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Screen capture from Bing.com News search showing now-scrubbed article

Via Dr. Henry Heimlich's reputation hangs in the balance by staff reporter James Ritchie, a March 14 item published on the website of the Cincinnati Business Courier, one of the papers owned by American City Business Journals:

The name of Dr. Henry Heimlich, for whom the choking first-aid maneuver is named, is known worldwide.

But recent news coverage questions what his legacy will be. 

The Atlantic notes that the world "may not remember him at all, as 'abdominal thrust' is now the term of choice of the Red Cross and the American Heart Association for the life-saving response to choking victims."

...As the Atlantic reported, Heimlich "wasn't content just to be a household name" after he introduced the Heimlich Maneuver in 1974. He began promoting it for asthma attacks and drowning victims. Then he began running experiments in developing countries to see if inducing malaria in AIDS patients could cure them.

Radiolab's Pat Walters recently devoted a podcast to Heimlich, whose move once saved his life.

Though he was once a big fan of Heimlich, he didn't like what he found.

"When I think about my kids...when they learn this thing, it won't be called the Heimlich maneuver," he said. "And based on what I know now, I really don't think that I would tell them to call it that."

Sometime over the next few days, the story was completely scrubbed from the site without any published explanation.

And the paper's long-time editor -- and part-time journalism teacher at Ohio's Miami University -- Rob Daumeyer, is refusing to answer questions.


Here's what the original article looked like -- click here to download a full-size version:


Via the original URL, http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/blog/2013/03/dr-henry-heimlichs-reputation-hangs.html, here's what replaced it:


At the time of publication, reporter James Ritchie, the paper's managing editor, Lisa Benson, and the Business Courier thought the story was worth chirping about:

source

source

So why did Ritchie's story get censored and who gave the order?

Having some previous experience with how Daumeyer runs the paper -- more about that in a future item -- I had a pretty good guess, so yesterday I sent these questions to the paper:

1) I'd like a yes or no answer re: whether anyone from Deaconess* or the Heimlich Institute or anyone representing my father contacted the paper about your item.

2) If yes, may I please be provided with the name(s)?

3) I'd like to know the precise time your item was taken offline, which Business Courier employee was responsible for the decision to take it offline, and why it was taken down.

I'd welcome any additional information the Business Courier wishes to provide.

The response?

From: "Robert Daumeyer" <rdaumeyer@bizjournals.com>
Date: 3/18/2013 2:49 PM
To: <peter.heimlich@gmail.com>
CC: "Lisa Benson" <lisabenson@bizjournals.com>, "James Ritchie" <jritchie@bizjournals.com>

Peter ... This is Rob Daumeyer, I'm editor at the Business Courier ... I don't have any additional information to add for you.

Thanks

Rob

Sent from my iPhone

* 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. (source)

More to come....

Update: via On Second Thought by Ben Kaufman, Cincinnati CityBeat, March 19, 2012

Why did Cincinnati Business Courier take down its online story about Henry Heimlich’s attempts to save his reputation and that of his Heimlich Maneuver? Granted, it wasn’t flattering, but it didn’t go beyond what Curmudgeon has reported. Reporter James Ritchie forwarded my request for an explanation and editor Rob Daumeyer responded, “Thanks for asking, but we don't have anything to add for you.”

Hat tip to Bwannah Bob. This item has been slightly revised and updated.

source: ContactMusic.com

Choking rescues involving celebrities are a press agent's dream come true.

For example, last May at a Pittsburgh restaurant, Cincinnati Reds third baseman Todd Frazier reportedly performed the Heimlich maneuver on a fellow diner who was choking, helping to remove a piece of steak caught in the man's throat.

Scores of glowing media reports resulted from the episode. My father even got into the act to present Frazier with a Heimlich Institute "Save-A-Life" award.

source

Which leads me to this quote from an unsigned interview in the current issue of People Country magazine. (Click here to view the the cover.)


The story was picked up by dozens of web sites such as DJ Ken Hayes of KKCB-FM (Duluth, MN) who blogged:

We’d hate to lose one of country music’s hottest artists! Luke is nominated for CMA’s Male Vocalist and Album of the year!

Needless to say, I'm delighted Mr. Bryan survived what sounds like a terrifying, life-threatening incident.

But how about some praise for the unnamed buddy who Heimlich-ed him?

Over the past week I've made best efforts to obtain the friend's name and other details from Byran's press agent and his personal managers. 

source

Here's what I wanted to find out, just some basic who/what/where/whens:

1) What was the date of the event? (Mr. Bryan said it happened, "last Monday.")

2) What's the name and location of the pizza restaurant?

3) What's the name of Mr. Bryan's friend who performed the Heimlich maneuver on him?

4) Based on his description ("I went down"), it appears that Mr. Bryan may have lost consciousness. Is that accurate?

5) Did Mr. Bryan subsequently seek medical care?

6) What's the name of the People Country reporter who interviewed Mr. Bryan?

I assumed they'd be eager to provide the information. The son of the doctor famous for the medical treatment that may have saved their client's life wants to write it up? Where's the downside?  

I assumed wrong.

Bryan's publicist Taryn Pray at EMI/Capitol Records declined to provide any information.

Taryn Pray (source)

And his personal managers, Kerri Edwards and Waylon Weatherholt of Red Light Management, failed to respond to multiple inquiries.

source

Since those turned out to be dead ends, I assumed People Country would be interested. They might even want to report an upbeat follow-up with an all-smiles photo of Bryan and his heroic friend showing how he performed the Heimlich maneuver on the singer.

I've really got to get over this habit of assuming. 


On September 19, I exchanged e-mails with editor Cynthia Sanz. I sent her copies of my correspondence with Bryan's people and asked:

1. The interview with Mr. Bryan didn't include a byline. What's the name of your reporter who obtained the quote?

2. What was the date of the interview?
 
3. Does People Country intend to fact-check the information? If so, would you please courtesy-copy me?

Here's her same-day reply that ignored all my questions:

Cynthia Sanz (source)

It's unclear why Ms. Sanz and the singer's representatives don't seem interested in giving Luke Bryan's rescuer friend the recognition he deserves, but perhaps others will.



This item was updated with the September 24, 2012 tweet to Mr. Bryan.

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.

"O" is for Oracle. And Orlowski.

The Heimlich Institute has stopped advocating on their website for the Heimlich maneuver to be used as a first aid measure for drowning victims.

...Patrick Ward, executive director of Deaconess Associations, the parent company of the Heimlich Institute, said the Institute doesn’t take a position on the Heimlich maneuver for drowning. The Institute’s main function, he said, is teaching the Heimlich maneuver for choking.

“We’ve cleaned out a lot of stuff on that site because all we’re going to do is focus on the (education initiatives),” he said. “We’re not talking about anything else.”

But Peter Heimlich, whose website has long been dedicated to disproving his father’s theory in relation to drowning and called his father’s work on the subject “dangerous quackery,” said the removal of the information had more significance. It happened shortly after he sent an email to Ward and the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

“I expressed my concern that the Institute was putting the public at risk by promoting my father’s crackpot medical claims,” he said. “The next day I visited the website and discovered that dozens of pages had been scrubbed. Virtually every mention of drowning...had disappeared.”

...(Peter) Heimlich and (USF professor James P.) Orlowski consider the institute’s dismissal of the Heimlich maneuver for drowning as an important step in making it completely obsolete.

“They finally stopped pushing it,” Orlowski said. “For years, Heimlich used his institute to push his maneuver, especially to lifeguards and lifesavers, despite the scientific evidence.“

...Orlowski said the original premise of using the Heimlich maneuver as a first aid technique for drowning victims is that it would get water out of the lungs and other parts of the respiratory system.

But, he said, water doesn’t get into or block the airway of a drowning victim.

“The entire explanation that he gave was scientifically unsound and illogical,” he said. “Water’s quickly absorbed from the airway into the bloodstream,” he said. “You don’t have water obstructing the airway at all.”

James P. Orlowski MD (source)

Today's story caps a September 30, 2007 Oracle report, Doctors choke on other use for Heimlich maneuver by reporter Natalie Gagliordi:

Dr. James Orlowski, chief of pediatrics at University Community Hospital (UCH), has been one of Heimlich's most prominent critics since he began to promote the Heimlich maneuver as a first response for drowning victims. 

Orlowski first noticed Heimlich's actions 19 years ago as a resident at the Cleveland Clinic.

"I started doing drowning research in high school, when I wrote my first abstract paper on the subject," Orlowski said. "I had always respected Dr. Heimlich for his work on choking, but his explanations for drowning defied scientific knowledge."

In 1987 Orlowski published an article in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) documenting the case of a young drowning victim. The boy was submerged under water for one to two minutes and then given the Heimlich maneuver as a first response rather than CPR.

"This should have been a routine resuscitation," Orlowski said. "But instead the boy aspirated on his own vomit, fell into a coma and died seven years later."

Orlowski said he collected more than 30 cases that showed the Heimlich maneuver to be a hindrance to drowning rescue. 

Much of the controversy that has evolved out of Heimlich's claims has thickened since 2002, when his son, Peter Heimlich, said he began to unearth years of medical fraud.

For the recent article, I provided the following quotes that didn't make it into print. I don't know when or if a reporter will provide me with another opportunity to say this, so I'm posting 'em here:

Many medical professionals were intimidated by my father: he was famous, he had access to the media, and he regularly tried to ruin people's careers simply because they disagreed with his theories. So it was easier to just stay out of his way.

In contrast, Dr. Orlowski was courageous and principled. He knew my father didn't even understand the physiology of drowning and, from the beginning, he challenged my father's junk science in the medical journals and in the media.

Since 1974, my father relentlessly hyped the Heimlich for drowning based on evidence ranging from flimsy to fraudulent. Now the Heimlich Institute has finally waved the white flag. There's no question that Dr. Orlowski deserves much of the credit for that victory.

As I reported this morning, yesterday the website of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute deleted its main pages recommending the Heimlich maneuver as an effective treatment for drowning rescue, to stop asthma attacks, and to treat cystic fibrosis.

Since then, presumably as the result of an e-mail I sent to Patrick Ward this morning (see below), apparently every mention of those treatments has been scrubbed from the organization's website.

This comes on the heels of a Special Report about the Heimlich for drowning in this month's Aquatics International magazine.

Presumably it also marks the end of almost four decades of my father's failed crusade to promote the  treatment, a campaign built entirely on fabricated evidence. From the AI article: 

“For 30 years, my father endlessly trumpeted the cases in the media and in medical journals as proof of his claims,” Peter (Heimlich) 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.” 

Via the Washington Post, here are some of the side effects of their trickery:

Dr. James Orlowski said he has documented nearly 40 (drowning) 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.

For more details, see my web page, Some of the victims - casualties of the Heimlich maneuver for drowning rescue.

Along with a couple dozen pages that were on the Heimlich Institute's website this morning but have since been deleted - click here for a list - here's a screenshot I took this morning from the site's home page:


From a few minutes ago, here's a screenshot from the same page:


In a future post, I'll share my opinion of why Deaconess Associations, the parent company of the Heimlich Institute, finally took action.

Hint: Deaconess has been putting the public at risk with this quackery since 1998 as well as funding and sponsoring the Heimlich "malariotherapy" atrocity experiments on AIDS patients.

And if the prominent business folk in charge of Deaconess have ever expressed concern about the scores of media stories reporting the life-threatening hazards associated with my father's unproven, discredited claims, their distress hasn't reached my ears.

Therefore, it's unlikely that these health care executives were suddenly overcome by pangs of conscience.

my 5/16/12 inquiry to the Heimlich Institute re: whether the organization still promotes the Heimlich maneu...

Note: I've updated this item with more details and added links since first posting it.

Along with the following description, this two-minute public relations video appeared yesterday on the websites of a bunch of Gannett newspapers: 

Young students soon to become "Heimlich Heroes" as part of a multidisciplinary curriculum with posters, lesson plans and T-shirts emblazoned with an triangular crest surrounding an “H” that resembles Superman’s “S.”

Based on the video, Patrick Ward, Executive Director at Deaconess Associations (the Cincinnati health services corporation that has wholly owned the Heimlich Institute since 1997) appears to have dreamed up the program. The video includes interviews with him and with my father, both board members of the Heimlich Institute.

Here's Ward wearing a "Heimlich Heroes" polo shirt and my father wearing - yes - a "Heimlich Heroes" lab coat.


As I understand the program, EMTs visit local schools and teach students how to perform the Heimlich maneuver and hand out "Heimlich Hero" t-shirts.


According to the video, the curriculum was developed by Michelle Mellea, a science teacher at Cincinnati's Bethany School, "an Episcopal day school, serving girls and boys from kindergarten through the eighth grade."


If Ward's program is an attempt to revive the "Heimlich brand" to counter the scores of critical media reports that have appeared since 2003 about my father and the Institute, he's probably got his work cut out for him.

First, in 2006 the American Red Cross "downgraded" the Heimlich maneuver to a secondary treatment response for choking. The Red Cross now recommends first performing a series of back blows. If that fails to remove the obstruction, rescuers are instructed to proceed with "abdominal thrusts." They don't even call the procedure "the Heimlich maneuver" anymore.

Second, the Heimlich Institute's website continues to promote my father's long-discredited claims that the Heimlich maneuver is effective for reviving drowning victims, for stopping asthma attacks, and for curing cystic fibrosis.

Third, as recently as 2005, reportedly the Heimlich Institute was conducting illegal, unsupervised medical experiments on prostitutes in Ethiopia and Gabon, alleged "research" based on a treatment my father calls "malariotherapy." Over the decades, he's claimed that cancer, Lyme Disease, and AIDS can be cured by infecting patients with malaria and his organization has engaged in a series of notorious, violative human experiments on both US and foreign nationals.

This 2007 ABC 20/20 report by Brian Ross covered that and my father's other crackpot medical claims:



Fourth, per this 2006 ABC Chicago I-Team report, for years the Heimlich Institute has been an organization in name only - no office, no employees, just a website.



Fifth - and this may be the kicker - the shirts make you look like a major dork.

UPDATE, 4/22/12, 10:30AM: I just came across this Cincinnati Enquirer story on the program, Young students soon to become Heimlich Heroes by reporter Cliff Radel. It's dated 4/20/12, but didn't show up on my Google News search until this morning. It includes some interesting information that I plan to report in a follow-up Sidebar item.