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From Mystery Study by Shawn Cumberbatch, Barbados Today, August 7, 2013 (my emphasis):

The Ministry of Health is officially probing the existence of a controversial asthma study purportedly done in Barbados and involving a famous American physician.

But amid continued external queries about whether the research “followed legal and ethical guidelines”, Acting Permanent Secretary Tennyson Springer said initial investigations had found no evidence of its existence.

For the past several months Peter Heimlich, son of Henry Heimlich who is widely credited with developing the “choking rescue treatment” called the Heimlich Manoeuvre, has been requesting information from the Ministry of Health on the study.

...Last month Springer responded on the Ministry of Health’s behalf and told the younger Heimlich that there was no knowledge of the study which was said to have involved 67 minors.

..."(I) wish to acknowledge receipt of your correspondence and inform you that the matter is being investigated..."So far, there has been no institutional memory or documentation of this research. However, the Ministry of Health will continue to probe into this alleged project."

Click here for a 156-page pdf file that documents the "alleged project," which was funded by Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute and the Rotary Foundation of Cincinnati.

Rotary?

From the organization's website:

Rotary is an organization of business and professional persons united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

So why did they fund an experiment on dozens of children in Barbados after the project was refused by a hospital in their home town, Deaconess of Cincinnati?

And, given their interest in "high ethical standards," did Cincy Rotary do any monitoring of the experiment or follow-up, such as checking on the condition of the dozens of children who were used as research subjects?

Hey, don't ask me -- ask them:


More questions via the following e-mail I sent this morning to Dr. Dexter James, CEO of Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where the "mystery study" was supposed to have been conducted.

Click here to download a copy.

Click here for my web page documenting all this.

Dr. Dexter James and Bishop of Barbados, the Right Reverend Dr. John Holder (source)

The Barbados Ministry of Health (MOH) just confirmed to me that they're investigating a medical research study conducted on dozens of children about a decade ago.

From the abstract of the unpublished study:

The study population consisted of 67 patients aged 6–16 years with a control group of 34 patients and a study group of 33 patients...This study has provided data to support the potential benefits of the modified Heimlich Manoeuvre as adjunctive therapy for asthma....

According to recently-available documents from my father's archives (maintained by the University of Cincinnati medical library), the study was rejected by Cincinnati's Deaconess Hospital, then offshored to Barbados after funding was obtained from  the Heimlich Institute and the Rotary Club of Cincinnati.

According to correspondence exchanged by my father, Anne St. John MD of Barbados's Queen Elizabeth Hospital (lead investigator), and Charles H. Pierce MD PhD of Cincinnati (who helped arrange the project) the experiment was:

1) Approved by the Ministry of Health's Ethics Board;
2) Overseen by an Institutional Review Board.

I simply wanted to verify those two claims, so in February I wrote to the Ministry of Health, the agency responsible for overseeing medical research conducted in Barbados.

Tennyson Springer (source)

Per the July 10 letter (which I received today) from MOH Permanent Secretary Tennyson Springer: 

(I) wish to acknowledge receipt of your correspondence and inform you that the matter is being investigated. So far, there has been no institutional memory or documentation of this research. However, the Ministry of Health will continue the probe into this alleged project.

Click here for my web page about the Barbados study, including links to articles published in the University of Cincinnati News Record and the Barbados Sunday Sun newspapers, and in Barbados Underground, a lively Bajan blog.