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As Sidebar readers know, Stephen Langendorfer PhD, editor of a peer-reviewed aquatics journal called IJARE and a department head at Ohio's Bowling Green State University, is playing ostrich re: a retraction request filed last year by Ed Castillo who runs Golden State Lifeguards out of Woodland Hills, CA.

As I reported a few weeks ago, Langendorfer "purposefully" refused to respond to Castillo's request that a discredited drowning rescue study published in IJARE be given the heave-ho.

The study, which concluded that abdominal thrusts (the Heimich maneuver) are an effective treatment for drowning, was authored by two non-medical professionals, John Hunsucker PhD and Scott Davison of the National Aquatic Safety Company (NASCO), a Houston-area lifeguard training company which has been the subject of  wide-ranging criticism for promoting the thoroughly-discredited treatment.

In January, after decades of what Aquatics International magazine called "using people as guinea pigs," NASCO finally gave up the ghost.

Since Langendorfer's in hiding, Castillo just took his retraction request upstream to the head of Human Kinetics, the $37 million/year company responsible for publishing the squiffy study.


From: Chief Ed Castillo - Golden State Lifeguards <ecastillo@goldenstatelifeguards.com>
To: Skip Maier<skipm@hkusa.com>
Cc: christinaj@hkusa.com, peter.heimlich@gmail.com, slangen@bgsu.edu
Subject: NASCO Retraction Request
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2016 08:23:39 -0700

Skip Maier
Chief Executive Officer
Human Kinetics
1607 N. Market St.
Champaign, IL 61820

Dear Mr. Maier,

As you're aware, on September 21, 2015 I submitted a retraction request re: a controversial research study published by your company in the May 2010 issue of the International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education (IJARE). As you're also aware, I sent my request to the journal's editor, Stephen J. Langendorfer PhD. Here's a copy: http://tinyurl.com/hl2x74q

Per this October 20, 2015 to you, Dr. Langendorfer stated that he does not intend to respond to my request http://tinyurl.com/zoqz8ym

Therefore this e-mail is to formally submit my request to you.

Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Ed Castillo

Per the e-mail below, Maier claims that his company follows the retraction guidelines of the Committee on Public Ethics (COPE). Click here for a copy those guidelines.

Courtesy of Castillo's e-mail, presumably we'll learn if he's true to his word or if he'll try to pull a Langendorfer.

Click here for a copy of the NASCO study, a scorching analysis/rebuttal by leading medical and water safety experts, and more.

Via a January 18, 2016 story by staff reporter Joe Mauceri that aired on New York City's PIX11-TV News:

(An anti-choking device called) LifeVac claims to help choking victims by suctioning blockages from their airways, but some say it needs more testing first and now it's being pulled from several local schools.

...(Last) week Peter Heimlich, son of the inventor or the Heimlich maneuver, wrote letters to the Commissioner of the State Education Department and NYC Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina saying, "it's unclear if the device has been properly tested and/or determined to be safe."

...The DOE said it had no knowledge of LifeVac in any of it's [sic] schools and added, "The Department of Education does not recommend this device."

A month later PIX11 News aired Life-saving invention could prevent any more choking deaths of children in school in which staff reporter Kirstin Cole enthusiastically promoted the LifeVac, claiming it might have saved the lives of New York City public school students who died in choking-related incidents.

Since her report includes no interviews from medical professionals, it's unclear how Ms. Cole arrived at that conclusion.


In the clip below, Ms. Cole hypes the LifeVac while PIX11 co-anchors Kori Chambers and Sukanya Krishnan use their hands and their desk to test the device and then say:

Sukanya Krishnan: So how much do these cost again?
Kirstin Cole: Fifty bucks.
SK: And where do you get them?
KC: You get it right on (LifeVac's) website.
SK: We'll attach our website to it.
KC: We will.
Kori Chambers: This could be a game changer.
SK: This could be a game changer. And this really is something that every parent can have in their house as well."

LifeVac then posted this Facebook thank-you:


Shortly after Ms. Cole's story aired, I e-mailed her some questions, including:

Prior to reporting your story, were you aware of Joe Mauceri's report last month about the LifeVac?

Have you ever asked any licensed medical professionals and/or leading first aid organizations (such as the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association) their opinions about the LifeVac? If so, whom did you ask and what was the response?

Via e-mail, I also asked Sukanya Krishnan and asked if her statement that "(the LifeVac) is really is something that ever parent can have in their house" constituted an endorsement of the device.

I got confirmations of receipt from both, but no replies from either, so I followed up with voice messages and e-mails to PIX11 news director Amy Waldman and the station's general manager Rich Graziano.

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From PIX11's parent company, here's the response:


More unanswered questions.

Why would a TV news program hype and help sell any product, especially a medical device of unproven benefit? (In his column last year, a physician called the LifeVac "a cruel scam...(that) is utterly bogus." Was Ms. Cole aware of his opinion?)

How did Ms. Cole come to report the story?

Is Tribune Broadcasting's "no comment" a sufficient response?


Shortly after publishing the above item, I came across this related video posted a couple days ago on LifeVac's Facebook page -- I urge you to watch the entire clip:

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About five weeks ago, I reported GAME OVER: After decades of putting swimmers at risk, Houston-area lifeguard company drops "Heimlich for drowning" protocol about how the National Aquatic Safety Company (NASCO) had finally stopped training waterpark lifeguards to perform the Heimlich maneuver to resuscitate drowning victims. (Click here for a compilation of media reports about NASCO's failed, benighted campaign to promote the treatment.)

But there's at least one unfinished chapter to the mess -- the recent attempt by a peer-reviewed journal (based in Bowling Green, OH) and its publisher (Human Kinetics of Champaign, IL) to bury a request to retract a discredited drowning study that was authored by NASCO's founder/president, John Hunsuker PhD, and one of his employees.

Ed Castillo (source)

As I reported last September 22:

I was copied on a retraction request sent yesterday to Stephen J. Langendorfer PhD, editor of the peer-reviewed International Journal of Aquatics Research and Education (IJARE) which in May 2010 published a controversial research study by John Hunsucker PhD and Scott Davison of the Houston-area lifeguard training company, the National Aquatic Safety Company (NASCO).

The request was sent to Dr. Langendorfer, a professor and department head at Ohio's Bowling Green State University by Ed Castillo, President/Chief of Operations of Golden State Lifeguards in Woodland Hills, California.

...Per Castillo's letter, in response to the NASCO study, IJARE published a scathing analysis and rebuttal these prominent medical and water safety experts: Peter Wernicki MD, Peter Chambers DO, Roy Fielding, Terri Lees, David Markenson MD, Francesco Pia PhD, and Linda Quan MD.

Via the rebuttal, here's a summary of the blistering analysis/rebuttal; for a complete copy, e-mail me:

The authors’ two-part goal was to describe a protocol they named “in-water intervention” (IWI) that uses abdominal thrusts (ATs) and to report on its effectiveness at assisting drowning victims in waterparks. We identify serious shortcomings in the paper’s methodology, interpretation and use of the literature, and ethical principles.

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Subsequently I sent inquiries to Dr. Langendorfer asking what IJARE's policy was for processing retraction requests and asked how Mr. Castillo's request would be handled.

Dr. Langendorfer failed to respond to multiple e-mails and voice messages so I brought my questions to Human Kinetics (HK), the prominent publisher of IJARE and other journals.


Here's what came back -- click here to follow the link provided to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE):


That's when it started to get oogie.

 Here's the guy in charge at Human Kinetics:

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These are e-mails I received in response to a public records request I filed with Ohio's Bowling Green State University, where Dr. Langendorfer is Director of  the School of Human Movement, Sport, & Leisure Studies:


 
 

Then it got even oogier.

In a February 1st e-mail to Natalie Ridgeway, Executive Officer at the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), I wrote:

Via a public records request, I obtained a recent e-mail exchange in which IJARE editor Stephen Langendorfer PhD informed HK Journal Director Skip Meier that he (Dr. Langendorfer) has no intention of answering Mr. Castillo's letter. Further, there's no indication in the exchange that HK intends to take any action. (Last week Mr. Castillo informed me that he has never received a response from IJARE or HK.)

Here's my question. Does COPE provide an oversight channel to review whether or not publishers comply with your organization's standards and guidelines?

Her reply took me by surprise:


In other words, HK claims to adhere to COPE standards without having to adhere to COPE standards.

Hoping to make sense of this puzzlement, a month ago I sent multiple e-mails to Ms. Johnson at HK and copied Mr. Meier in which I reviewed the situation and then posed this question:

Here's what I'm trying to figure out. Does your company have an internal and/or external review process that adheres to COPE standards? If so, would you please explain that process? If not, what's the basis of the claim in your November 11 e-mail and the e-mail from Mr. Maier? 

I received confirmations of receipt from both, but no further communications.

Today I'm e-mailing this item to Dr. Langendorfer, Skip Maier, and Ed Castillo with an invitation to respond.


This item has been slightly revised for clarity.

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Ask my wife Karen or me, "What's the greatest movie ever made?" and you won't have to wait long for this reply.



In addition to our admiration for every aspect of the film, we think Chinatown includes some parallels to my father's bizarre history, for example, wide-ranging corruption disguised by the veneer of respectability and questionable cases involving drowning.

And how's this for one degree of separation?

Per a 2014 award-winning Hollywood Reporter expose, Jack Nicholson -- who plays private eye Jake Giddes -- contributed $25,000 for the Heimlich Institute's horrific experiments in which vulnerable Chinese AIDS patients were infected with malaria. 

Although plenty has been written about legendary screenwriter Robert Towne's Oscar-winning script, here's a question we've never been able to answer.

What's the translation of this Cantonese curse that Jake spits at Khan (James Hong), butler to Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), as he barges into the house shortly before she divulges the story's darkest revelation?



Via Gregg Mitchell who handles communications at the Writers Guild of America, West, I asked Mr. Towne what the curse meant and for any related information he'd like to add.

Via an October 31, 2015 forwarded by Gregg:

Dear Peter.

The phrase came from Khan (to Nicholson), which we we're told meant something like 'go fuck yourself.' Hope this satisfies.

Best, Robert

In a follow-up, Mr. Towne explained that the idea to include it came from actor James Hong.

I decided to hold this item until Chinese New Year which begins today.

To Robert Towne and Gregg Mitchell, thanks for your help and...

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Locations of Exemplar care homes (source)

Also see my January 16, 2016 item, My requests to the NY State & NYC Education Departments to review LifeVac anti-choking device reportedly being used in NYC-area schools.

UPDATE: Via Aquatics Industry Finally Discontinues Heimlich Maneuver by Nate Traylor, Aquatics International, February 3, 2016:

One of the nation’s largest lifeguard certification agencies has stopped teaching a controversial drowning rescue technique that critics alleged was ineffective and potentially dangerous.

The National Aquatic Safety Co. has long championed the Heimlich maneuver as an effective way to remove water from the lungs before initiating CPR on a drowning victim. Developed in the mid ’90s by NASCO founder John Hunsucker, the drowning-rescue version of the Heimlich called for the lifeguard to first administer abdominal thrusts on a drowning victim in the water before extrication for CPR.

The technique came under intense scrutiny in recent years as aquatic and medical professionals called the practice into question, claiming that it was ineffective and that it could further endanger those in need of rescue.

Despite the criticism and the headlines in the mainstream media, NASCO stuck to its guns, even after the Heimlich Institute stopped advocating that the maneuver be used to treat drowning victims in 2012.

...Another development may have forced the decision: In recent years, health departments in New Jersey, Utah and Nevada, threatened to strip NASCO of its certification to to do business in those states unless it stopped teaching the Heimlich as part of its drowning rescue protocol, according to local media reports.

“Presumably, NASCO finally dumped the protocol because it was affecting their bottom line,” said Peter Heimlich, son of inventor Dr. Henry Heimlich, and the most outspoken critic of using the maneuver to address drowning, in a statement to AI.

Hunsucker declined to comment for this article.

...As for (Peter) Heimlich and his wife, Karen, who’ve been on a crusade to dissuade the public from using his father’s technique, this is chapter they’re relieved to see closed. It’s believed NASCO was the last such agency to perform what many considered an ill-advised rescue maneuver.

“I doubt there is another company reckless enough to take it up,” he stated, “so this likely ends my father’s bizarre 40-year campaign to promote the treatment.”

My original item is below the hash marks.



Today via Local Lifeguard Training Company No Longer Teaching Heimlich Maneuver by staff reporter Craig Malisow, Houston Press:

For years, the Dickinson-based NASCO Aquatics, one of the nation's largest lifeguard certification companies taught a debunked rescue technique, even as other professional and medical organizations said it could further endanger drowning victims.

But NASCO has dropped the technique — a version of the Heimlich maneuver done while a drowning victim is still in the water — from its most recent training manual, which pleases one of NASCO's biggest critics, Peter Heimlich, whose father gave the abdominal-thrusting technique its name.

NASCO founder John Hunsucker swore by the technique, even as the American Red Cross, American Heart Association, the United States Lifeguard Coalition, and the International Life Saving Federation. Most medical and aquatic experts have stated that applying the Heimlich maneuver to a drowning victim delays CPR and could cause a victim to aspirate vomit into the lungs. 

Until just recently, Hunsucker's response to the experts has been short and sweet: "Screw 'em."

...Peter Heimlich shared an email of his own, telling us:

"I'm relieved that NASCO has finally pulled the plug on its reckless 'Heimlich for drowning' protocol. Experts have said that for decades NASCO was conducting what amounted to an unsupervised medical experiment using unsuspecting swimmers at their client water parks. Long after prominent medical experts and leading first aid organizations had thoroughly dismissed the treatment as useless and potentially lethal, NASCO persisted. Even after my father's Heimlich Institute stopped advocating the treatment, NASCO wouldn't stop.

On the bright side, NASCO was the last holdout, so this effectively marks the end of my father's bizarre 40-year campaign to promote the treatment."

Click here for "These so-called medical experts. Screw 'em," my compilation of media reports about NASCO's now-defunct "Heimlich protocol."

This medical madness began in August 1974 when my father and his crony, the late Victor H. Esch MD, began hyping the first of a series of fraudulent case reports in which they claimed near-dead drowning victims were miraculously revived by the Heimlich maneuver. (See here and here.)

The result of their folly? Dozens of poor outcome cases -- including children.

To these journalists, physicians, water safety professionals, and public employees whose efforts helped put an end to this dark chapter in first aid history -- Lifesaving Aye

Margarita Abramova, Paul Auerbach MD, Ihsan A. Azzam, PhD MD MPH, Robert S. Baratz MD PhD, Chris Brewster, Zach Brown, Ed Castillo, Peter Chambers DO, Rich Connelly, Bennett Cunningham, Margaret Downing, Gerry Dworkin, Roy Fielding, Brenda Flanagan, Shawn Foucher, Tom Francis, Mike Giglio, Natalie Gagliordi, Tracey D. Green MD, Curt Guyette, Jason Haap, Brad Herzog, Michelle Iracheta, Tom Jackman, Ben Kaufman, Kendra Kozen, Kevin Lamb, Jennifer Learn-Andes, Terri Lees, Craig Malisow, David Markenson MD, Ron Marsden, Allyn Nakashima MD, James Orlowski MD, Eric Peterson, Francesco Pia PhD, Lory Pounder, Linda Quan MD, Karlee Prazak, Mike Riley, Mike Risinit, Peter Rosen MD, Mark Saal, Mayrav Saar, Timothy Smith, Todd Spivak, Alan Steinman MD, Gary Thill, Steve Volk, Cindy Weightman, Peter Wernicki MD, Ian White, Aaron Wische

A special mention must go to writer Pamela Mills-Senn of Long Beach and editor Mike Moran whose landmark 2000 article, Water Rescue Sequence: The Controversial Role of the Heimlich Maneuver, was the Rosetta Stone for much of the research conducted by my wife Karen and me into my father's unusual career.

(If I've inadvertently left out anyone, please e-mail me.)

As Sidebar readers know -- here, here, and here -- I've been tracking a first aid phenomenon which over the past couple of years has swept the UK tabloids.

Intrepid dogs have been saving their masters from choking.

Since January 2014 I've counted four five reported cases by four different four-legged friends from Blighty to Wales. (Read on for details.)

Heel! Sit! Stop the presses!

Get West London -- which it says here is a Trinity Mirror website -- just unleashed another rover rescue:  


As a news hound, I was curious to learn how the Lily-Rose rescue story got into print, so I e-mailed reporter Robert Cumber who replied:

Are UK dog food manufacturers adding steroids to kibble? Should a government commission be formed to investigate? Will Lily-Rose win the award?


Okay, so your pup may know how to save you from choking, but do you know how to reciprocate?

Take a look:




UPDATE, February 1, 2016: A string of other fine UK tabloids fetched the far-fetched story!



In reverse chronology, don't miss these equally astounding tails (sorry). Click the dates above each screenshot to read the articles.