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Melinda Zemper, Oak Tree Communications LLC, West Chester, OH (source)

After I tagged press agent Melinda Zemper for publishing false claims in a March 5 article, the Cincinnati Enquirer has deleted it.

For background, see my item last week, 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." 

Here's a screenshot from Zemper's article that was published by the Enquirer's Community News Share section:

If you click the link to her article now, here's what you'll see:

 
I asked Enquirer Media Communities Editor Nancy Daly what happened.

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A couple days ago she e-mailed me:

Once we learned there was some controversy we deleted it. Share is not a place for that.

Besides Zemper's false claim that three national nonprofits -- the YMCA, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and the American Heritage Girls -- were partnering with the "Heimlich Heroes" program being taught in local schools, via my February 26 item, here's the other concern I brought to the Enquirer's attention:

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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.

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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.

As I reported last week, a recent Heimlich Institute press release opened the door to one of the nastiest skeletons in my father's closet, his relationships with a string of doctors who lost their licenses for extreme over-prescribing of narcotics, two of whom did jail stretches.

Melinda Zemper (source)

Now Melinda Zemper of Oak Tree Communications (who does PR for the Heimlich Institute), my father, and Patrick Ward of Deaconess Associations (the parent company of the Heimlich Institute), have again handed me an opportunity to report about another of my father's most closely-held secrets.

A couple year ago, my father and Ward donated my father's archives to the University of Cincinnati Medical School library:


A couple weeks ago, Ms. Zemper issued another Heimlich Institute press release, this one promoting "Heimlich Heroes," a first aid training program being conducted in Ohio schools by the Heimlich Institute.

What interested me was the accompanying photo:


It's the white lab coat.

It's been over 35 years since my father had a reason to wear one in a professional capacity.

Via Radar magazine:

(In the mid-1970s, Dr.) Heimlich's career as a surgeon was drawing to an ignominious close. There had been at least one incident when he passed out at the operating table, leaving another surgeon to finish the job. Heimlich was having trouble obtaining malpractice insurance, Peter (Heimlich) claims, and his personality hadn't endeared him to the rest of the Jewish Hospital staff. In 1976 he left the hospital.

Two corrections, courtesy of documents from the Heimlich Archives.

First, the year my father left Jewish Hospital was 1977.

Second, he didn't just leave. He got canned.




57 years old at the time, my father quit practicing surgery, never again maintained a medical practice, and spent the rest of his career as a celebrity doctor.




Updated 3/12/13: The Cincinnati Post got it wrong: