Perhaps the most challenging
question raised by my story is one that confronts most people
in one form or another: When we become aware of wrongdoing commited
by a family member, how do we choose to respond? - Peter
Please do not understand
me too quickly - Andre
Gide
Better not to begin.
Once you begin, better to finish it. (source)
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.
For decades, he relentlessly
promoted a string of crackpot medical treatments that resulted
in serious injuries and deaths, including children. Most bizarre
is "malariotherapy" - a quack cure that consists of
infecting for AIDS, cancer, and Lyme Disease patients with malaria.
My father also promotes the Heimlich maneuver as a cure-all for
drowning, asthma, cystic fibrosis, even heart attacks.
All these treatments have
been thoroughly discredited by medical experts and my father
has no legitimate evidence to support his ideas. He just made
them up.
Nevertheless, armed with considerable
charm, an instinct for public relations, and fueled by a ravenous
need for attention and adulation, my father 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). Facts prove that contrary to his self-cultivated
public image, he 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.
Facts indicate that the only thing my father ever invented was
his own reputation.
At age 48 I came to realize
that my father was a danger to others and to himself. Since then
I've done what I could to bring the facts to public attention
in order to expose the "poison ideas" circulated by
my father and his cronies, a motley crew of hacks, quacks, and
narco doctors.
Family ties aside, how Henry
Heimlich maneuvered his way into medical history and made himself
a household word is a fascinating and disturbing tale that inevitably
leads to this puzzlebox question: Why do we believe what we believe?
(continued)
ABC News reports and other videos
Key subjects, TV & print reports,
and related documents
A.
"Malariotherapy"
B. The use of the Heimlich
maneuver for near drowning - a 30-year medical atrocity
C. Heimlich maneuver
for choking frauds
D. Heimlich maneuver
for asthma fraud
E. False claim of
inventing esophagus replacement operation
F. Henry and Phil
Heimlich's relationships with
narco doctors
G. Who was Dr. Edward
A. Patrick?
H. Tall tales &
fabrications
I. Supporters of
my father's work
Under-reported news stories
Did you know that in Spring
2006, the American Red Cross stopped teaching the Heimlich maneuver
as the first treatment response for choking? Click
here for media reports.
"These so-called medical experts. Screw 'em" by Peter M.
Heimlich. Why does a Houston-area company NASCO teach lifeguards
to perform abdominal thrusts on drowning victims, a useless,
discredited treatment associated with dozens of deaths and serious
injuries?
Why did US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop manipulate
national first aid guidelines as a "buddy favor" for
my father & Dr. Edward A. Patrick? by Peter M. Heimlich
What's "innovative" about medical
atrocities?
PCRM's hypocritical 'Heimlich
Award' by Peter M. Heimlich
The Smear Artist: Jason Zengerle's Heimlich
article
by Peter M. Heimlich.
Why did the New Yorker kill Jason Zengerle's bogus article
about my father and me? Why did The New Republic publish
it two years later?
The Save-A-Life Foundation's failed lawsuit against me, ABC-TV, Chicago investigative
reporter Chuck Goudie, Cincinnati blogger Jason Haap, and Dr.
Robert Baratz of the National Council Against Health Fraud.
The Maneuver
Part II by Chuck
Goudie
ABC7 Chicago,
November 17, 2006 (text)