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On February 6, 2011, I uploaded a page to my website with a countdown clock asking whether or not any reporters will question Chicago mayoral candidate Gery Chico about his relationship with the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) before Election Day, February 22.

My page was intended as a poke at Chicago news media whose coverage of the fall of SALF - an organization that was once the darling of prominent public officials, but is now the subject of IL state and federal investigations - has been conspicuous by its absence.

While SALF exposes popped up around the country, no Chicago media had reported anything since the Tribune ran staff reporter Lisa Black's deceptive Save-A-Life Foundation in Limbo back in October 2009. (Blogger Chris Johnson tagged Black's hackery in a thorough takedown.)

Gery Chico accepts award from SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri (Click here for more about her)

Windy City power broker Gery Chico and his wife Sunny (who runs an education consulting business) had been named by SALF as members of their corporate board and for years Chico promoted the organization during and after his tenure as president of the Chicago School Board.

More recently, Chico & The Frau have repeatedly ignored softball questions (posed to them by blogger Lee Cary) about their relationships with SALF.

With Chico running for mayor on a clean government platform, some might consider his ties to a tainted nonprofit to be newsworthy.

I'm happy to report that the Huffington Post agreed.

My countdown clock was stopped on February 17 at 06:07 PM EST as the result of staff reporter Will Guzzardi's article, Gery Chico Save A Life Foundation Connection: What Was His Role At Troubled Charity?


So when may readers expect the next report about SALF from Chicago news outlets?

Tick, tick, tick....



 

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....

From Stephen on mission to save lives by Judith Kerr, Bayside Bulletin/Redland Times (Australia), January 27, 2011

Birkdale's Stephen Dean has seen the face of death. As an officer with the Royal Australia Navy, his desperate attempts to resuscitate a man who had had a heart attack ended when the man died in his arms. But ever since that day, the 58-year-old father of two has made it his life's mission to save people.

For his dedication to that mission and his work in the field of resuscitation and first aid training, he was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) on Wednesday. As the assistant CEO of St John Ambulance Australia's Queensland branch, it has been Stephen's job to teach and train people across the resuscitation industry.

..."It is important for people in the business of saving lives to be taught to follow a set of common rules, regulations and procedures to stop confusion."

In the US, they still advocate the Heimlich Manoeuvre for choking but in Australia, we believe the evidence shows it is dangerous and so our guidelines don't promote it," Stephen said.

Click here for source

John J. Pippin MD FACC at 10/10/09 Petland protest (source)

From Heimlich Maneuvered by Paul Teetor, LA Weekly, April 8, 2010: 

In both its mission statement and its IRS filings, the Washington, D.C.-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) says it is "strongly opposed to unethical human research." But the group is throwing a private Hollywood Art of Compassion bash Sunday night to hand out a major award named after Dr. Henry Heimlich, who has been condemned by mainstream medical organizations around the world for his 20-year program of trying to cure cancer and AIDS by injecting people with malaria-infected blood.

...Peter Heimlich says his father's malariotherapy research has been denounced as dangerous and irresponsible by the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. In 2002 the WHO called malariotherapy "an example of clearly unscrupulous and opportune research." Five years later, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said: "It is scientifically unsound, and I think it would be ethically questionable ... and it does have the fundamental potential of killing you."

From A group of physicians files a federal complaint against UMMC by Julie Straw, WLBT (NBC affiliate) Jackson, MS, January 24, 2011:

First-year medical students at University of Mississippi Medical Center often learn through hands-on lab exercises involving live animals, in most cases pigs. The pigs are euthanized when it is over. At least one group of physicians called it cruel and unnecessary and wants it to stop.

On the web site homepage for Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine or PCRM, there is a piglet and a plea for UMMC to stop pig labs.

"To teach medical students you do not need to kill animals. Virtually nobody is doing it and UMMC is far behind the standard of practice in medical education," said PCRM cardiologist Dr. John Pippin.

...In a new twist, the son of a famous doctor is speaking out against PCRM. Peter Heimlich, son of Dr. Henry Heimlich who created the Heimlich maneuver, claims his father allegedly used people for controversial medical research. Dr. Heimlich serves on the board for PCRM which fights for ethical treatment of animals and humans.

"My concern is the organization seems to put the interest of pigs above human beings who are being subjected to violative medical research," said Peter Heimlich.

PCRM has been criticized by others as being a "PETA front group" and even promotes a vegan diet on their web site.

"I'd say they're fools," said Dr. Pippin.

the Heimlich atrocity experiments: correspondence between PCRM's John J. Pippin MD & Eric Matteson MD, the ...

I just stumbled onto To Heimlich or not to Heimlich - that is the question, a March 2010 article by John W. Reggars. Click the link and go to page 8 for an excellent two-page review of the Heimlich history published in what may seem like an unlikely source - an Australian trade magazine for chiropractors.

One minor fix. I'm slightly misquoted: 

Peter Heimlich has publicly campaigned against his father whom he has described as "history’s greatest medical charlatan and a fraud."

Actually per my website I've called my father one of history's great medical scammers. I'll leave it to historians and others to determine his standing in that illustrious pantheon.

Along those lines, check out Are Henry Heimlich and Edward Patrick Medical Heroes, or Fast Talking Medical Con Men? at ScienceHeroes.com, which includes a poll inviting readers to "Vote if these scientists should be held up as a medical hero, or ignored for their medical infamy?"

Drs. Edward A. Patrick & Henry J. Heimlich (1986)