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Updated June 25, 2009

Peter Heimlich's relentless and successful effort to expose the truth has been an inspiration to lifesavers everywhere - B. Chris Brewster, President, US Lifesaving Association

Your crusade is a major plus for medicine and for the American public. So, as a member of both communities, I thank you - Alan Steinman MD MPH, Rear Admiral (ret.) US Coast Guard, author, US Coast Guard water safety manual

I've been investigating medical fraud and quackery for 25 years. Peter Heimlich and his wife Karen uncovered the biggest case I've ever seen - Robert S. Baratz MD PhD DDS, National Council Against Health Fraud 

Peter Heimlich has worked tirelessly to uncover a fascinating, yet little known chapter of medical history, one with as much human intrigue as you would expect from a John LeCarre novel - Charles W. Guildner MD (ret), former consultant, American Heart Association:

I applaud your commitment to continuing to clear up these issues - Michelle Jantz, Manager, Operations and Program Administration, Preparedness and Health and Safety, American Red Cross, Washington DC

Perhaps the most challenging and personal question in this story is one which most people face in one form or another: When confronted with wrongdoing committed by a family member, how do we choose to respond? - Peter Heimlich

 

To read Thomas Francis's Heimlich expose in Radar Magazine, click the photo of Karen & Peter.


Outmaneuvered: How We Busted the Heimlich Medical Frauds
by Peter M. Heimlich (bio)

In Spring 2002, my wife Karen and I began researching the career of my father, Dr. Henry J. Heimlich of Cincinnati, famous for "the Heimlich maneuver" choking rescue method. To our astonishment, we inadvertently uncovered a wide-ranging, unseen 50-year history of fraud. Our research revealed my father to be a spectacular con man and serial liar, undoubtedly one of history's most prolific - and destructive - medical humbugs. Armed with considerable charm, an instinct for public relations, and fueled by a ravenous need for attention and adulation, he used the media to pass himself off as a medical genius/inventor and humanitarian, eventually being crowned "America's most famous doctor" (The New Republic, 2007).

Facts prove that, contrary to his self-cultivated public image, my father was an incompetent surgeon who appropriated ideas from other doctors and attached his name to them. The procedure known as "the Heimlich maneuver" is probably no exception. It's likely that the only thing my father ever invented was his own reputation.

Fraud or not, how Henry Heimlich maneuvered his way into medical history and made his name into a household word is the real story. It's a fascinating tale of deception and media manipulation that ultimately leads to this puzzlebox question: Why do we believe what we believe? (Click here to continue...)

 

Why have I spoken out? Shouldn't the question be, why hasn't the medical profession spoken out more forcefully? (Peter, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, January 1, 2007)

I violated the real cardinal rule in my family; I told the truth - Peter to Brian Ross on ABC 20/20



More ABC investigative reports about my father

Key subjects, TV & print reports, and related documents

Medical experts speak out against my father's history of misconduct

 

This website is intended to bring public & media attention to these public health risks and related information:

I. "Malariotherapy": For decades, the Heimlich Institute has been conducting abusive human experiments on American & Third World AIDS, cancer, and Lyme Disease patients, deliberately infecting them with malaria. Experts have compared this "research" to the Nazi concentration camp experiments and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. My father says plans are in motion to start a new project in an unnamed country. Why has Deaconess Associations of Cincinnati, a $200+ million/year health services corporation, funded and sponsored these experiments? (Related print & TV reports, key documents)

II. The Heimlich maneuver for drowning rescue: Every legitimate medical organization agrees this discredited treatment is useless and potentially deadly as it wastes precious rescue time and may cause victims to vomit and aspirate. Facts indicate that in 1974 my father simply dreamed up the idea and started promoting it. Presumably to convince the public to start doing the procedure, from 1974-2003 my father and a physician from Potomac MD appear to have used cronies to fabricate a string of cases in which drowning victims were allegedly rescued by the use of the maneuver. The cases were planted in the media and then my father published them in medical journals. The results are tragic. Over three decades, the use of the Heimlich maneuver by lifeguards and bystanders in near-drowning cases has reportedly resulted in dozens of serious injuries including the deaths of kids.

Some of the victims - casualties of my father's campaign
Related print & TV reports, key documents

Even after widespread exposure of the deadly results of this 30-year fraud, the following organizations continue to teach and/or promote the use of the Heimlich maneuver for drowning rescue:

Deaconess Associations, Cincinnati, OH - $200+ million/year health services corporation
The National Aquatic Safety Company (NASCO), Houston, TX - lifeguard training company
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, DC - nonprofit promoting ethical medicine
Farley Boyle, founder/president CHASE for Life, New Jersy first aid training nonprofit

 

"The Real Me: Dr. Henry Heimlich" - GoodLife TV (1999)
 
45min. infomercial-style tribute/biography featuring my father, my mother Jane Heimlich, my sisters Elisabeth & Janet Heimlich, my aunt Cele Rosenthal, Navy historian Jan Herman, Stephanie G. Hagan and her daughter Hillary Hagan of Kaysville Utah tearfully promoting the Heimlich maneuver for treating asthma attacks, and more. Jason Zengerle of The New Republic told me this was "one of the most bizarre tv shows" he'd ever seen and that he thought my father suffered from Narcisstic Personality Disorder. (For more on Zengerle and his AIDS researcher wife's hidden connections to the Heimlich Institute's "malariotherapy" experiments, click here.)

 

REPORTERS & BLOGGERS:
Check out the following unreported or under-reported stories. Contact Peter for more info.

 
"These so-called medical experts. Screw 'em"

That's what John Hunsucker, the president of the National Aquatic Safety Company (NASCO), a Houston-area life guard training company says in response to the fact that every legitimate first aid and water safety organization and every drowning expert agree that performing the Heimlich maneuver on drowning victims is a useless, potentially deadly treatment that has been linked to dozens of serious injuries, including the deaths of kids.


   
C.H.A.S.E. for Life & the Heimlich maneuver for near-drowning rescue
The American Red Cross warns against performing the Heimlich maneuver on drowning victims because it's a useless and potentially lethal procedure. Meanwhile they're partnering with a New Jersey first aid training nonprofit whose president recommends it.

 



"Some Moral Outrage"

The Heimlich Institute's ongoing illicit experiments on AIDS Patients


   
"A masterful piece of writing and reporting"
New Republic editor Jason Zengerle's ethically-challenged Heimlich article & his wife Dr. Claire Farel's connections to the Heimlich "malariotherapy" experiments

 

 

 
Ethics, atrocities, and PCRM's "Heimlich Award"
"We oppose unethical human experiments" claims the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a Washington DC nonprofit supported by public officials including Sen. Ron Wyden & Rep. Jim McDermott and celebrities like Alec Baldwin, Bill Maher, and many others. Meanwhile, my father - a high-profile PCRM board member and namesake of the group's "Henry J. Heimlich Award for Innovative Medicine" - has been supervising notorious human experiments on AIDS, cancer, and Lyme Disease patients for 20 years, experiments which have been widely condemned as medical atrocities.

 

 


Department of Corrections - Voice of America speechless after bungled Heimlich story
In January 2009, the Voice of America published a puff piece about my father that was rife with factual errors, so I submitted a thoroughly-documented corrections request. Months later, despite an "investigation" by VOA's Chief of Staff, they still can't get their act together. Your tax dollars at work....

 

 

    
Deaconess Associations: promoting dangerous Heimlich quackery & dubious fundraising

Since 1998, this $250 million/year Cincinnati hospital mega-corporation has promoted and fundraised on all of my father's crackpot medical claims: that the Heimlich maneuver is great for near-drowning victims, to stop asthma attacks, and to treat cystic fibrosis. Deaconess has also funded the Heimlich AIDS programs. Meet the five Cincinnatians who are responsible - four prominent Queen City health care professionals and my brother Phil, a former Christian radio talk show host.

 

 


Heimlich Maneuver Co-Developer Loses Libel Suit
A federal court judge has dismissed a libel suit brought by Edward Patrick, M.D. against the Cleveland Scene newspaper and Thomas Francis, a writer who whose cover story, "Playing Doctor," had accused Patrick of lying about his professional experience. Patrick is board-certified in emergency medicine, based on a one-year residency program followed by credit for practice. However, critics believe he did not complete residency training. The newspaper article also questioned the veracity of data from Patrick that were used to establish the Heimlich maneuver. as a method for treating choking. As noted below, the judge concluded that Patrick misrepresented the extent of his medical training and failed to present credible information to rebut other accusations made in the article. (Casewatch by Stephen Barrett MD, 10/22/08)

Click here for Patrick Institute "Wright Brothers" press release claiming Dr. Patrick was denied credit for developing the Heimlich maneuver. Click here for Patrick/Heimlich timeline.

 

 


What's the best way to rescue a choking victim? That depends on whom you ask

Since 2006, the American Red Cross stopped teaching the Heimlich maneuver as the first treatment response, but the American Heart Association teaches a different protocol. Meanwhile, Australia has stopped teaching the Heimlich maneuver. Why so much confusion? Ask former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, now at Dartmouth's Koop Institute.


Why did US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop manipulate national first aid guidelines as a buddy favor" for my father?


 


My father (and brother's) history with narco doctors
Throughout his career, my father has been closely associated with a string of physicians who lost their licenses and went to prison for excessive prescription narcotics violations, including a Beverly Hills doctor to the stars who made after-midnight housecalls "to sedate" Marilyn Monroe.

 

 


"A Caring World"? My father's history of collegial abuse & intimidation
For decades, he silenced critics with threats and dirty tricks, meanwhile promoting a nonexistent project called "A Caring World"....

 

 


 Some of the victims - casualties of the Heimlich maneuver for drowning rescue

Dayton Daily News, September 1, 2006: Dr. James Orlowski has collected about 30 cases of Heimlich maneuvers leading to bad results in drowning rescues, usually because of vomiting. Orlowski, a prolific researcher, directs pediatric intensive care, pediatrics and medical ethics at University Community Hospital in Tampa and teaches at the University of South Florida. He wrote 19 years ago in The Journal of the American Medical Association about what should have been the "routine resuscitation" of a 10-year-old boy who'd been submerged for less than two minutes. But given the Heimlich maneuver, the boy vomited extensively, damaging his lungs and impeding a lifeguard's and doctor's efforts to give him CPR. The boy died after seven years in a coma.

  
Marquis Fuller (center)                                        Angela Henley                                             Danny Blanco        

Marquis Fuller (8 years old), St. Augustine, FL, 2004
Derrick Kelly (17 years old), Detroit, 2003
Danny Blanco (2-1/2 years old), Orland Park, IL, 2001
Unnamed girl (3 years old), Orlando, FL, 1997
Unnamed boy (10 years old), Cleveland, OH, approx. 1979

Angela Henley (18 years old), Kirksvile, MO, in:
To Heimlich of Not?, Part II, KTVO (ABC)

5/23/08, Goshen, IN: 10 year-old near-drowning victim in critical condition after lifeguard performs Heimlich maneuver

 

 

 

Copyright @ 2008 Peter M. Heimlich, all rights reserved. Click here to report broken links or to contact the author.