drowning' protocol. Experts have said that for decades NASCO was conducting what amounted to an unsupervised medical experiment using unsuspecting swimmers at their client water parks. Long after prominent medical experts and leading first aid organizations had thoroughly dismissed the treatment as useless and potentially lethal, NASCO persisted. Even after my father's Heimlich Institute stopped advocating the treatment, NASCO wouldn't stop.

On the bright side, NASCO was the last holdout, so this effectively marks the end of my father's bizarre 40-year campaign to promote the treatment."

Click here for "These so-called medical experts. Screw 'em," my compilation of media reports about NASCO's now-defunct "Heimlich protocol."

This medical madness began in August 1974 when my father and his crony, the late Victor H. Esch MD, began hyping the first of a series of fraudulent case reports in which they claimed near-dead drowning victims were miraculously revived by the Heimlich maneuver. (See here and here.)

The result of their folly? Dozens of poor outcome cases -- including children.

To these journalists, physicians, water safety professionals, and public employees whose efforts helped put an end to this dark chapter in first aid history -- Lifesaving Aye

Margarita Abramova, Paul Auerbach MD, Ihsan A. Azzam, PhD MD MPH, Robert S. Baratz MD PhD, Chris Brewster, Zach Brown, Ed Castillo, Peter Chambers DO, Rich Connelly, Bennett Cunningham, Margaret Downing, Gerry Dworkin, Roy Fielding, Brenda Flanagan, Shawn Foucher, Tom Francis, Mike Giglio, Natalie Gagliordi, Tracey D. Green MD, Curt Guyette, Jason Haap, Brad Herzog, Michelle Iracheta, Tom Jackman, Ben Kaufman, Kendra Kozen, Kevin Lamb, Jennifer Learn-Andes, Terri Lees, Craig Malisow, David Markenson MD, Ron Marsden, Allyn Nakashima MD, James Orlowski MD, Eric Peterson, Francesco Pia PhD, Lory Pounder, Linda Quan MD, Karlee Prazak, Mike Riley, Mike Risinit, Peter Rosen MD, Mark Saal, Mayrav Saar, Timothy Smith, Todd Spivak, Alan Steinman MD, Gary Thill, Steve Volk, Cindy Weightman, Peter Wernicki MD, Ian White, Aaron Wische

A special mention must go to writer Pamela Mills-Senn of Long Beach and editor Mike Moran whose landmark 2000 article, Water Rescue Sequence: The Controversial Role of the Heimlich Maneuver, was the Rosetta Stone for much of the research conducted by my wife Karen and me into my father's unusual career.

(If I've inadvertently left out anyone, please e-mail me.)

From NoVa parks authority teaches lifeguards discredited Heimlich maneuver by Tom Jackman, Washington Post, June 3, 2011:

(The Heimlich maneuver has) been utterly discredited as a way of rescuing a person who is drowning, and can actually do serious harm to someone who has just been pulled from the water, numerous experts say. 

Still, one aquatics company, National Aquatic Safety Company of Houston (NASCO), is training lifeguards to use the Heimlich maneuver. And the Northern Virginia Regional Parks Authority enthusiastically continues to use NASCO to train lifeguards at its five waterparks...

...The list of experts who reject the Heimlich maneuver (to revive drowning victims) is lengthy: The American Red Cross; the United States Lifesaving Association; the American Heart Association; the Institute of Medicine; the International Life Saving Federation and many experienced doctors and academics have strongly inveighed against doing “abdominal thrusts” for drowning victims.

...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.

Later that day:



Fast forward to a few weeks ago.

On July 10, WWOR-TV broadcast this report by investigative reporter Brenda Flanagan about four Jersey shore water parks whose lifeguards were trained by NASCO. The story included interviews with representatives of the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association warning against performing the Heimlich maneuver to revive drowning victims.



The next day, one of the water parks - Breakwater Beach in Seaside Heights - posted a statement on their website that included:

On Tuesday night, Channel 9 NY News ran a story on waterpark safety and the training of lifeguards in rescue methods...Some of the points made in the story are categorically untrue...

...Another issue raised in the story was the use of in-water abdominal thrusts. Our guards are taught to give five and only five quick abdominal thrusts to an unconscious victim in the water as the victim is being extricated to the pool deck.

...Please know that while media attempts to sensationalize a story for their benefit (their “experts” in the story of course sided with them, however there exists experts on the other side of the argument as well who were not interviewed for this story) , that Breakwater Beach is committed to ensuring the absolute safety of our guests.

I wanted to learn the names of the "experts on the other side of the argument...who were not interviewed for this story," so I asked Breakwater Beach.

Per the e-mail exchange below, the only name they provided was NASCO who, according to Flanagan's report, "refused to discuss anything with us." (time stamp 3:30).

Lou Cirigliano, Jr. (source)

Lou Cirigliano, Jr., Breakwater Beach general manager, defended the use of abdominal thrusts to revive drowning victims and suggested I contact NASCO president John Hunsucker PhD:

(He) might be able to refer you onto any other expert who agrees with his data. We do not specifically have anyone we know to recommend to you as we are not part of this “fight” but as I mentioned earlier, I am positive if all knew the data and the actual rescue (sic), you’d easily find people on both sides of the aisle.

I also asked him for a reaction comment to this quote from a May 2012 editorial in Aquatics International magazine:

(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.

Cirigliano replied that he didn't wish to comment.

Jane Brody (source)

In a column today about water safety, well-known New York Times reporter and author Jane Brody included this:


This is the second column in which Ms. Brody explicitly warned against the treatment. From her July 4, 2006 column:


Per last year's Washington Post: 


Except for the Heart Association, all of the above organizations have published reports about the Heimlich for drowning, all reaching the same conclusion: there's no legitimate evidence supporting its use and if you Heimlich a drowning victim, it wastes precious rescue time and may induce vomiting leading to aspiration.

The Heart Association didn't issue a report, but the organization's most recent published guidelines say as much:

If you think about it, singling out and warning against performing the Heimlich on drowning victims is a testament to my father's success at circulating his bogus claims.

And how did he manage to get as far as he did?

Per this recent blog item from the Houston Press (emphasis and links added):

(Peter Heimlich) reports, the Heimlich Institute "has finally quit circulating my father's dangerous, thoroughly discredited medical claims."

The institute's Web site has, he says, "deleted its main pages recommending the Heimlich maneuver as an effective treatment for drowning rescue."

..."His claims were based on nothing but a handful of skimpy cases in which near-dead drowning victims were 'miraculously revived' by the maneuver," (Peter) says. "Despite such thin evidence, for decades The New York Times, CBS News, Inside Edition and scores of other media outlets gave him a platform to urge the public to perform the Heimlich on people who were drowning."

Here's a fair question.

Will any of those media outlets report that after 40 years, the Heimlich Institute has now stopped promoting the treatment?

From Heimlich Maneuver for Drowning Victims: Progress in Ending It? by reporter Richard Connelly in yesterday's Houston Press:

(Peter Heimlich) reports, the Heimlich Institute "has finally quit circulating my father's dangerous, thoroughly discredited medical claims."

The institute's Web site has, he says, "deleted its main pages recommending the Heimlich maneuver as an effective treatment for drowning rescue....

His claims were based on nothing but a handful of skimpy cases in which near-dead drowning victims were 'miraculously revived' by the maneuver," he says. "Despite such thin evidence, for decades The New York Times, CBS News, Inside Edition and scores of other media outlets gave him a platform to urge the public to perform the Heimlich on people who were drowning."

As I blogged last week, the Heimlich Institute has apparently deleted every mention for drowning - dozens of pages - from its website.

Now that the Heimlich Institute has given up the ghost, will any of these three organizations follow suit?



THE NATIONAL AQUATIC SAFETY COMPANY (NASCO). This Houston-area lifeguard training company, which claims to have over 73 client organizations as of 2008, proudly takes credit for introducing "the abdominal maneuver into aquatic rescue" in 1993.

Dangerous Maneuvers, a Special Report by Kendra Kozen in this month's Aquatics International magazine, focuses on the concerns re: the Heimlich for drowning rescue and the inclusion of the treatment in NASCO's lifeguard training.

From an accompanying editorial by Gary Thill:

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

NASCO instructor Brian Cole teaches lifeguards to perform the Heimlich

THE PHYSICIANS COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDICINE (PCRM). This DC-area animal rights nonprofit has been promoting the Heimlich for drowning since at least 1991.

Neal Barnard MD (source)

They produced the PSA (below), issued a press release hyping the treatment, and through the years PCRM founder/president Neal Barnard MD - a psychiatrist by training who poses in a white lab coat in the group's promotional materials - has recommended the Heimlich for drowning in news stories, in letters to the editor, and on ABC 20/20. Click here for all of that.

Why would a self-described doctors' organization recommend an unproven, thoroughly-discredited drowning rescue treatment that could seriously injure or kill people?

The answer to that question may have something to do with my father lending his famous name to PCRM to promote their agenda. He's a longtime member of their "advisory board" (advising what?) plus the group presents an award in his name, no doubt a major ego stroke for my fame-obsessed pa.

Meanwhile PCRM promotes his drowning quackery and turns a blind eye to the Heimlich Institute's atrocity experiments on AIDS, cancer, and Lyme Disease patients.

In other words, in their quest to protect animals, PCRM chose to put people at risk. An article in last year's Washington Post includes this body count:

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.

Via my website, some of the victims.

So much for "responsible medicine."






C.H.A.S.E. FOR LIFE. In the summer of 2006, I read a newspaper article in which Farley Boyle - former runway model turned founder/president of this Little Silver, NJ first aid nonprofit - claimed her daughter had been rescued from drowning by the use of the Heimlich maneuver. The story also reported that my father was on the group's board.

I then e-mailed her and explained the medical issues and dangers associated with the treatment.

In a rather overheated reply, Boyle compared the Heimlich maneuver to the Bible(!) and also stated:

We do not tell anyone to use the Heimlich in accordance with a drowning but we do provide them with an education so that if the time arrives they can make their own educated decision on how to handle the crises they are in.

However, a year later, in this June 9, 2007 WCBS-TV interview, Boyle told the interviewer that "it's crucial that you get the water out" of near-drowning victims and that rescuers should "try to expel the water using abdominal thrusts."