A couple weeks ago I reported an item entitled UK crowdfunding effort to install anti-choking devices in Yorkshire schools derailed by government-initiated medical review.
Since then, via FOIA requests I obtained records documenting what triggered the review, who conducted it, and how it was implemented.
The records also include legal threats and a disclosure that the review was supposed to be kept under wraps.
See below for a pdf file I organized and posted to my Scribd account. Click here to download the file.
Briefly, as reported by the Hull Daily Mail, just days after the tragic choking death of a five-year-old boy eating lunch at school the first week of February, Edd Wheldon -- a member of a charitable group called the Hull Wyke Round Table -- e-mailed local primary schools offering donations of an anti-choking suction device called the LifeVac along with training sessions to be conducted by LifeVac EU, based in Devon.
Wheldon's e-mail triggered a February 17 e-mail from a Headteacher at one of the schools (who incorrectly called the LifeVac a "Medi Vac"):
Saturday, June 17, 2017
Monday, June 12, 2017
If the U.S. President has a choking emergency, will he be treated with this anti-choking plunger? [UPDATED]
UPDATES
JUNE 21, 2017: Clarification from Dechoker inventor -- his anti-choking device is NOT being used for U.S. president, but for Turkish president Erdoğan
JULY 12, 2017: Anti-choking device inventor claimed the president of Turkey relies on his invention -- but the product's Turkish distributor says that's "completely lies and fictions...we condemn this ugly news"
Is an anti-choking plunger device called the Dechoker part of the medical protocol for the President of the United States, "both on land and aboard Air Force One"?
That's what a distributor of the product claims.
Here's a TV news story about the Dechoker that aired a couple years ago on a Louisville, KY, station -- I'm quoted and my comments are at the 2:00 time stamp:
Via the website of the Dechoker company, based in Concord, North Carolina, northeast of Charlotte:
The accompanying link leads to this one-page pdf:
I ran the main text through Google Translate and got the following results -- for clarity I've made some very minor grammatical changes; the bold text is from the original version:
I ran the above text through Google Translate -- here's what came back:
Here's another close-up from the page:
Today I asked the Secret Service and the White House for more information.
I also asked if private companies may use the Secret Service logo on promotional materials and if photos of the President and Air Force One may be used for hyping products.
Finally, if the claims are on Dechoker's U.S. website, I couldn't find them.
Via the file properties of the pdf, this woman appears to be the author of the document, so presumably she can provide more information.
JUNE 21, 2017: Clarification from Dechoker inventor -- his anti-choking device is NOT being used for U.S. president, but for Turkish president Erdoğan
JULY 12, 2017: Anti-choking device inventor claimed the president of Turkey relies on his invention -- but the product's Turkish distributor says that's "completely lies and fictions...we condemn this ugly news"
#####
Is an anti-choking plunger device called the Dechoker part of the medical protocol for the President of the United States, "both on land and aboard Air Force One"?
That's what a distributor of the product claims.
Here's a TV news story about the Dechoker that aired a couple years ago on a Louisville, KY, station -- I'm quoted and my comments are at the 2:00 time stamp:
Via the website of the Dechoker company, based in Concord, North Carolina, northeast of Charlotte:
Via Dechoker Spain's website [6/14/17 UPDATE: Since this item was published two days ago, the following graphic and link appear to have been removed from the web page]:
The accompanying link leads to this one-page pdf:
I ran the main text through Google Translate and got the following results -- for clarity I've made some very minor grammatical changes; the bold text is from the original version:
The Secret Service of the United States protects The President with Dechoker both on land and aboard Air Force One
The Secret Service is an elite body, part of the Treasury Department, formed in 1865 and which for 100 years has as its main mission to protect the President, his family and dignitaries visiting the United States.Here's a close-up from the page:
Its motto is "Prepare for the worst, hope for the best."
They rely on Dechoker to protect the President both on land and aboard the Air Force One, the White House jet. The presidential fleet is the center of government of the United States of America while the president is inside the aircraft in any part of the world. It can carry 700 passengers and carry food to 2,000 people.
All types of defense and security measures are used to guarantee the life of the head of state. Representing the presidential power and prestige of the United States, there are medical facilities on board Air Force One, including an operating table, emergency medical supplies including Dechoker as a first aid device in case of suffocation by choking, and a well stocked pharmacy.
I ran the above text through Google Translate -- here's what came back:
The Secret Service of the United States protects the President with Dechoker both on land and aboard Air Force One.
Today I asked the Secret Service and the White House for more information.
I also asked if private companies may use the Secret Service logo on promotional materials and if photos of the President and Air Force One may be used for hyping products.
Finally, if the claims are on Dechoker's U.S. website, I couldn't find them.
Via the file properties of the pdf, this woman appears to be the author of the document, so presumably she can provide more information.
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Business Insider story deals death blow to my dad's hokum about back blows -- and opens the door to further expose "the Koop maneuver"
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| September 1979 editorial published by trade magazine Emergency Medical Services |
A news video published yesterday by Business Insider dealt another blow to my father's fraudulent 40-year campaign which he called, "back blows are death blows."
Here's a clip I made from the story by reporters Gene Kim and Jessica Orwig. (Click the link to watch the entire segment. I tried to post it here, but I couldn't get the embed code to work.)
What's the right way to save a choking victim's life? It turns out, the Heimlich maneuver is not the only approach – and it may not even be the best one.
Repeated blows to the back could be equally useful in a dangerous situation. You might be thinking that back blows will only lodge the food deeper into a person's trachea. But this is a myth perpetuated by Dr. Henry Heimlich.
According to reports from Dr. Heimlich's youngest son, Peter Heimlich, the founder of the Heimlich maneuver spent years trying to discredit back blows, publicly denouncing them as "death blows."
The story also tagged this 1982 research study by three Yale physicians which my father clandestinely funded. My wife Karen and I uncovered that scam which we helped bring to public attention via a first-rate 2006 New Haven Register expose by veteran medical journalist Abram Katz.
(Dr. Heimlich) even funded a study in the '80s that showed back blows could do more harm to a choking victim than good. But in truth, there is no valid scientific evidence to prove that back blows are any better, or worse, than the Heimlich maneuver.
Even after being busted for that mess, dad kept slinging his anti-back blows hokum, but the only reporter still willing to provide him with a platform was Cliff Radel at the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The Business Insider story also opens the door for more reporting about "the Koop maneuver."
Via a press release describing an influential 1985 Public Health Statement:
Surgeon General C. Everett Koop today endorsed the Heimlich manuever [sic], not as the preferred, but as the only method that should be used for the treatment of choking from foreign body airway obstruction.
Dr. Koop also urged the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association to teach only the Heimlich Manuever [sic] in their first aid classes. Dr. Koop urged both organizations to withdraw from circulation manuals, posters and other materials that recommend treating choking victims with back slaps and blows to the chest.
..."Millions of Americans have been taught to treat persons who are choking with back blows, chest thrusts and abdominal thrusts," Dr. Koop said. "Now, they must be advised...and I ask for the participation of the Red Cross, the American Heart Association and public health authorities everywhere...that these methods are hazardous, even lethal."
A back slap, the surgeon general said, can drive a foreign object even deeper into the throat.
Click here for Koop's two-part published statement which, like the press release, repeatedly misspells the word maneuver.
Per the Business Insider, there has never been any evidence that back blows are ineffective or dangerous.
Same goes for chest thrusts. In fact two studies concluded that they were more effective than "the Heimlich."
So why did Koop use his bully pulpit to circulate false information?
Per the Business Insider, there has never been any evidence that back blows are ineffective or dangerous.
Same goes for chest thrusts. In fact two studies concluded that they were more effective than "the Heimlich."
So why did Koop use his bully pulpit to circulate false information?
Via Maneuvering Over Heimlich, a 2007 Creators Syndicate column by the redoubtable Lenore Skenazy:
Back blows are "death blows," Dr. Heimlich declared long and loud as he lobbied for his maneuver's acceptance 30 years ago. In 1985, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop endorsed this view, dubbing backslaps "hazardous." After that, only the Heimlich Maneuver was considered kosher.
What most people don't realize, Dr. Heimlich's son, Peter Heimlich, said, is that "Koop was an old friend of my father's, and he did it as a buddy favor."
More about Dr. Koop's misleading statement via Heimlich Maneuver Endorsed by Cristine Russell, Washington Post, October 2, 1985.
Monday, May 29, 2017
UK crowdfunding effort to install anti-choking devices in Yorkshire schools derailed by government-initiated medical review [UPDATED]
JUNE 17, 2017 UPDATE: Paper Trail: How a UK government-initiated medical review choked Yorkshire group's attempt to install anti-choking devices in local schools
Three months after hosting a JustGiving crowdfunding campaign to purchase and donate an anti-choking device to local schools, the Hull Wyke Round Table (HWRT) -- a charitable organization in Yorkshire, England -- has sent donors a refund offer letter.
The failed project raised couple of thousand pounds -- including two quid I kicked in.
The project was cancelled after a comprehensive medical review by a local government's public health department in partnership with area hospitals.
But the HWRT's refund letter doesn't mention that -- and it's unclear why not.
The story begins with a February 4 Hull Daily Mail news report about a tragic death:
If the Hull reporter looked into any of those details, they're not in the article.
In any event, let's call that Round One of the fundraising by the HWRT, an organization which, according to its website, apparently has no fixed address, phone number, or e-mail address.
The article in the Hull newspaper then reports what I'll call Round Two of the fundraising project and instructs readers how to contribute:
Here are the first donations, indicating that the campaign began on February 9, just five days after Hull newspaper reported the choking tragedy.
Based on responses to FOIA requests, on February 9 Edd Weldon circulated the following e-mail to local schools in which he offered a "Wall Mounted (LifeVac) kit to be mounted in your dining area. The supplier has also agreed to come and give you a training session of the product at a central location hosted by Hull Wyke Round Table."
Interested parties were instructed to contact LifeVac representative Eric Banagan "if you have any technical questions."
Click here to download a copy of Wheldon's e-mail to the schools which included three pdfs consisting of about 50 pages of materials that appear to have been provided by LifeVac, including a June 14, 2016 North Devon News article about a nurse who claims she used the device to save the life of a choking woman at a nursing home in Llanybydder, Wales.
Wheldon's letter claimed, "This device is already in 100 schools in the UK and has saved three lives recently."
The same claims were in HWRT's JustGiving fund raising solicitation.
Per my March 7, 2017 item, when I asked Wheldon for details about the three saved lives and a list of the 100 schools, I didn't receive a reply.
Back to the crowdfunding campaign which ended February 28 -- here's the result:
Fast forward two months to this May 15 update on the crowdfunding page informing donors that the project had collapsed:
The link (my yellow highlighting) leads to this unsigned letter -- click here to download a copy -- with no return address or phone number, but provides this e-mail address: lifevacroundtable@googlegroups.com
Here's what the HWRT letter claims went wrong:
Presumably the HWRT failed to ask the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for that information before initiating the fundraising project.
And the HWRT doesn't apologize to donors or the schools for failing to perform such minimal due diligence.
It's also unclear why the HWRT finds the MHRA's position to be "disappointing." That is, why would they want to install an unapproved medical device in local schools?
But the letter inexplicably fails to tell donors the real reason the project was derailed.
In response to HWRT's fundraising, the local government East Riding of Yorkshire Council initiated an expert medical review, the results of which were circulated to area schools in the following March newsletter.
Via the newsletter -- click here to download a copy.
According to the e-mails below, Wheldon was aware of the Council's findings on March 16, two months before the May 15 refund letter. What took his organization so long to offer refunds to me and other donors?
Why didn't the HWRT's refund letter inform donors about the medical review (which, incidentally, is apparently not available via the Council's website)?
What happened to the money the HWRT raised in Round One of the fundraising?
When and how did Edd Wheldon "(come) across the device" as he told the Hull Daily Mail?
And what due diligence did his organization conduct before initiating a project that wasted the time of the schools, local government, and donors, and which presumably resulted in taxpayers paying for the medical review?
#####
Three months after hosting a JustGiving crowdfunding campaign to purchase and donate an anti-choking device to local schools, the Hull Wyke Round Table (HWRT) -- a charitable organization in Yorkshire, England -- has sent donors a refund offer letter.
The failed project raised couple of thousand pounds -- including two quid I kicked in.
The project was cancelled after a comprehensive medical review by a local government's public health department in partnership with area hospitals.
But the HWRT's refund letter doesn't mention that -- and it's unclear why not.
The story begins with a February 4 Hull Daily Mail news report about a tragic death:
A five-year-old boy has died after choking on his food during a school lunch break [yesterday] at Anlaby Primary School.Via a February 10 follow up story in the same paper:
Hull Wyke Round Table (HWRT) has raised enough money to fit primary schools in Hull and East Riding with life saving anti-choking devices.
The charitable organisation has raised enough money to install LifeVac units in 17 primary schools in west Hull and East Riding. They are now looking to raise more money to install more devices in more schools.In other words, in less than a week the HWRT apparently came across the LifeVac device, evaluated its efficacy and safety, and raised an unreported amount of money from an unreported source to install it in 17 schools.
If the Hull reporter looked into any of those details, they're not in the article.
In any event, let's call that Round One of the fundraising by the HWRT, an organization which, according to its website, apparently has no fixed address, phone number, or e-mail address.
The article in the Hull newspaper then reports what I'll call Round Two of the fundraising project and instructs readers how to contribute:
They are now looking to raise more money to install more devices in more schools.The link in the last sentence leads to the HWRT's fundraising page hosted by the popular crowdfunding platform JustGiving.com.
...HWRT member Edd Wheldon said: "I came across this device and we thought we would like to offer to install them in primary schools in our area.
"We just thought it might be something which could help prevent tragedies from happening."
...Wheldon said the supplier had also offered to visit each school interested in having it installed to train staff members. In a letter to the schools' headteachers, Mr Wheldon asked them to confirm whether they would like a unit by February 17.
You can donate to the project online here.
Here are the first donations, indicating that the campaign began on February 9, just five days after Hull newspaper reported the choking tragedy.
Based on responses to FOIA requests, on February 9 Edd Weldon circulated the following e-mail to local schools in which he offered a "Wall Mounted (LifeVac) kit to be mounted in your dining area. The supplier has also agreed to come and give you a training session of the product at a central location hosted by Hull Wyke Round Table."
Interested parties were instructed to contact LifeVac representative Eric Banagan "if you have any technical questions."
Click here to download a copy of Wheldon's e-mail to the schools which included three pdfs consisting of about 50 pages of materials that appear to have been provided by LifeVac, including a June 14, 2016 North Devon News article about a nurse who claims she used the device to save the life of a choking woman at a nursing home in Llanybydder, Wales.
Wheldon's letter claimed, "This device is already in 100 schools in the UK and has saved three lives recently."
The same claims were in HWRT's JustGiving fund raising solicitation.
Per my March 7, 2017 item, when I asked Wheldon for details about the three saved lives and a list of the 100 schools, I didn't receive a reply.
Back to the crowdfunding campaign which ended February 28 -- here's the result:
Fast forward two months to this May 15 update on the crowdfunding page informing donors that the project had collapsed:
The link (my yellow highlighting) leads to this unsigned letter -- click here to download a copy -- with no return address or phone number, but provides this e-mail address: lifevacroundtable@googlegroups.com
Here's what the HWRT letter claims went wrong:
Presumably the HWRT failed to ask the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for that information before initiating the fundraising project.
And the HWRT doesn't apologize to donors or the schools for failing to perform such minimal due diligence.
It's also unclear why the HWRT finds the MHRA's position to be "disappointing." That is, why would they want to install an unapproved medical device in local schools?
But the letter inexplicably fails to tell donors the real reason the project was derailed.
In response to HWRT's fundraising, the local government East Riding of Yorkshire Council initiated an expert medical review, the results of which were circulated to area schools in the following March newsletter.
Via the newsletter -- click here to download a copy.
(Guidance) has been obtained through the Councils Public Health team, in partnership with Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals (HEY), who have comprehensively reviewed the use of such devices particularly in a paediatric context.
It is recommended at this time that the device is not used until further evidence on suitability for paediatric use is published.
According to the e-mails below, Wheldon was aware of the Council's findings on March 16, two months before the May 15 refund letter. What took his organization so long to offer refunds to me and other donors?
Why didn't the HWRT's refund letter inform donors about the medical review (which, incidentally, is apparently not available via the Council's website)?
What happened to the money the HWRT raised in Round One of the fundraising?
When and how did Edd Wheldon "(come) across the device" as he told the Hull Daily Mail?
And what due diligence did his organization conduct before initiating a project that wasted the time of the schools, local government, and donors, and which presumably resulted in taxpayers paying for the medical review?
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
UK tabloid claims actor Halle Berry's life was saved by "the Heimlich" -- but she debunked that years ago; here's what happened when I requested a published correction
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| Halle Berry (source) |
In his 2014 memoir, my dad claimed that actor Halle Berry was saved from choking by "the Heimlich."
But via an award-winning Hollywood Reporter article, she denied the claim.
December obituaries for my father in the New York Times and BuzzFeed included the false "Halle was Heimlich-ed" claim, but, in response to my requests, both news outlets published thorough corrections.
At the same time, the UK's Daily Express tabloid published the bogus claim, but the paper ignored my corrections requests.
So I filed a complaint with UK's Independent Press Standards Organization.
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| source |
This seemed so straightforward, I assumed it would be a slam dunk.
Plus I was motivated because it would add to my tally of successful, possibly record-making corrections requests as reported in January by Erik Wemple at the Washington Post.
But in a determination that reads like something out of Lewis Carroll, yesterday IPSO wrote me that the factual error published by the Express wasn't "significantly misleading."
Huh?
It was significantly misleading enough to Ms. Berry.
She told the Hollywood Reporter it was baloney.
In response to the determination, a representative from the Express's legal office thanked IPSO and left the lie uncorrected.
In other words, the paper has made clear that they are intentionally providing false information to readers.
Some skeptics may claim that's not unusual, but how often do you get an empirically provable example like this?
Further, by failing to correct the error, the Express has tacitly admitted that its editorial standards are below the New York Times and BuzzFeed.
Perhaps no surprise there, but how often do you get a bulletproof example?
As for IPSO, based on their determination, apparently they hold their member organizations to a lower editorial standard than the New York Times and BuzzFeed.
Those are just some of the points I raised in my appeal today to IPSO which includes links and screenshots documenting my trip down this UK journalism rabbit hole. Click here to download a copy.
This item has revised.
Monday, May 8, 2017
My father's being inducted into the New Rochelle, NY, "Walk of Fame" -- today I wrote to the city about his 50-year history of fraud [UPDATED]
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.Click here to direct download a copy of my letter.
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.
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Part IV of "Drowning in Funworld" by Pamela Mills-Senn, final segment of the dramatic backstory of the landmark article that was our Rosetta Stone
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| Pamela Mills-Senn |
Here's the fourth and final segment of Drowning in Funworld by Long Beach, CA, journalist Pamela Mills-Senn.
It's the dramatic backstory behind her landmark March 30, 2000 article that became the road map for much of the research by my wife Karen and me, work that resulted in hundreds of mainstream print and broadcast media reports.
Drowning in Funworld was first published 11 years ago this week by the now-defunct Cincinnati Beacon blog. It's my privilege to make it available again -- PMH
P.S. Big thanks to the United States Lifesaving Association and the organization's president, Chris Brewster, for posting Pamela's article on their website which is where Karen and I found it in 2002.
--------------------------------------------------
Part IV: It's a Fun World After All
And so the writing began. The editor and I were concerned that - since it appeared Ellis & Associates had made a questionable decision in changing their drowning rescue protocol to the Heimlich maneuver - the article would be buried if we focused too much attention on them. We decided instead to concentrate on Heimlich and his research and hoped that interested parties (the waterparks, public pools, lakes, and amusement parks that had hired Ellis to provide lifeguard training) would put two and two together and ask some hard questions of the company. This is why you'll notice, if you look at the Funworld article, there is just one section related to Ellis, although they are mentioned towards the end of the piece as well.
In total, I wrote three drafts. The first was sent to the editor so he could weed down the word count, which approached 10,000 words. The second, based on his revisions, was then sent out to everyone that was interviewed or provided information (with the exception of Dr. Henry Heimlich). No one received the full article, just sections with their input except in those cases where I also asked sources to review my comments on research methodology, general drowning information, etc. Ellis received only his section and comments.
The third draft incorporated their comments, revisions and corrections and was sent to the editor. In turn, he sent the entire article out to Heimlich to give him a last chance to comment.
During my research, I would ask Heimlich to explain the discrepancies I was encountering.
For example, I asked him why he incorrectly extrapolated Dr. Linda Quan's data, why he didn't tell people this was a regional study? He responded that he did make people aware of its regional nature. But this was only occasionally true. He very often failed to mention the regional nature of this study and that consequently, data from this study was restricted in its applications. Unless you were educated in statistics, you would not appreciate the study's limits.
And when I asked him why he falsely stated that the lifeguards in Quan's study had been trained in CPR, he accused Quan of lying. He wrote:
The presenter said these guards had received CPR training, although he wouldn’t say from whom. The point is that while Heimlich appears disbelieving that any guard could be untrained (or poorly-trained) in CPR, decades later, Ellis was willing to state this was the case.
This is how it went with Heimlich. He would start out by appearing to answer questions about his research, etc. but then in a weird sort of circular approach, sidestep the question either by referencing the very studies I was asking him about, or refer me back to his own chapters, writings and correspondence. It smacked of a sort of "because I say so," logic.
He would also refer to Ellis' adoption of his maneuver as evidence of its merit, not addressing the fact that this adoption was, in fact, based on his questionable science and misused data.
Throughout, he accused researchers of outright fraud, or of not understanding their own data. He also believed that the Institute of Medicine misinterpreted their findings and had made deliberate omissions around his work. At times, Heimlich almost sounded like a conspiracy theorist.
The third and final copy, the one sent to Heimlich after all the others had reviewed it, stood unchanged, in spite of his rebuttals. It was time to show the report in its entirety to Ellis.
I believe the editor showed it to Ellis and others who were attending a meeting of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions safety committee. [Funworld is published by IAAPA.] I can't recall whether this committee was focused entirely on waterpark safety or also concerned itself with amusement parks.
The report's impact was immediate. The committee was upset and concerned that the news media, which routinely reads the trade publications of major industries, would get wind of the report. Although the article was to have run in the magazine, and later when it grew longer, to be included with the magazine as a supplemental report, ultimately it was kept out of the publication altogether. Instead, a month or so later, it was mailed out to IAAPA members as a "Special Report," effectively keeping it out of the public eye — although whether this, or costs, was the motivating factor, only the publisher knows. [Editor's note: The privately-distributed Funworld article was dated March 30, 2000. A few months later, the Los Angeles Times reported the story.]
One drowning authority I relied heavily on during my research was Jerome Modell M.D., at the time a professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Florida's College of Medicine. As I said in the Funworld article, Modell's work in drowning is internationally known and referenced. As of that writing, he had also acted as an expert witness in drowning litigation on approximately 150 occasions.
When Modell heard that the article was not going to be published in the magazine, he fired off a letter to John Graff, the president and CEO of IAAPA. In it he said:
Within days of receiving the article, Ellis quietly changed their protocol back to CPR, claiming they had decided to do so partly because of the Institute of Medicine's findings and decision not to endorse the maneuver for drowning or revisit the issue. (The first IOM committee reviewed the issue in 1991 and the second IOM committed reviewed this again in 1994. This was not a recent decision and Ellis should have been well aware of it).
Another reason Ellis gave was their submersion data. They started collecting data on the maneuver in 1995, when they changed their protocol. They also had older data, going back to 1985 when Ellis-trained guards were still responding with CPR. They had been touting their data as demonstrating the maneuver was superior to CPR, but the problem was, as Ellis representative Larry Newell admitted, the two sets of data were not comparable, so no meaningful comparison between the two protocols was possible. In fact, it was impossible.
But they had to have known this before receiving the article.
Funworld's editor was fired, forced to resign, however you want to spin it, because of this article and because he backed it. All along, I had been thinking only of how I might be impacted. I had no idea the heat he was taking and had been taking for months. And yet, when he had the chance to kill the article, he didn't take it. I can’t tell you how much I admired him and still do.
In Part Three I mentioned the Save A Life Foundation and that they were the only organization outside of Ellis to endorse and teach the maneuver for drowning. At the time, Heimlich sat on that organization's medical advisory board, as did CPR developer Dr. Peter Safar. The medical director then was Stanley Zydlo, M.D.
He told me during an interview, that they initially advised folks to use CPR, but decided to switch to the maneuver based on the 42% fatality rate from Quan's study (and supplied to him by Heimlich) and also on CPR’s "median mortality rate of 40%" another figure supplied by Heimlich. Zydlo contrasted this to Ellis' stated mortality rate, attributed to the maneuver protocol, of just 3% and decided this was proof enough the maneuver worked far better than CPR.
But, said those whom I interviewed for this article, Ellis' low mortality rate is more likely the result of the very short submersion times (remember, Ellis says their average submersion time is 29 seconds) rather than the maneuver.
As far as I know, although I haven’t investigated, the Save A Life Foundation is still recommending the maneuver as a first response to drowning/near-drowning, in spite of receiving a copy of the article and in spite of Ellis’ reversal. [Editor's note: In the wake of dozens of media exposes alleging fraud, the Save A Life Foundation went out of business in 2009 and the organization's founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri is a defendant in a wide-ranging federal civil rights lawsuit brought by a former SALF employee.]
After fulfilling a contract for another article, established when the editor was still in place, I never wrote for Funworld again. The editor found another job, and we kept in touch. We felt like we were the only ones in the world, except for a handful of others, who knew what we knew and we had weathered it together. But the knowledge of what people are willing to do to advance their agendas remains with you and changes you, and it changed me.
I remember the mixed feelings I had when Ellis reversed their decision. On the one hand, it confirmed that my research had uncovered real problems. Otherwise, I believe Jeff Ellis would have stood his ground and presented evidence favorable to his decision. He had every opportunity to do that.
But the quick reversal made it appear, in my mind anyway, that these problems were known all along, and this was troubling. Because it seemed to me that what had really taken place in the waterparks were the very human studies experiments that the IOM had said should not be approved. And it seemed like admission prices were high enough without tossing this into the mix.
We'd like to think we can count on the gatekeepers, like Ellis, to protect us from people like Dr. Heimlich, that would use us to their own purposes. I guess what I learned from this experience is that the gatekeepers need watching too.
Postscript: Several years after the publishing of the article, reports of Dr. Heimlich's "malariotherapy" experiments began appearing in the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets. Around that time, I was contacted by Peter Heimlich, Dr. Heimlich's youngest son. Peter and his wife Karen have worked tirelessly to expose problems surrounding Dr. Heimlich's research and claims.
Suddenly, the editor and I were not so alone.
In total, I wrote three drafts. The first was sent to the editor so he could weed down the word count, which approached 10,000 words. The second, based on his revisions, was then sent out to everyone that was interviewed or provided information (with the exception of Dr. Henry Heimlich). No one received the full article, just sections with their input except in those cases where I also asked sources to review my comments on research methodology, general drowning information, etc. Ellis received only his section and comments.
The third draft incorporated their comments, revisions and corrections and was sent to the editor. In turn, he sent the entire article out to Heimlich to give him a last chance to comment.
During my research, I would ask Heimlich to explain the discrepancies I was encountering.
For example, I asked him why he incorrectly extrapolated Dr. Linda Quan's data, why he didn't tell people this was a regional study? He responded that he did make people aware of its regional nature. But this was only occasionally true. He very often failed to mention the regional nature of this study and that consequently, data from this study was restricted in its applications. Unless you were educated in statistics, you would not appreciate the study's limits.
And when I asked him why he falsely stated that the lifeguards in Quan's study had been trained in CPR, he accused Quan of lying. He wrote:
Mouth-to-mouth was adopted for drowning in 1961 and was spread by the (American Red Cross) to lifeguards and the public very quickly. I find it hard to believe that 23 years later [Quan’s study covered 10 years beginning in 1974] they were not yet teaching CPR to lifeguards in Seattle. I’d like to see written proof from Quan. There is certainly no published statement in any of Quan's writing indicating that she improved outcomes by adding CPR to the lifeguard’s protocol for the first time [remember that I mentioned a later study conducted by Quan demonstrated this very thing]. How could she leave that out if it were possibly true? It sounds like something she thought of belatedly, after I quoted her findings of 42% mortality.Interestingly - referring to Heimlich’s contention that by 1974 the majority of lifeguards were well aware of and well-trained in CPR - as I was researching the Funworld article I attended an industry trade show in Atlanta, which gave me the opportunity to sit in on an Ellis presentation about their aquatic services. At this presentation, they showed a video of a kid that had drowned in a public pool (the video was shot by a bystander). The trade show was in early 2000, I believe and the video was recent. The guards at that pool pulled the kid out and then did essentially nothing. They acted completely baffled, something that would never happen to Ellis-trained guards - or so the message was.
The presenter said these guards had received CPR training, although he wouldn’t say from whom. The point is that while Heimlich appears disbelieving that any guard could be untrained (or poorly-trained) in CPR, decades later, Ellis was willing to state this was the case.
This is how it went with Heimlich. He would start out by appearing to answer questions about his research, etc. but then in a weird sort of circular approach, sidestep the question either by referencing the very studies I was asking him about, or refer me back to his own chapters, writings and correspondence. It smacked of a sort of "because I say so," logic.
He would also refer to Ellis' adoption of his maneuver as evidence of its merit, not addressing the fact that this adoption was, in fact, based on his questionable science and misused data.
Throughout, he accused researchers of outright fraud, or of not understanding their own data. He also believed that the Institute of Medicine misinterpreted their findings and had made deliberate omissions around his work. At times, Heimlich almost sounded like a conspiracy theorist.
The third and final copy, the one sent to Heimlich after all the others had reviewed it, stood unchanged, in spite of his rebuttals. It was time to show the report in its entirety to Ellis.
I believe the editor showed it to Ellis and others who were attending a meeting of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions safety committee. [Funworld is published by IAAPA.] I can't recall whether this committee was focused entirely on waterpark safety or also concerned itself with amusement parks.
The report's impact was immediate. The committee was upset and concerned that the news media, which routinely reads the trade publications of major industries, would get wind of the report. Although the article was to have run in the magazine, and later when it grew longer, to be included with the magazine as a supplemental report, ultimately it was kept out of the publication altogether. Instead, a month or so later, it was mailed out to IAAPA members as a "Special Report," effectively keeping it out of the public eye — although whether this, or costs, was the motivating factor, only the publisher knows. [Editor's note: The privately-distributed Funworld article was dated March 30, 2000. A few months later, the Los Angeles Times reported the story.]
One drowning authority I relied heavily on during my research was Jerome Modell M.D., at the time a professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Florida's College of Medicine. As I said in the Funworld article, Modell's work in drowning is internationally known and referenced. As of that writing, he had also acted as an expert witness in drowning litigation on approximately 150 occasions.
When Modell heard that the article was not going to be published in the magazine, he fired off a letter to John Graff, the president and CEO of IAAPA. In it he said:
For you now to deny the printing of this material indicates to me that…the report did not result in a manuscript that fit your personal prejudices. I can tell you that as a scientist, on many occasions, experiments that I and my colleagues have performed have produced results that did not meet our pretesting biases, but in the end, resulted in an even more significant contribution that had our predetermined biases been true.Graff was unmoved.
For the above reasons, I believe that your censorship of this article was inappropriate; some have even expressed the opinion to me that external pressure, or perhaps a vested interest in a different outcome, may have influenced your judgment in this matter. I personally chose not to believe this, but I urge you, in the interest of safety for all of us who are interested in water sports, to publish this article in Funworld magazine at the earliest possible date.
Within days of receiving the article, Ellis quietly changed their protocol back to CPR, claiming they had decided to do so partly because of the Institute of Medicine's findings and decision not to endorse the maneuver for drowning or revisit the issue. (The first IOM committee reviewed the issue in 1991 and the second IOM committed reviewed this again in 1994. This was not a recent decision and Ellis should have been well aware of it).
Another reason Ellis gave was their submersion data. They started collecting data on the maneuver in 1995, when they changed their protocol. They also had older data, going back to 1985 when Ellis-trained guards were still responding with CPR. They had been touting their data as demonstrating the maneuver was superior to CPR, but the problem was, as Ellis representative Larry Newell admitted, the two sets of data were not comparable, so no meaningful comparison between the two protocols was possible. In fact, it was impossible.
But they had to have known this before receiving the article.
Funworld's editor was fired, forced to resign, however you want to spin it, because of this article and because he backed it. All along, I had been thinking only of how I might be impacted. I had no idea the heat he was taking and had been taking for months. And yet, when he had the chance to kill the article, he didn't take it. I can’t tell you how much I admired him and still do.
In Part Three I mentioned the Save A Life Foundation and that they were the only organization outside of Ellis to endorse and teach the maneuver for drowning. At the time, Heimlich sat on that organization's medical advisory board, as did CPR developer Dr. Peter Safar. The medical director then was Stanley Zydlo, M.D.
He told me during an interview, that they initially advised folks to use CPR, but decided to switch to the maneuver based on the 42% fatality rate from Quan's study (and supplied to him by Heimlich) and also on CPR’s "median mortality rate of 40%" another figure supplied by Heimlich. Zydlo contrasted this to Ellis' stated mortality rate, attributed to the maneuver protocol, of just 3% and decided this was proof enough the maneuver worked far better than CPR.
But, said those whom I interviewed for this article, Ellis' low mortality rate is more likely the result of the very short submersion times (remember, Ellis says their average submersion time is 29 seconds) rather than the maneuver.
As far as I know, although I haven’t investigated, the Save A Life Foundation is still recommending the maneuver as a first response to drowning/near-drowning, in spite of receiving a copy of the article and in spite of Ellis’ reversal. [Editor's note: In the wake of dozens of media exposes alleging fraud, the Save A Life Foundation went out of business in 2009 and the organization's founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri is a defendant in a wide-ranging federal civil rights lawsuit brought by a former SALF employee.]
After fulfilling a contract for another article, established when the editor was still in place, I never wrote for Funworld again. The editor found another job, and we kept in touch. We felt like we were the only ones in the world, except for a handful of others, who knew what we knew and we had weathered it together. But the knowledge of what people are willing to do to advance their agendas remains with you and changes you, and it changed me.
I remember the mixed feelings I had when Ellis reversed their decision. On the one hand, it confirmed that my research had uncovered real problems. Otherwise, I believe Jeff Ellis would have stood his ground and presented evidence favorable to his decision. He had every opportunity to do that.
But the quick reversal made it appear, in my mind anyway, that these problems were known all along, and this was troubling. Because it seemed to me that what had really taken place in the waterparks were the very human studies experiments that the IOM had said should not be approved. And it seemed like admission prices were high enough without tossing this into the mix.
We'd like to think we can count on the gatekeepers, like Ellis, to protect us from people like Dr. Heimlich, that would use us to their own purposes. I guess what I learned from this experience is that the gatekeepers need watching too.
Postscript: Several years after the publishing of the article, reports of Dr. Heimlich's "malariotherapy" experiments began appearing in the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets. Around that time, I was contacted by Peter Heimlich, Dr. Heimlich's youngest son. Peter and his wife Karen have worked tirelessly to expose problems surrounding Dr. Heimlich's research and claims.
Suddenly, the editor and I were not so alone.
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