The Sidebar

From: Peter Heimlich <peter.heimlich@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Questions for an item I'm blogging
To: Phil Heimlich <philheimlich1@gmail.com>
Cc: Justin Wise, Charles W. Guildner MD, [Enquirer opinion editor] Kevin Aldridge, Robert Anglen, Gregory Korte, [Enquirer politics reporter] Jason Williams, [Hamilton County, Ohio, Commissioner] Todd Portune
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2018 13:20:09 -0400

Phil,

I didn't receive your reply to my June 15 e-mail re: whether or not you're still doing the Hard Truths With Phil Heimlich podcast. Would you please get back to me on that?

Via Phil's website, apparently his last podcast was last year on 9/11

I'd also appreciate your answers to some other quick questions for the item I'm blogging about your June 14 Enquirer column that was picked up by Justin Wise in The Hill.

1) Based on the commitment to democratic values you expressed in your column, do you have any comments re: any of the information in these Enquirer articles from when you held elected office?

Via (Phil) Heimlich's legacy: 'Across-the-board cheapskate' by Robert Anglen, Cincinnati Enquirer, November 29, 2001:

“It means more of the same and it makes me nervous,” says Jenny Laster, president of the Grass Roots Leadership Academy, which trains community leaders and which recently fell into Mr. Heimlich's sights. “If he becomes a commissioner, I'll be the first person he wants to run out of town on a rail.”

She says Mr. Heimlich is divisive and destructive, and cites his inquiries about the academy as an example. He started by questioning how much the city was paying the academy to train community leaders and then tersely derided the program as being more expensive than Harvard.

“I haven't seen him accomplish anything, other than to further polarize this community,” Ms. Laster says. “There's a way to get information without stripping dignity from people.”

And she says he operates with impunity against minority organizations.

“If that sounds like I'm calling him a racist, well, if the shoe fits, then I'm sorry,” Ms. Laster says.

...Last year, four black civic and business leaders wanted Mr. Heimlich gagged and called for city officials to investigate him.

Representatives of the Urban League, the African American Chamber of Commerce, Genesis Redevelopment and the Riverfront Classic and Jamboree claimed that Mr. Heimlich had used his office as a tool of intimidation by persistently seeking information about groups that serve the black community.

He demanded financial statements, questioned salaries, probed expenses. Black leaders claimed that he unfairly targeted their organizations. While City Council refused to investigate Mr. Heimlich, some members questioned his methods and his manner as rude and unproductive.

“It has been a real problem,” Urban League President Sheila Adams says of Mr. Heimlich. “But I am not going to use his tactics.

Via Gay issue foes' names not listed; Donations not included in finance reports by Gregory Korte, Cincinnati Enquirer, October 28, 2004:

Conservative activists fighting a gay rights ballot measure in Cincinnati bought more than $500,000 worth of television ads on Sept. 30, local stations say.

...The Focus on the Family Cincinnati Committee has bought several full-page ads in Cincinnati newspapers featuring Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich.

...In the ad, Heimlich rebuts claims from repeal supporters that Article XII has cost the city millions in lost convention business.

Heimlich conducted the study while he was a paid consultant to the Citizens for Community Values. CCV paid Heimlich $55,000 in 2002, according to the group's tax return and Heimlich's state ethics disclosure form.

 
Via Anti-porn crusader takes fight to hotels by Sheila McLaughlin, Cincinnati Enquirer, December 15, 2002:

Incoming Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich has been employed by CCV as a paid consultant for the past year since leaving his Cincinnati City Council seat.

...He says he developed a close relationship with CCV as a city councilman, after Mr. Burress suggested that Cincinnati needed zoning measures to keep sexually-oriented businesses out of the central business district. Mr. Heimlich then successfully spearheaded legislation to do just that in 1996.

2) Re: this screen shot from the website of your 2008 congressional campaign, have you changed positions on any of these issues?



3) Based on the commitment to a free press which you expressed in your column, per my previous e-mail, a source informed me that you helped kill a KING5 News (Seattle) report about a 1976 research study about foreign body airway obstruction by Dr. Charles W. Guildner by threatening executives at the station with legal action. Is that true? If so, why did you do it?



4) Does (your wife and my sister-in-law Rebecca Simpson Heimlich, a longtime Koch brothers employee) plan to join you in voting for Democrats in national races in the upcoming mid-terms? Also, re: the photo of Rebecca and Corey Lewandowski (above), was that taken at the 2016 National Republican Convention? If not, what's the source?

5) Who's your supervising editor at the Enquirer?

Thanks for your continued time/attention and if you intend to respond, would you please get back to me by end of the day tomorrow?

Your brother, Peter

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

I haven't received a reply. Also I left a voice message and sent a couple of e-mails to Kevin Aldridge, the Enquirer's opinion editor, asking for the name of Phil's supervising editor. I haven't received a reply -- PMH

source

UPDATE: Son of famed New Rochelle doctor asks for Walk of Fame reconsideration by Lisa Reyes, Local12 TV News (Westchester, NY), May 8, 2017:

The son of a New Rochelle doctor credited with creating the Heimlich maneuver says inducting his father into the New Rochelle Walk of Fame would be a mistake.

Dr. Henry Heimlich, part of the New Rochelle High School class of 1937, is world-famous for developing the anti-choking method that bears his name. This year, the city is honoring him by inducting him into its Walk of Fame.

Dr. Heimlich's son, Peter, sent a letter to the city urging officials to reconsider the designation.

"My father was involved most of his career promoting a bunch of crackpot medical ideas that resulted in the significant loss of life," he says.

Click here to direct download a copy of my letter.

In e-mails he sent me yesterday, Cincinnati Enquirer editor Peter Bhatia made it clear  that -- and I am not exaggerating -- he did not care whether or not information in a published article was factually correct or accurately reported.

I've never filed a complaint against a journalist, but I thought his behavior merited it, so yesterday I filed a complaint of professional misconduct against Bhatia with Joanne Lipman, senior vice president and chief content officer of Gannett Inc., the Enquirer's parent company.

Here's what happened.

According to a 2015 Enquirer item, "(Bhatia helped) lead newsrooms that won nine Pulitzer Prizes, including (six at the Portland Oregonian). He also is a six-time Pulitzer juror."

Based on that impressive resume, I wanted to solicit and blog his expert opinion about what appeared to be a number of reportorial problems and factual errors in reporter Cliff Radel's obituary of my father in the December 17, 2016 Enquirer, Cincy native Dr. Henry Heimlich dies at 96.

So on Monday I e-mailed Bhatia a thoroughly-doumented inquiry listing seven of my concerns. I also asked him to provide me with the name of the supervising editor on the story.

For example, in his December 22 Cincinnati CityBeat media watch column, former Enquirer reporter Ben Kaufman tagged the headline as inaccurate. My father was born in Wilmington, DE.


But that was a minor glitch compared to other problems I shared with Bhatia, including the bizarre claim that Belle Jacobson MD, my father's business partner in a short-lived New Rochelle, NY, clinic called the Heimlich Medical Group, was my father's personal physician when he was a child.

Radel's article also included:
As I informed Bhatia, that tale was disputed in an article (for which I was a source), Henry Heimlich: Polarizing Doctor by veteran Cincinnati reporter Lucy May, WCPO Insider Monthly, March 2014:
I didn't expect Radel to have been aware of the information in May's report, but since my father's story had been contradicted two years ago in a mainstream Queen City news source, I was curious to know if Bhatia thought the obituary should be updated to include Webster's version of events.

Radel's article also failed to report that in a March 16, 2003 Sunday Enquirer front page expose (based on research by my wife and me and our outreach to reporter Robert Anglen), Dr. Dan Gavriliu of Bucharest called my father "a liar and a thief" because, for decades my father falsely claimed credit for a surgical procedure Gavriliu invented.

As I informed Bhatia, the Washington Post's obituary for my father included paragraphs about that and credited/linked to the Enquirer expose.


Therefore, it seemed conspicuous that the newspaper that broke the story should fail to mention it in my father's obit.

While waiting for Bhatia's reply, I did some fact-checking of my own.

Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2017 09:52:31 -0500
To: media@redcross.org
From: peter.heimlich@gmail.com
Subject: blogger inquiry
Cc: pbhatia@CINCINNA.GANNETT.COM

American Red Cross
Media Relations Dept.

To whom it may concern:

I'd appreciate your help with a clarification, please. If you can get back to me by tomorrow (Wednesday), that would be great. If you need more time, please advise and I'll do my best to accommodate.

Via Cincy native Dr. Henry Heimlich dies at 96 by Cliff Radel, Cincinnati Enquirer, December 17, 2016:

Current (American) Red Cross first-aid protocol for someone who's choking calls for five back slaps first. Then, if needed, follow with five of the maneuver's abdominal thrusts. The Red Cross's  inclusion of the back slaps offended Heimlich. So, in 1976, (Dr. Heimlich) asked the (American Red Cross) to remove his name from their first-aid literature for choking.That's why the term "abdominal thrusts" is used.

According to ARC materials and media reports I've seen, your organization's decision to use the term abdominal thrusts had nothing to do with any demands made by my father.

1) Per my blog yesterday, I brought the matter to the attention of Enquirer editor/VP Peter Bhatia.

2) My wife and I have been invited to write an article about the history of my father's namesake maneuver and we may wish to include this issue.

In order to resolve the matter, would you please provide me with a straightforward, unambiguous statement explaining why the ARC uses the term abdominal thrusts and whether or not input from my father had anything to do with that decision?

Thanks much for your time/consideration and I look forward to your reply.

Cheers, Peter

Peter M. Heimlich
Atlanta
ph: (208)474-7283
website: http://medfraud.info
blog: http://the-sidebar.com
e-mail: peter.heimlich@gmail.com

Tomorrow in I'll publish the ARC's response, but I won't keep you in suspense.

Radel got it all wrong, probably because, rather than asking the Red Cross, he took dictation from my nonagenarian father who -- and I've credited him for this -- has been punking Enquirer reporters for four decades, most recently last May.

Back to the obit, a version of which was same-day published in USA Today:


Yesterday I e-mailed the Lasker Foundation and asked if/when the Wilbur, Orville, and George Washington Carver received the award.

I received this prompt reply which I forwarded to Bhatia and USA Today's Standards & Ethics Editor, Brent Jones:

Dear Peter,

Neither the Wright Brothers nor George Washington Carver were ever recognized with Lasker Awards.

The Lasker Awards program dates to 1945. The first Basic and Clinical Lasker Awards were given in 1946.

A complete list of Lasker awardees can be found on our website: http://www.laskerfoundation.org/awards/ (and you can search any name using the “search” tool in the top navigation).

Hope that helps.

Best wishes,

David

David Keegan
Awards Program Director
Lasker Foundation
405 Lexington Avenue, 32nd Floor
New York, NY 10174
212-286-0222  
dkeegan@laskerfoundation.org

And then things got interesting...

Don't miss Part II tomorrow in The Sidebar...

This item has been slightly revised for clarity.

Via veteran reporter Ben Kaufman's media column in the June 8, 2016 Cincinnati CityBeat, the Queen City's longtime newsweekly:
This is the first part of a series about my corrections requests.

* Reporters at McKnight's and Slate have questioned the veracity of the Deupree House story. So have I.


Since Spring 2003, my father has been thoroughly exposed as a medical charlatan, a serial liar, and a con man in scores of media reports, two of the first being these Sunday front-pagers in the Cincinnati Enquirer (based on research by my wife Karen and me).

source

source

Here's my point.

Could there be a veteran journalist in the 'Nati who'd take anything my father said at face value and report it?

Reporter Scott Wegener, WCPO-TV News (source)

According to his bio on the website of WCPO-TV (Cincinnati's ABC affiliate), reporter Scott Wegener has been working in the Queen City since 1986 and has won some journalism awards.

On May 27, WCPO aired Wegener's story, Heimlich maneuver inventor uses it for the first time... at age 96, based on this lie told by my father:



That day and again on June 1, I sent e-mails to Wegener about the error.

I received his confirmations of receipt but no reply.

Reporter Joe Rosemeyer, WCPO-TV (source)

On June 27 I took it to WCPO.com News Editor Mike Canan and the next day, Heimlich's first time using maneuver? Maybe not by Joe Rosemeyer, was published on the station's website.

It's tough to prove someone intentionally lied and Rosemeyer's story included some verbal acrobatics perhaps intended to step around that dead elephant in the room:
Presumably the "irresolvable conflict" could be resolved by asking my father, but the story didn't include any quotes from Dr. Maneuver or any indication that he'd been contacted, so I asked Rosemeyer about that.

He replied, "Phil said Henry had some health problems since last month, so he was calling me back instead."

Is this the first time Dr. Heimlich has ever used the maneuver to save a life?

“Yes, this is,” he said Friday. “I originally did my research studies that led to my developing it, which was in 1974, and I never considered that I would be doing it myself.”

The record is murky in that regard. A BBC article in 2003 quoted the doctor, then 83, describing a similar encounter where he tried the maneuver on a fellow diner, a man, although the story lacked details such as a precise date, location and name. A New Yorker article in 2006 made reference to a similar incident, also without details. But a son, Phil Heimlich, said his father had never mentioned any previous incidents to him. The doctor himself did not return a follow-up call.

Finally, if my father's ill, I wish him a speedy recovery.

And when he's better, I'd encourage reporters to interview him to perhaps resolve the "irresolvable conflict."

And if any reporters need someone on the record calling him a liar, I'm available.

This item has been slightly updated.

Jason Schmidt and Cincinnati Red's player Todd Frazier, who made headlines a couple years ago for performing the Heimlich maneuver on a choking man in a Pittsburgh restaurant (source)

I've always thought my father's bizarre career along with his twisted personal life would make a terrific documentary.

Perhaps not surprisingly, as his (very) unauthorized amateur biographer and most outspoken critic, I've been approached over the years by a handful of filmmakers who had the same idea.

One recent contender is Jason Schmidt, who, per his website, "is a veteran freelance video editor based in New York City."

Since last year, he's been trying to get a project off the ground called The Maneuver: The Inside Story of Dr. Henry Heimlich as his directorial debut.

This past April he contacted me and invited me to be interviewed.

He didn't impress me in the least, so I politely declined.

I also requested that if anyone asked if I was participating in his project, that they be informed that I wasn't.

Since then, a few articles and press releases have appeared about his project and in July a Kickstarter campaign raised close to $32,000 in funding.

Friends have asked why I gave him a thumbs-down, plus I've got some editorial and fund raising concerns about the project, hence this item.

I prefer to keep my posts short, so here's Part I.

Photo by Wesley Mann for The Hollywood Reporter

In initial e-mails, Schmidt informed me he'd already conducted a round of interviews in Cincinnati, including a lengthy interview with my then 93-year-old father at the retirement community where he's lived in recent years.

Putting aside whatever you think of our research, my wife and I probably know more about Henry Heimlich than anyone except Henry Heimlich.

And over the past decade we've accumulated thousands of important documents, some of which were the basis for the scores of print and broadcast reports since 2003 based on our research that helped expose my father as a dangerous charlatan and world-class scammer.

Seth Abramovitch (source)

Here's the most recent, the jaw-dropping August 14 Hollywood Reporter expose by reporter Seth Abramovitch, How Dr. Heimlich Maneuvered Hollywood Into Backing His Dangerous AIDS "Cure," based on documents I shared with the magazine.

My point?

Love me or not, I've got the goods.

Therefore, what kind of documentary maker would conduct an in-depth interview with my father without first trying to pick my brain for possible questions to ask Dr. Maneuver?

But here's where the Schmidt really hit the fan.

In an initial e-mail, I asked him about his funding source for the round of Cincinnati interviews he'd completed.

His reply?

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.

Hear that fluttering of wings?

Sounds to me like credibility flying out the window.

First, I'd never participate in a project with anyone willing to accept funds from my father or his associates or from me or anyone I might steer to him.

Second, I'd never participate in a project with anyone so indiscreet and lacking in self-awareness that they'd put such an abysmal admission in writing.

Speaking of abysmal, check out the film's trailer:



Part II: My father's press agent helped fund Jason Schmidt's documentary -- and she says she's personal friends with Schmidt

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

Click here for the complete article

Via Thomas Francis's two-part November 2005 "Heimlich expose" in Radar Magazine:

Dr. Heimlich's first claim to medical fame was a surgical technique that involved replacing a patient's damaged esophagus with a gastric tube. In 1955 Heimlich had published a paper in the journal Surgery describing how he had performed the operation on dogs. A Romanian physician, Dr. Dan Gavriliu, wrote to Surgery to point out that he'd been performing the same operation successfully on humans for four years.

Karen discovered a 1957 article in Surgery written by Heimlich in which he conceded that Gavriliu was indeed first to perform the operation on humans. It might have been chalked up to coincidence - two inventors arriving at an idea within a few years of each other - except that Heimlich still takes credit for the "Heimlich Operation" on his website.

...Peter leaked the story to the Cincinnati Enquirer, whose front page expose in March 2003 quoted Gavriliu as calling Heimlich a "thief." In the article Heimlich admitted again that Gavriliu had been the first to perform the procedure and insisted he had given Gavriliu credit, which he had, though selectively and in most cases well out of the public eye.

Via Heimlich Falsely Claims He Invented Procedure by Robert Anglen, Cincinnati Enquirer, March 16, 2003

(Heimlich) for years has taken full credit for the operation.

In the 1998 Encyclopedia Britannica medical annual:

"I conceived of an operation to replace the esophagus. After successfully performing the procedure on a series of patients, I presented the results at an American Medical Association meeting."

In the May-June 1995 issue of Navy Medicine:

"My specialty resulted from developing the reversed gastric tube operation for esophageal replacement. Previous attempts at replacing the esophagus out of the upper stomach and intestine were not very successful."

In Who's Who in America 2002:

"I have never been satisfied with existing methods and seek to simplify and improve them. After devising an operation for replacement of the esophagus, I became aware that with one such discovery I could help more people in a few weeks than in my entire lifetime as a surgeon in the operating room."

"Let Heimlich be a pig if he wants to steal an operation and put his name on it," says retired New York surgeon Eugene Albu. "He changed the name from the Gavriliu Operation to the Gavriliu-Heimlich Operation. Then it became the Heimlich Operation later on."

After the Enquirer gave my father his long-overdue comeuppance, who'd be daft enough to try to  defend him?


My brother may be ready and willing (if not particularly able) to deliver such baloney, but the facts have been settled in the reality-based community, right?

For example, here's an editor's  note in the 2007 edition of Dr. Josef Fischer's Mastery of Surgery:


Nevertheless --  per an item I blogged a couple weeks ago, How did (the) long-debunked "Heimlich Operation" lie get into Publishers Weekly review of my father's autobiography? -- the truth is still pulling its boots on.

Here's a screenshot from the original Publishers Weekly review:


After I wrote to PW Reviews Director Louise Ermelino, the  review was updated:


The same thing happened with a November 26, 2013 review by Kirkus Reviews. Here's the before and after:



Both updates still provide my father with a measure of (undeserved) credit, but they're short reviews and readers who see Dr. Dan Gavriliu's name can Google their way to learning more.


And if you're fluent in Romanian, you can read the chapter from Dan's 2004 autobiography, Memories...Memories... (which he sent me at the time) in which he discusses my father's conduct and how Robert Anglen's Enquirer article came to be published.

Miruna Munteanu (source)

There have also been a couple of strong articles in the Romanian press by veteran reporter Miruna Munteanu of Bucharest.

Here are links to her stories via Google Translate, The genius of a Romanian surgeon was recognized (ZIUA, April 1, 2006, which includes an interview with me) and A miserable pension for  legendary surgeon (Jurnalul.ro, November 7, 2008) which includes:

Acclaimed professor Dan Gavriliu the first surgeon in the world who succeeded in 1951, complete replacement of an organ inventing reverse gastric tube procedure, lives today at age 93 with a pension of 749 lei per month.

...Professor Dan Gavriliu receives the monthly equivalent of about 250 dollars. And a not unimportant detail, Dr. Henry Heimlich is a multimillionaire.

In Part II, I'll be addressing problems with my father's version in his memoir that's due to be published by Prometheus Books on February 11.

source

In about six weeks, Prometheus Books is publishing my father's memoir, Heimlich's Maneuvers: My Seventy Year of Lifesaving Innovations.

Last week I noticed that my father -- or probably someone pretending to be him since he's almost 94 and lives in a retirement community in Cincinnati -- started the Twitter account @henryjheimlich, presumably to generate some book buzz.

This Tweet about a recent review of the book in Publishers Weekly got my attention:


From the November 25 review:

(Dr. Heimlich) proudly shares his astounding list of medical inventions, including a “reversed gastric tube operation” that allowed patients with damaged esophagi to eat again....

Huh? 

Via Heimlich falsely claims he invented surgical procedure -- Romanian replaced esophagus years before by Robert Anglen on the front page of the March 16, 2003 Cincinnati Enquirer:

For more than 40 years, Cincinnati icon Dr. Henry Heimlich has been taking credit for a world-famous (Reversed Gastric Tube) operation that was actually developed first by a Romanian surgeon behind the Iron Curtain.

In interviews, biographies and promotional materials, Heimlich has told anyone who would listen that he performed the world's first total organ replacement.

But even before Heimlich wrote his first article about the "Heimlich Operation" on dogs in 1955, the procedure had been performed dozens of times on humans by Romanian surgeon Dr. Dan Gavriliu, an Enquirer investigation has found.

Gavriliu now calls Heimlich a "liar and a thief." He says Heimlich not only took credit for the operation, but also lied when he said they co-authored a paper for an international surgery conference.

..."Let Heimlich be a pig if he wants to steal an operation and put his name on it," says retired New York surgeon Eugene Albu. "He changed the name from the Gavriliu Operation to the Gavriliu-Heimlich Operation. Then it became the Heimlich Operation later on."

Albu, 78, was a professor at New York's Albert Einstein University. Before coming to America in 1978, he worked with Gavriliu on the reversed gastric tube operation in Romania and throughout Europe.

And as I reported a couple months ago, Lisa Michalski at Prometheus wrote me that in his book, my father credits Dr. Gavriliu with inventing the operation.

So how did the bogus information make it into the Publishers Weekly review?

I don't know, but I sent an inquiry to Louisa Ermelino, PW's Reviews Director, who promptly agreed to look into the matter. (When I have more info, I'll post an update.)

By the way, last week I subscribed to my father's Twitter account.

That didn't last long:

The May issue of Aquatics International, "the only publication devoted exclusively to the commercial and public swimming pool industries," just published Dangerous Maneuvers by Kendra Kozen, a senior editor at the magazine.

Kendra Kozen

Her article may be the stake in the heart of my father's 30-year campaign to promote the use of the Heimlich maneuver (aka abdominal thrusts) to resuscitate drowning victims.

The article is 50% a review of the Heimlich-for-drowning history and 50% about NASCO, a Houston-area lifeguard training company which, against all reason, has been teaching lifeguards to perform the Heimlich on drowning victims for decades. (Click here for a compendium of news reports about that.)

From the AI article:

Here’s what is known about the Heimlich as it relates to drowning prevention: It is not recommended by any medical authority as a rescue technique for drowning. Furthermore, evidence suggests that performing the Heimlich maneuver in an underwater submersion incident actually could be harmful.

Gerald Dworkin (source)

"The Heimlich is not an accepted medical practice as response for drowning victims. Unless the medical authorities - the American Heart Association, Red Cross - were to adopt it, I don’t see how anyone could advocate its use,” says Gerald Dworkin, a consultant with Lifesaving Resources Inc. in Kennebunkport, Maine.

...Heimlich began touting the technique as a means to revive drowning victims almost as soon as it was introduced. In a 1975 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he wrote about Victor H. Esch, MD, of Potomac, Md., claiming that Dr. Esch watched a lifeguard rescue a nearly dead drowning victim at Rehoboth Beach, Del., and then - somewhat miraculously - Esch stepped in to help by applying abdominal thrusts. He claimed to have gotten the idea after reading a recent article about Heimlich’s new choking rescue method, which had been introduced only three months earlier.

According to Heimlich, Esch’s actions revived the victim. Over the next several years he published articles in several other journals, describing at least one other case study where the victim also reportedly was saved by the use of the Heimlich maneuver.

...According to some investigative reports, correspondence from that time indicates that Heimlich operated by threatening other experts, and accusing them of fraud...But information uncovered by Peter Heimlich indicates that actually it was the case studies his father used to support his position that were at issue, and it appears fraudulent, in many instances. 

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

One of those was Esch, according to Peter, who says he received verbal confirmation in 2005 that Esch knew Heimlich for many years before the time of the rescue described in JAMA. Esch died in 2010.

The 2005 "verbal confirmation" was during a phone call I had with Dr. Esch. He told me he'd known my father since the early 1950s, but said he didn't remember how they met.

Victor H. Esch MD (1922-2010)

I first learned about their longtime relationship in 2003 from reporter Robert Anglen who interviewed Esch for a pending article for the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Anglen's story was spiked, but the information was eventually reported in Tom Francis's November 2005 two-part article published by Radar magazine:

Heimlich cites his own list of cases supporting his maneuver's efficacy against drowning, but the people reporting these cases have prior associations with Heimlich himself. Former Washington, DC, fire surgeon Victor Esch, for example, claimed to have saved a man from drowning at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, in August 1974 by using the Heimlich maneuver. Esch, who told me he has known Henry Heimlich for decades, can offer no hospital reports or witnesses. And he has told several different versions of the same story. During the course of one interview he told me that the incident happened at Rehoboth Beach, only to deny it five minutes later and insist that it happened at another beach.

Esch, whose primary residence was in Potomac, also owned a condo in Rehoboth Beach. According to Wiki:

The town often bills itself as "The Nation's Summer Capital" due to the fact that it is a frequent summer vacation destination for Washington, D.C., residents as well as visitors from Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Vacationers are drawn for many reasons, including the town's charm, artistic appeal, and nightlife.

Still famous for its beaches, wooden boardwalk, eclectic shops, amusements, and sporting activities, today's Rehoboth Beach is also known as one of the mid-Atlantic coast's popular gay and lesbian getaways because of the large number of gay-owned and operated businesses and because of the gay-frequented stretch of beach near Queen Street, known as Poodle Beach.

From reporter Tom Jackman's article last year in the Washington Post, here's one of the side effects of the phony case reports my father and his buddies cooked up and used to urge the public to perform the Heimlich on drowning victims:

In Tampa, which has one of the highest drowning rates in the country, 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.

Some of the victims were children. See for yourself.

In days to come, I'll be taking a closer look at the Esch case and my father's other "miracle cases," some of which are posted on the website of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute.

My father directs lifeguard Serena Levy as she demonstrates the Heimlich maneuver at Cincinnati's Coney Island pool (source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 7/10/99)

From a May 28, 2003 press release issued by Edward A. Patrick MD PhD (punctuation and emphasis from original):

A reporter from the Cincinnati Enquirer walked up the driveway of my home on May 19, 2003..... The reporter.. (indicated) he was looking for Dr. Edward Patrick as he (the reporter) is doing a story on Dr. Patrick and Dr. Henry Heimlich. He asked why I did not get proper credit for the development of what now is called the Heimlich maneuver.

I have the greatest respect for Dr. Heimlich, his work, and his contributions. He himself once told me that I have not received proper credit for the development of what has become known as the Heimlich maneuver. In any case, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to help develop a treatment for choking that has saved many lives.

...I have always viewed that Dr. Heimlich and I worked together to develop what has become known as the Heimlich maneuver just as the Wright brothers worked together to develop the first flying machine.

Nine years after he issued the press release and eight years after being scooped on the story in 2004 by - no kidding - the Cornell Alumni Magazine, a few days ago the Enquirer finally got the information into print.

Here's how the Queen City's paper of record reported this journalistic landmark, by burying it in a sidebar attached to a rah-rah article by reporter Cliff Radel about "Heimlich Heroes," a new first aid training program launched by the Heimlich Institute:

(Yesterday, before I'd seen Radel's story, I blogged my observations about the "Heimlich Heroes" venture. Long story short? I think it's iffy.)

The above boxed squib also marks the paper's first mention of a significant news event from Spring 2006. That's when the American Red Cross made the first major change in 20 years to their choking rescue guidelines by "downgrading" the Heimlich maneuver to a secondary treatment response.

Better late than never, but you might expect more timely reporting in the city where my father introduced the maneuver in 1974 and where he's been considered an icon ever since.


The Enquirer reporter mentioned in Dr. Patrick's press release, the one who showed up in his driveway? That was Robert Anglen, who left Cincinnati in late 2003 to work for the Arizona Republic. I know because at the time I was working closely with him.

Robert Anglen

In the months preceding Dr. Patrick's press release, Anglen had reported these two Sunday Enquirer front-page barn burners (both almost entirely based on my original research):

February 16, 2003 - Scientists Linked to Heimlich Investigated, exposing prominent UCLA researchers who were connected to the Heimlich Institute's notorious experiments in which Chinese AIDS patients were deliberately infected with malaria. The story went global, with separate bylined articles soon appearing in the NY Times, the LA Times, Reuters, and numerous other media outlets.

March 16, 2003 - Heimlich Falsely Claims He Invented Procedure, about how for decades my father falsely took credit for inventing an operation to replace a damaged esophagus. In Anglen's article, the actual inventor, Dr. Dan Gavriliu of Bucharest, called my father "a liar and a thief."

Riding high on these stories, why couldn't Anglen get the "Patrick maneuver" story into print almost a decade ago? He told me he repeatedly interviewed Dr. Patrick who gave him some eye-popping quotes. And why did he leave the Enquirer?

An enterprising reporter could certainly ask Anglen.

The result might turn out to be yet another journalistic landmark, Cincinnati-style.

From The Heimlich maneuver by Henry J. Heimlich MD & the late Edward A. Patrick MD, PhD, Postgraduate Medicine, 5/1/90

Isaac Asimov's Super Quiz is a syndicated King Features newspaper quiz column written by Ken Fisher. From the February 4, 2012 column: 

6. He has received credit as the inventor of abdominal thrusts.

Answer: Henry Heimlich

True, but what about....?

From Dr. Edward A.Patrick & Dr. Henry J. Heimlich Regarding the Heimlich maneuver, press release, The Patrick Institute, May 28, 2003 (via the Wayback Machine, emphasis from original):

A reporter* from the Cincinnati Enquirer walked up the driveway of my home on May 19, 2003...He asked why I did not get proper credit for the development of what now is called the Heimlich maneuver....I have always viewed that Dr. Heimlich and I worked together to develop what has become known as the Heimlich maneuver just as the Wright brothers worked together to develop the first flying machine.

...In 1985, Surgeon General Koop called me to indicate that he was giving a press release to the American people declaring that the back slap was lethal and the Heimlich maneuver would be the only treatment for choking. Dr. Heimlich and I had developed the Heimlich maneuver as the best treatment for choking – it "flew"!

* Robert Anglen (now at the Arizona Republic) can provide more details.



From Heimlich's Maneuver by Thomas Francis, Cleveland Scene, August 11, 2004:

On the day of Koop's announcement, Heimlich staged his own press conference in Cincinnati, while Patrick had his in Evansville, Indiana. Patrick fielded questions from reporters about his role in inventing the maneuver. "At 9:30, when the press conference was over, a reporter came up to me and said, 'I just talked to Dr. Heimlich, and he says he did it alone,'" says Patrick. He was stunned.

Asked to describe his role in inventing the maneuver, Patrick gives technical descriptions of two discoveries that were turning points, both of which he claims as his own. He has difficulty remembering Heimlich's contribution.

Nevertheless, there are no sour grapes. "I never asked him about that," says Patrick of Heimlich's solo claim to the maneuver. "I would like to get proper credit for what I've done, but I'm not hyper about it."

Still, he says that for the sake of accuracy, the technique ought to be called the Patrick-Heimlich maneuver.

From Dr. Patrick's full-page obituary in the British Medical Journal, March 13, 2010:

Patrick claimed that he was the co-developer of the Heimlich manoeuvre, which he referred to as the “Patrick-Heimlich manoeuvre.” For nearly 30 years, his career was intimately tied to the equally puzzling career of Henry Heimlich, once dubbed the “most famous physician in the world” for the life saving manoeuvre named after him.

Who might be able to shed more light on this mystery? Also from the BMJ obit:

He leaves three former wives, Patricia Roy, Susan Soudrette, and Joy Lake Patrick, and four children from his first marriage (one predeceased him) and two from his third.

My father, Cory Servaas MD, and Edward A. Patrick MD PhD (1987)

From Heimlich's Latest Maneuvers by Mary Mihaly, Health Monitor, December 2009/January 2010:

Dr. “Hank” Heimlich may be the most famous doctor in the world, but in this diner, he’s just the tall, lanky fellow who comes in almost every week for eggs and grits...Inevitably, talk turns to his “latest maneuver” - his upcoming autobiography, Heimlich’s Maneuvers, to be published shortly by Bartleby Press.

Among other highlights, the book recounts how, in 1953, Dr. Heimlich launched his career by creating a surgical procedure for replacing the esophagus....

But according to this screen shot taken today at the website of Andrea M. Sattinger, the book's co-author, it appears the book's been re-titled and that the Bartleby Press deal fell down:


Prospective publishers may wish to do some fact checking before going to print. For example....