The Sidebar

Via Luke Bryan expected to stay #1 on Billboard for second week, Nashville Gab.com, November 29, 2013:

Last week, Luke Bryan sold an incredible 527,783 units of his new album "Crash My Party," placing him firmly at #1 on the Billboard 200. This week comes word that he's once again expected to be at #1.

Via The Atlantic, March 11, 2013:

On his blog, (Peter Heimlich) urges journalists to investigate potentially fraudulent stories about the maneuver being successfully used -- was country star Luke Bryan telling People Country magazine the truth about an errant piece of flatbread pizza?

People Country magazine, October 2012

My previous Sidebar items:

September 23, 2012: Who's the "mystery friend" that rescued Nashville singing star Luke Bryan from choking? His people won't tell me and the editor of People Country -- the magazine that broke the story -- isn't interested

November 8, 2012: Was country music star Luke Bryan lyin' about being rescued from choking? Not even his mother will back up the story.

 January 29, 2013: Nashville singer Luke Bryan's managers refuse to back up his "Heimlich choking rescue" story -- and an invitation to reporters to slice this baloney

If the story is fiction, I wonder if first responders or others who have participated in life or death choking incidents would be amused?

If any reporters or fans want to ask Bryan or his manager for details -- date of the incident, his friend's name, the name/location of the restaurant -- click here for his tour dates.

He's managed by Red Light Management, a powerhouse agency based in Charlottesville, VA headed by industry mogul Coran Capshaw. He's at (434)245-4900.

Per this e-mail exchange, one of Capshaw's employees promised to answer my questions, then disappeared. My guess is he checked with his client and discovered that the entire story was cooked.

If anyone follows through, I'd be interesting in learning the results.

As a result of my fact-checking, The Atlantic has published yet another correction and update to an error-riddled March 11 article, The Grand Vision of Dr. Heimlich, After the Maneuver Limelight by reporter Lindsay Abrams.

My March 26 item, Gettin' jiggy with reporter Lindsay Abrams's Atlantic article about my father, chronicled my first round of prying out corrections from the magazine.

On April 30, I reported that the World Health Organization denied my father's recent published claim to The Atlantic that the WHO supported the Heimlich Institute's "malariotherapy" experiments on Chinese AIDS patients. (In fact, a 2002 WHO report called the trials -- in which patients were infected with malaria -- a medical atrocity.)

I then submitted this corrections request to Atlantic editor James Bennet.



I didn't receive a reply, but this morning I took another look at Ms. Abrams's article which now includes these updates:

Last month I blogged about reportorial problems in a March 11 Atlantic article, The Grand Vision of Dr. Heimlich, After the Maneuver Limelight by Lindsay Abrams.

Per my item, a corrections request I submitted apparently triggered a significant re-write plus an update that included:


That updated "perspective" included:


As has been widely reported, my father's claim about UCLA is not quite true. UCLA staffers were involved, but there's no indication that the university was aware of it at the time.

But the WHO supporting infecting Chinese AIDS patients with malaria?

Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta, MBBS, DCH, FRCP, FCPS, FRCPCH, PhD (source)

Does this sound supportive?

Via Ethics in International Health Research: A Perspective from the Developing World by Dr. Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta, published in 2002 by the WHO's Commission on Macroeconomics and Health:

The recent guidelines for regulation of human experimentation must be seen in the backdrop of atrocities committed by doctors upon vulnerable subjects within recent memory. The highly controversial trials of induction of malaria in HIV patients (Heimlich et al 1997) and the trovafloxacin trial in Nigeria (Boseley 2001, Stephens 2000 & 2001) are two recent examples.
 
...(Clearly) unscrupulous and opportune research which exploits the vulnerability and want of a given population, must be condemned. The case of the Trovan drug trial in the midst of a meningitis outbreak in Nigeria (Stephens 2000) and the induction of malaria in HIV patients (Heimlich et al 1997) are examples where the need for ethical guidelines and minimal universal ethical standards for research becomes absolute.

So last month I wrote to the WHO and asked whether or not the claim published by The Atlantic was accurate.

In response, here's an e-mail I received this morning:



So will The Atlantic uncap the red pen again?

I'll submit another corrections request and report the results here.

source

Here are the first few paragraphs:


Atlantic reporter Lindsay Abrams's article -- a concise, thorough round-up of my father's bizarre career -- could just as well have been titled, "What was left out of Radiolab's Heimlich story." (More about that in a future item.)

But this sentence didn't ring true:


Although I doubt that my father invented what came to be known as the Heimlich Valve...

"I don't think my father invented anything," Peter said, "but his own mythology." (source)

...I can't recall any published information that supported Ms. Abrams's statement, so in a March 11 e-mail, I asked her:

Would you please provide your source(s) for that statement? That is, who has claimed my father may not have invented the Heimlich Valve?

To which she promptly replied:

I thought I had saw [sic] it on your site, but if that's not the case I'm going to have to go back through my notes to find exactly where this was. In the meantime, I've temporarily removed that claim until I can be sure I can accurately source it.

Here's the updated paragraph as of then:


Over a week later, the article was the same, so I e-mailed Ms. Abrams re: the status of the correction, to which she promptly replied:

I have not been able to locate the original source of that claim. I believe that it was originally intended to be a reference to this story from Radar Magazine, which refers to a different controversy concerning the Heimlich valve: http://medfraud.info/Radar_Outmaneuvered_11-05.html

The correction, once again, has been appended to the piece -- thank you again for bringing it to my attention.

That's when things started gettin' jiggy.

Contrary to her "once again" claim, this was the first I'd heard about an "appended correction."

But jiggier still?

There was no appended correction on the article.

Assuming she'd erred and simply neglected to post the correction, I replied:

Not sure if it's my browser's cache pulling up an older version (of your article), but I don't see the noted correction on the story. Can you send me a screenshot of that, please?

No reply, so the next day I wrote her:

Not to be a nag, but I first brought this to your attention on March 11 (see e-mails below my signature), so I'd like to wrap this up, preferably by the end of today. 

Via your previous e-mail: 

The correction, once again, has been appended to the piece...

My eyesight isn't what it used to be, but this morning I viewed your article in three different web browsers and I couldn't find an appended correction. I've attached a time-stamped copy of the print version from this morning which doesn't include it.

Still no reply.

Quick sidetrack via her article:


Tired of playing dodge ball with Ms. Abrams -- who, based on her resume, should know better -- I took it upstairs to Atlantic editor James Bennet and to Natalie Raape, the magazine's Communications Director.

Voila!


And yesterday afternoon, this appended correction did finally appear:


But wait, there's more!

Today I noticed that this part of her article was expanded from this:


To this:


I thought that was interesting and that Ms. Abrams might be interested in learning more. So about an hour ago, I phoned her, but she said she wasn't interested in receiving more information.

Oh, and the appended correction has also been expanded:

 
Incidentally, about that photo used in the article, here's the cutline:


Click here to see the entire photo.

Isn't that the late actress/dancer Gwen Verdon? I'll try to find out.

If so, maybe I can score yet another update on Ms. Abrams's article!

3/27/13 UPDATE: Not Gwen Verdon or even close! In response to my inquiry, Paul Colford, Director of Media Relations at the Associated Press, replied, "The woman is Dorothy Allen of Halifax, Mass."

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.