Via Lifeguards trained in controversial procedure by Cindy Weightman, WBGO-FM, Newark, NJ, June 30, 2014:

Dr. Peter Wernicki is a member of the American Red Cross Science Advisory Council.

"Using the Heimlich maneuver to resuscitate drowning victims) is not supported by any scientific body throughout the world. There are protocols that have been developed by the American Red Cross, the International LifeSaving Committee and the American Heart Associationand those protocols are based in science. Use of the Heimlich Maneuver is not," Wernicki said.

...Barbara Caracci is the Director of Program Development and Training for First Aid Programs at the National Safety Council. She says the Heimlich Maneuver should never be used in drowning situations, especially when someone is unconscious.

"Absolutely not, because the reason for the person's unresponsiveness has nothing to do with airway obstruction, which is what abdominal thrusts are for. In the case of someone who is drowning, they need CPR and they need it as soon as possible."

Lifeguard training company won't abandon use of controversial technique by Joel Eisenbaum, KPRC, July 11, 2014

Question Triggers Probe into Drowning by Harrison Berry, Boise Weekly, July 16, 2014:

In the late afternoon of June 23, Ada County Paramedics pulled Felix Martinez from the New York Canal....(Boise firefighter Brent) Matthews said he used the Heimlich maneuver -- an emergency technique in which abdominal thrusts are repeated until a blockage is pushed out of a choking victim's airway -- until sand and other debris poured out of Martinez's mouth.
Martinez's condition worsened; within five days, he was dead.

...Martinez, a homeless man, may not have attracted much attention prior to the incident, but because of the circumstances of his rescue, he has been the subject of a formal inquiry -- in large part because of Peter Heimlich...

How A Rescue Attempt, A Death, And A TV Story Are Causing Problems For Boise by Adam Cotterell, Boise State Public Radio, August 7, 2014:

Peter Heimlich is not satisfied with the city's explanation of what happened.

"What began as a concern regarding possible improper medical treatment given to Mr. Martinez seems to have turned into something bigger," he says. "The mayor, the fire chief and others appear to be trying to change the story altogether."

Peter Heimlich asked Boise's city ethics commission to "investigate the investigation."

Heimlich Maneuver inventor's son demands answers after Boise drowning by Chris Oswalt, FOX9 News (Boise, ID) August 13, 2014

How Dr. Heimlich Maneuvered Hollywood Into Backing His Dangerous AIDS "Cure" by Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, August 14, 2014

At the height of the crisis, the inventor of the famous anti-choking technique claimed HIV could be cured by injecting patients with malaria. New documents reveal how stars like Jack Nicholson and Ron Howard gave thousands to his cause.

When 'Chicago Hope' Dealt in Heimlich, Malariotherapy and AIDS by Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, August 14, 2014

The Right Way to Stop Choking by Daniela Ongaro, The Daily Telegraph (Australia), October 29, 2014:

Although popularised by Hollywood, the manoeuvre (invented by American physician, Dr Henry Heimlich in the 1970s and introduced in the US) has never been accepted practice in Australia.

The Australian Resuscitation Council in its June 2014 guidelines states: "Life-threatening complications associated with use of abdominal thrusts have been reported in 32 case reports.

"Therefore, the use of abdominal thrusts in the management of Foreign Body Airway Obstruction is not recommended. Instead back blows and chest thrusts should be used."

St John's Ambulance First Aid trainer Nick Allison says Australian resuscitation experts do not recommend the Heimlich, which has attracted significant controversy for the risks it poses and the lack of scientific evidence supporting its use.

"The Heimlich manoeuvre looks dramatic, which is why you see it in all the movies," Allison says.

"It came out in the US but there were concerns because of the damage being caused (to victims) such as broken ribs and the difficulty involved in using it if the choking person was a larger person.

"It's not a recommended technique because it can be dangerous."

Heimlich maneuver on unconscious persons causes controversy by Nick Kammerer, Rambler Newspapers (Irving, TX), November 24, 2014:

Certain entities, such as the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross, do not recommend using the Heimlich maneuver on unconscious patients; however, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and Henry Heimlich have advocated the practice....In an effort to uncover the scientific reasoning behind ACEP's stance, this reporter contacted ACEP representatives and even visited their headquarters in Irving. Unfortunately, physicians refused to comment on the matter and referred this office to a media liaison in Washington D.C. who did not respond by press time.

...Peter Heimlich, son of Henry Heimlich, has also made several attempts to contact ACEP. He has also met the ACEP's reluctance to comment on a medical practice the College openly advocates. Due to the lack of response, Peter reached out to Dr. David Lakey, Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services. Peter listed a copy of the letter on his blog, and he is currently waiting for a response.

...Heimlich Heroes, a Cincinnati-based first aid program developed partly by Henry Heimlich, is teaching students to perform the Heimlich maneuver on unconscious choking victims. This means that school children are being taught a medical practice that is not recommended by the American Heart Association or Red Cross, two highly credible public health organizations.

Peter Heimlich questions a country singer's Heimlich maneuver story in People magazine by Jim Romenesko, JimRomenesko.com, February 8, 2015:

Journalist Peter Heimlich, whose father developed the "Heimlich maneuver," has tried since 2012 to verify the above Heimlich claim by Luke Bryan in People Country magazine. The singer, his managers, and even his mother won't discuss the story with the skeptical journalist. The magazine isn't interested in checking the claim, either, says Heimlich.

Bamboozled: Breakwater Beach security breach puts hundreds of employee documents online by Karin Price Mueller, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, July 8, 2015:

Hundreds of documents containing personal information of some employees at Jenkinson's Breakwater Beach Waterpark at Casino Pier in Seaside Heights have been available online to anyone who clicks in the right place, Bamboozled has learned.

The documents include copies of Social Security cards, driver's licenses, birth certificates, passports, student IDs, tax forms, seasonal work agreements, minor consent forms and employment eligibility forms from the Department of Homeland Security.

...The information about the breach came to Bamboozled in an interesting way.

Peter Heimlich of Atlanta is an independent blogger with a journalism background. His father is Henry J. Heimlich, the famed physician for whom "the Heimlich maneuver" was named.

...Earlier this week, (Peter) Heimlich...came across the personnel information.

"It couldn't have been easier (to find)" he said.

And then he contacted Bamboozled.

Cowabunga Bay fined for lifeguard numbers after near drowning by Michelle Iracheta, Las Vegas Review-Journal, June 27, 2015

2 Investigates: CDC gives millions of tax dollars to shady nonprofit by Jodie Fleisher, WSB-TV (ABC Atlanta), July 15, 2015:

The CDC is refusing to answer Channel 2 Action News' questions about a high-ranking employee who served on the board of a now-defunct nonprofit that's been the subject of a series of scandals. The Save A Life Foundation (SALF) also happened to receive more than $3 million in CDC funding, much of it while that same employee was serving as the nonprofit's treasurer.

"Save A Life was a fraud, it can't be described as anything but a total fraud," said attorney Jennifer Bonjean, who represents a whistleblower who used to work there.

The Downfall of a Non-Profit: The Ongoing Saga of the Save A Life Foundation -- Peter Heimlich provides a full look at the rise and fall of the Schiller Park-based organization by Tim Moran, Patch.com, July 17, 2015:

PMH: Here's one of the biggest problems. In funding applications that pulled in millions of dollars, SALF claimed their trainers provided in-school first aid classes to hundreds of thousands of students in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). A program of that scope would have produced tens of thousands of pages of documents. But in response to a federal court subpoena and FOIA requests, CPS failed to produce a single training record: no correspondence, no scheduling, no employee records, no evaluations, just a handful of SALF press releases hyping their relationship with then-Chicago Public Schools head Arne Duncan.

SALF's training was supposed to be free to the schools, so why did Duncan personally arrange a $174,000 contract with Spizzirri to train thousands of students? Further, CPS wrote me that they have no records for the program except the contract and paid invoices to SALF, and that Duncan was entirely responsible. But when I and others have tried to get answers from Duncan - who was close to SALF for years and reportedly called Spizzirri "one of my heroes" - he won't answer. Why not?

In 2011, CPS Inspector General James Sullivan wrote me that there's no statute of limitations on vendor fraud, so I submitted a thoroughly-documented investigation request asking him to look into what happened to the money CPS paid SALF including the contact Duncan arranged with Spizzirri. Despite multiple follow-ups, I've never received a reply, so presumably Sullivan wants to bury the mess.

Water park lifeguards no longer certified by Michelle Iracheta, Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 27, 2015

Cowabunga Bay stays open after pledge to update lifeguard training manual by Michelle Iracheta, Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 28, 2015

Katz faces criticism for book review by David Yaffe-Bellany, Yale Daily News, November 4, 2015. I first reported the story on my blog on September 30:

In February 2014, David Katz MPH '93, the director of the Yale School of Medicine's Prevention Research Center, wrote two glowing online reviews of a science-fiction novel called reVision.

In his biweekly column in The Huffington Post, Katz lauded the book's "lyrically beautiful writing," comparing it to the work of a veritable "who's who" of great writers, including Plato, John Milton and Charles Dickens. "I finished with a sense of illumination from a great source," he concluded. "The most opportune comparison may be to a fine wine." Katz had used similar language two days earlier in a five-star product review he posted on the book's page on Amazon.

But Katz omitted a crucial detail from both reviews: the subject of his praise was his own self-published passion project, released two months earlier under the pseudonym Samhu Iyyam.

...In recent weeks, the Amazon and Huffington Post reviews have drawn significant criticism from doctors and pundits who disagree with Katz's support for the United States Dietary Guidelines, a set of nutrition standards that help determine the contents of school lunches. Katz, an internationally renowned nutrition expert, told the News that the social-media backlash against the reviews is part of a smear campaign engineered by groups aiming to undermine the federal guidelines.

But Fred Brown, a spokesman for the Society of Professional Journalists, told the News the Huffington Post column was blatantly unethical, and the blogger, Peter Heimlich, who wrote about the Amazon review in late September and contacted the News shortly after, said he is not involved in the debate over the guidelines.

...On Oct. 24, Katz addressed the controversy in another Huffington Post column, insisting that Internet bullies had dug up the reviews in an effort to discredit his nutritional advice.

But Heimlich, who contacted the News about the controversy, said he was unaware of the guidelines dispute.

"Instead of trying to change the subject, [Katz] should man up and explain what happened," Heimlich said.

Suspects often claim abuse injuries stem from CPR, Heimlich effort by Justin Strawser, The Daily Item, Sunbury, PA, November 13, 2015

Yale doc loses 2 HuffPo blog posts after secretly promoting his novel by Shannon Palus, Retraction Watch, November 20, 2015:

The Huffington Post has retracted two blog posts by prominent Yale nutritionist David Katz after learning he had posted incredibly favorable reviews of a new novel - and not revealed that he had written the novel himself, under a pseudonym.

There's no doubt Katz is a prolific writer - in addition to a couple hundred scientific articles and textbook chapters, Katz regularly blogs for the Huffington Post. He's also the author of a novel, reVision, under the pen name Samhu Iyyam. Last year, Katz wrote a pair of incredibly favorable reviews of reVision on The Huffington Post that implied he had discovered the novel as a reader. The Huffington Post has taken them down, as blogger Peter Heimlich - yes, related to the maneuver - reported earlier this week. According to Heimlich, a 5-star Amazon review of "Iyyam's" book, written by Katz, has also been removed.

Nutritionist Wrote Two Positive Reviews of his Own Book, Huffington Post Deletes by Sydney Smith, IMedia Ethics, December 5, 2016:

The Huffington Post unpublished two blogposts by Yale nutritionist David Katz after it was revealed he wrote articles praising his own book. However, the conflict in the blogposts wasn't obvious because Katz's book was written under a pseudonym.

Katz is a Clinical Instructor in Medicine at Yale, which identifies him as a "nationally recognized authority on the prevention of chronic disease, nutrition, and weight management." His website lists him as the founding director of Yale's Prevention Research Center, the president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and author of "roughly 200 scientific articles and textbook chapters, and 15 books to date."

Heimlich remover! Son of 'maneuver' inventor wants investigation into anti-choking device at boro schools by Allegra Hobbs, The Brooklyn Paper, January 13, 2016

New potentially life saving device questioned by medical watchdog by Joe Mauceri, WPIX-TV, New York City, January 18, 2016

At 96, Heimlich performs his own maneuver by Kevin Grasha and Bowdeya Tweh, Cincinnati Enquirer (which resulted from my corrections request to the Enquirer earlier that day), May 27, 2016:

Monday might not have been the first time Dr. Henry Heimlich performed his namesake medical procedure on a live choking victim.

...Heimlich told The Enquirer Thursday his encounter with Patty Ris at the Deupree House senior living facility, where they both live, was the first time he ever performed it on a person needing immediate aid. However, several published reports in the early 2000s from news outlets ranging from the BBC to the Chicago Sun-Times show interviews with Heimlich describing himself using the maneuver. In one interview, he said he helped a man at the former private dining club, the Banker's Club, in Downtown Cincinnati in 2001.

Cincinnati.com initially published a story late Thursday about the incident, quoting Heimlich as saying this was the first time he'd ever performed his own maneuver on someone. But then one of his sons, Peter Heimlich, reached out to media organizations pointing out the existence of articles roughly 15 years ago.

Another son, local attorney Phil Heimlich, said he doesn't recall those media reports.

"All I can say is none of us had a recollection of it," Phil Heimlich said. "If dad did it, I would've heard about it."

It isn't the first time Heimlich's statements have been challenged. In 2003, The Enquirer reported that Romanian surgeon Dr. Dan Gavriliu disputed statements from the Cincinnati doctor that he developed an operation that uses a section of the stomach to bypass the esophagus. The Romanian doctor claimed Heimlich took credit for a procedure he developed years earlier.

At 96, Dr. Heimlich Uses His Own Maneuver on Choking Victim by Christine Hauser, New York Times, May 27, 2016:

Since he invented the Heimlich maneuver, Dr. Henry J. Heimlich had spent decades demonstrating the lifesaving technique on people willing to play the role of a choking victim.
But this week, Dr. Heimlich, 96, said he got to do the real thing.

He used the abdomen-squeezing maneuver on Monday night on an 87-year-old woman who was choking at their senior residence community in Cincinnati, popping a morsel of meat out of her mouth.

“I felt it was just confirmation of what I had been doing throughout my life,” he said in an interview on Friday.

After Dr. Heimlich’s lifesaving move, a public relations team working for the parent company of the residence, Episcopal Retirement Services, snapped into action, recording and distributing video interviews with the doctor, the woman he saved, and a dining room employee.

They also arranged media appearances promoting the claim that this was the first time the doctor had used the maneuver himself to save a life, although decade-old reports cast doubt on that.

...Is this the first time Dr. Heimlich has ever used the maneuver to save a life?

“Yes, this is,” he said Friday. “I originally did my research studies that led to my developing it, which was in 1974, and I never considered that I would be doing it myself.”

The record is murky in that regard. A BBC article in 2003 quoted the doctor, then 83, describing a similar encounter where he tried the maneuver on a fellow diner, a man, although the story lacked details such as a precise date, location and name. A New Yorker article in 2006 made reference to a similar incident, also without details. But a son, Phil Heimlich, said his father had never mentioned any previous incidents to him. The doctor himself did not return a follow-up call.

This lifesaving coincidence definitely makes you swallow deeply by James M. Berklan, Editor, McKnight's, June 01, 2016:

(Patty Ris) had her life saved by none other than world-famous inventor-doctor Henry Heimlich. And he did it by using his well-known abdominal-thrusting Heimlich Maneuver.
Some are billing it as the first time the 96-year-old ever used his move on a person truly in distress since he pioneered it in 1974. (A BBC account contends otherwise.)

The story, full of coincidences or not, proved to be pure catnip to journalists around the globe.

It happened last week when the 87-year-old Ris started to choke on a piece of hamburger at Deupree House, an Episcopal Retirement Services continuing care retirement community in Cincinnati. Heimlich is an independent living resident who swims every other day and takes an exercise class there.
The timing was incredible. Today — June 1 — is National Heimlich Maneuver Day.

At Least Part of Last Week's Charming Viral Heimlich-Maneuver Story Was Bogus by Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slate (which resulted from my corrections request to Slate the day before), June 3, 2016:

Last week I wrote about the story, reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer and others, of Heimlich-maneuver inventor Henry Heimlich having performed his signature windpipe-blockage response on an actual real-life choking victim for the first time ever. (Dr. Heimlich is now 96 and lives in a retirement home where the event is said to have taken place.) I also linked to a very interesting 2007 piece in the New Republic about Heimlich's long history of exaggerations and dubious claims about other medical subjects. Turns out that I should have taken that piece to heart and done a little more research on the "first time" story: The Cincinnati Enquirer now notes that Heimlich has previously made the exact same claim about an incident that was said to have taken place in 2001 at a private club in Cincinnati.

...This Wednesday [June 1, 2016], perhaps not coincidentally given Henry Heimlich's history as a self-promoter, was National Heimlich Maneuver Day.

Both the ostensible choking victim in the recent retirement-home incident (Patty Ris) and another witness vouched that Heimlich had performed the dislodging procedure, although Ris' testimony was made public through a public relations firm rather than a direct interview with a reporter. Whatever actually happened at the retirement home, it appears that the actual final step in the Heimlich maneuver might be boondoggling the press.

Heimlich's first time using maneuver? Maybe not by Joe Rosemeyer, WCPO-TV News, June 28, 2016:

Maybe Henry Heimlich simply misremembered. Or maybe news reports from the early 2000s simply weren't true.
Either way, there's an irresolvable conflict: When did Dr. Heimlich first perform his namesake maneuver?

A month ago, just a few days before National Heimlich Maneuver Day, the Cincinnati doctor said he'd finally used it for the first time. He's 96 years old, and he invented the move to help choking victims more than 40 years ago.

Pretty incredible that he hadn't used it before then, right?

Except Heimlich apparently told the BBC in 2003 he'd performed it three years earlier, in 2000. 

"I was in this club restaurant eating when I heard someone calling 'Dr. Heimlich,'" the BBC quoted him as saying back then. "I turned around and saw a man choking, so I did the Heimlich maneuver and got it out and then went on and had my lunch."

...The doctor's son, Phil Heimlich, said he, his sister and father have no recollection of the incident 16 years ago.

"It would have been a major news story, so we would have remembered," he said.

Yale doctor's column raises questions - again by David Yaffe-Bellany, Yale Daily News, September 12, 2016; also see my May 23, 2016 blog:

David Katz SPH '93 - the Yale-affiliated doctor whose over-the-top Huffington Post review of his own self-published novel caused a furor in the nutrition community last year - has once again tested the boundaries of ethical journalism.

In another column for The Huffington Post over the summer, Katz lambasted the Massachusetts-based supermarket chain Big Y, calling its ad campaign for the In-Vince-Ible Pizza, a fatty snack named after NFL star Vince Wilfork, "deeply disturbing." He described the pizza as symptomatic of the obesity epidemic in America, and questioned the parenting skills of Wilfork, who appears alongside his son in ads for the product.

"You see, it is not just any pizza," Katz wrote. "[It represents] carnage in the service of carnivorous palates."

But nowhere in the May article, which also appeared in the New Haven Register, did Katz mention another crucial detail: Big Y is not just any supermarket. Just one month before the column was published, Big Y cut ties with a nutritional ratings service, NuVal, that Katz established in 2008 and has passionately championed ever since.

...This summer was not the first time Katz has failed to disclose a potential conflict of interest in his biweekly Huffington Post column. In February 2014, he posted a glowing review of a science fiction novel called reVision, which was published under the pseudonym Samhu Iyyam. Katz - who lauded the book's "lyrically beautiful writing," comparing it to the work of great authors like John Milton and Charles Dickens - did not reveal that reVision was in fact his own self-published passion project until he was outed by professional rivals online months later.

After the News published an account of the reVision controversy, The Huffington Post retracted Katz's review. Amazon also took down a similarly florid customer review that he had posted.

...Over the past few years, Katz has become a controversial figure in his field. His work is at the center of an ongoing dispute in scientific circles about federal nutrition standards that affect the contents of school lunches.

..."It's reasonable to assume he has a lot riding on the project," said Heimlich, who added that he has counted 16 references to NuVal in Katz's Huffington Post columns over the past five years.

Katz questioned Heimlich's interest in his career - Heimlich has written several blog articles about Katz over the past year -and accused him of "trolling."

Raley's phasing out nutritional scoring system, will develop own program by Mark Glover, Sacramento Bee, October 11, 2016; I broke the story that morning on my blog.

Judge: Anyone May Access Records by Karen Knight, Cape May County Herald, October 21, 2016:

A New Jersey Superior Court judge has determined that a Georgia man can access state records under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). That differs with a decision rendered earlier this year by an Atlantic/Cape May County Superior Court judge who said out-of-state residents have no right to benefits of the act. Peter Heimlich, an Atlanta-based investigative blogger, filed a lawsuit in June challenging the Educational Information and Resource Center's (EIRC) denial for records filed under OPRA because he was not a state resident. Attorney C.J. Griffin, of Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, represented Heimlich and specializes in First Amendment law.

Judge Won’t Reconsider OPRA Decision, Non-Residents May View Public Records by Karen Knight, Cape May County Herald, January 19, 2016:

A New Jersey Superior Court judge has rejected a motion to reconsider a decision she made that allows out-of-state residents access to public records under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA).

The Educational Information and Resource Center (EIRC) filed a motion Nov. 11, 2016, asking Superior Court Assignment Judge Georgia Curio, to reconsider her Oct. 24, 2016, decision because the state Government Records Council (GRC) changed its position, saying it is "proper to deny access to out-of-state requestors."

The EIRC also submitted two court decisions they became aware of after their case was presented to Curio where the judges ruled that out-of-state requestors did not have any rights to the benefits of the Act.

Peter Heimlich, an Atlanta, Ga.-based investigative blogger, filed a lawsuit in June 2016 challenging the EIRC's denial for records filed under OPRA because he was not a state resident.

Attorney C.J. Griffin, of Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, represented Heimlich. She specializes in First Amendment law.

Media outlets choke on Heimlich obituaries by Erik Wemple, Washington Post, January 31, 2017:

(Peter Heimlich obtained) at least seven corrections/amendments (to published obituaries about his father) from some of the biggest names in the news business, over a single news topic. Record?

...On Jan. 9, (Heimlich) emailed the newspaper with correction requests over the Berry thing as well as a contention regarding the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The New York Times later informed him that it wouldn’t be responding.

That’s when Peter Heimlich turned to the Erik Wemple Blog, a bastion of accountability in relation to medical history. He CC’d us in an appeal to Spayd that included this elbow: “Needless to say, for the paper of record not to correct factual errors is a slippery and troubling slope...." We have asked (Public Editor Liz) Spayd for a further explanation; she referred us to (senior standards editor Greg) Brock; Brock says that a correction is in the works.

Via the New York Times:




Who Saved Otto Klug? Investigating a 75-year-old mystery by Peter M. Heimlich, Kent Historical Society Newsletter, February 2017. According to two 1941 articles in the New York Times and my father's 2014 memoir, he saved the life of a man named Otto Klug in a massive, high-profile train wreck in Litchfield County, Connecticut. But all local newspaper reports credit an local man named Jack Bartovic for saving Klug. Was this my father's first media scam?

N.J. school agency's implosion leaves questions, South Jersey Times Editorial Board, March 17, 2017:

Wonder where your kid's teachers go when his or her school district has "in-service days" when staff is supposed to work, but students have no classes?

If it's not to the mall, the casino or on a journey of spiritual improvement,  chances are that, in New Jersey, they're at a program given or authorized by the Educational Information & Resource Center (EIRC). EIRC, once one of several similar agencies around the state, supplies curriculum development tools and serves as a clearinghouse for anti-bullying, tolerance and other programs.

Now, EIRC is going away after losing a staggering $3.7 million in the past three years. That's on an annual budget no larger than $18 million over the period. Incredible.

...EIRC's website was operating a few days ago, but went off-line about the time  the Times' first report about the monetary troubles appeared. Also, the agency was involved in a recent Open Public Records Act tussle that played out at the shore. According to the Cape May Herald, ERIC had a judge block an OPRA request from a Georgia-based "investigative blogger." The judge ruled that agencies didn't have to supply records when requests came from outside New Jersey. Fortunately, Superior Court Assignment Judge Georgia Cuiro reversed the decision, and rejected an EIRC motion to reconsider it.

We have no clue why Peter Heimlich of Atlanta sought EIRC records, but the agency took considerable steps to keep them secret. Some follow-up is in order. Let's find out if this is another textbook case -- pun intended -- of a New Jersey independent agency operating with insufficient internal or external controls.

Son of famed New Rochelle doctor asks for Walk of Fame reconsideration by Lisa Reyes, Local12 (Westchester, NY), May 8, 2017 -- click here for a copy my letter:

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.
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 a significant loss of life," he says.

The surprising reason why the Heimlich maneuver is no longer called 'the Heimlich' by Gene Kim and Jessica Orwig, Business Insider, June 6, 2017

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."

He 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.

Media player column by John Burns, The Sunday Times (UK), June 18 2017 (free signup for two articles/month):

(Peter Heimlich), a 63-year-old retired businessman living in Atlanta, thinks his father was a humbug who lied to journalists and saw many of his preposterous claims printed verbatim. “As a result,” Peter Heimlich says, “when he died last December, virtually all of his obituaries included factual errors.” So he set about having them corrected. Within a month he had secured published corrections in seven news outlets, including The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. “Since then, that tally has more than doubled,” he says.

The Sunday Independent published an obituary of Heimlich on December 25. Unbylined, it was “riddled” with errors, according to Peter. He emailed the Sindo a number of times, but received only auto-replies. In mid-January this year, he contacted the Office of the Press Ombudsman, and got a same-day response supplying the contact details of INM’s group managing editor. He explained to Heimlich that the Sindo obituary had come from The Daily Telegraph, with which it has a syndication agreement.

...Heimlich then turned his sights on to the Telegraph, and within days it had posted online a revised version of the obituary, correcting seven errors. Heimlich emailed this to the INM editor, and by February 8 the original Sindo obit had been replaced with the revised and corrected one.

But the saga was not over; now the headline was wrong...Further emails to the Indo went unanswered, however, so once more he turned to the Office of the Press Ombudsman. Again, bingo! The headline on the Indo’s website was promptly fixed.

...(A) decade ago, Peter Heimlich would have got no satisfaction. Back then, Irish newspapers were bad at admitting and correcting errors...What changed? The industry’s own decision to appoint and fund a press ombudsman...Newspapers do not like having to deal with formal complaints lodged by the public with the ombudsman, and loathe having to publish negative decisions....

“The public deserves an effective independent press oversight organisation like the Office of the Press Ombudsman,” Peter Heimlich concludes. “It’s unfortunate we don’t have one here in the US, but perhaps some days we’ll catch up with Ireland.”

Duncan Garner saves son from choking on bacon by Newshub staff, June 12, 2017, Newshub New Zealand:  

Duncan Garner has recounted the "dreadful experience" of his young son choking on food and not knowing how to save him.

The AM Show host said both he and six-year-old son Buster knew how bad things could have got after the boy ate a piece of bacon without first cutting it.

...Newshub was sent an email by the son of Henry Heimlich, who invented the technique, saying his dad's manoeuvre wasn't the right way to help someone who is choking.

"First of all would you please convey to Mr Garner that I'm delighted that he and his lad got the better of that bacon?

"Second, Mr Garner may wish to learn that my father's namesake anti-choking treatment ("the Heimlich" aka abdominal thrusts) is not recommended by the New Zealand Resuscitation Council or by St John Ambulance New Zealand," he wrote. 

Instead, chest thrusts are now the recommended method and more effective than abdominal thrusts.

Methods to save choking victims by Fred Cicetti, September 1, 2017, International Falls (MN) Journal:

A few months ago, I wrote a column on the Heimlich maneuver, a well-known method to save choking victims. After the column appeared, I received an email from Peter Heimlich, the son of the late Henry Heimlich, who invented the procedure.

Peter Heimlich said that two of the methods recommended by the Heimlich Institute — the source for my column — are “problematic.” These are the methods for treating unconscious victims and infants. He recommended that I contact the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross and ask them for their guidelines. I felt obliged to follow-up on my column.

Yale researcher’s ratings service discontinued by Amy Xiong, Yale Daily News, November 3, 2017:

NuVal LLC, a nutrition ratings service criticized for its potential conflicts of interest — and established by Director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center David Katz SPH ’93 — has been discontinued nationally.

The NuVal Nutritional Scoring System is currently being removed from grocery shelves, according to a USA Today article published on Oct. 25. Created in 2008, the NuVal system works by assigning a score from 1–100 based on the nutritional characteristics of any given food. Katz is now founding a new company called DQPN — which stands for Diet Quality Photo Navigation — to evaluate dietary nutrition.

“NuVal was criticized for giving high ratings to sugary foods. That may have just been a coincidence, or it may have had to do with who funds Katz,” said science journalist and longtime Katz critic Nina Teicholz ’87, who has written about the food industry’s influence on nutrition science. “It’s a murky area.”

Mail Online and Evening Standard pull 'completely untrue' stories about Ed Byrne saving audience member's life with Heimlich manoeuvre by John Reynolds, Press Gazette (UK), January 4, 2017:

The Mail Online and London Evening Standard have pulled stories claiming that comedian Ed Byrne performed a life-saving manoeuvre on an audience member, after the stories were refuted by the comedian and the theatre where it was purported to take place.

It was reported in Mail Online and on the London Evening Standard website that after seeing a member of the audience in anguish while choking on food, the comedian jumped from the stage and performed the Heimlich manoeuvre during his set.

A spokesman for the Alhambra theatre in Bradford, said it had “no record” that anything like this occurred at Byrne’s show on 9 December,2017.

Byrne also said the story was untrue. He tweeted: “This is a great story, only partially ruined by the fact that’s it’s completely untrue.”

...Blogger Peter Heimlich exposed the two titles pulling the story.

On his blog – The Sidebar – he explains that his father is the doctor credited with inventing the famous life-saving technique.

Life-saving Byrne is a choke at media’s expense by John Burns, Sunday Times of Ireland, January 7, 2018:

Heard the one about the Irish comedian who saved the life of an audience member by performing the Heimlich manoeuvre?

The Daily Mail and Evening Standard reported last week that Ed Byrne saw a woman choking during a performance in December, jumped from the stage mid-joke, and saved her.

Byrne says it is a great story but only wishes it were true.

They quoted Morgan Wilson, 29, as saying: “I was laughing too much while I was eating M&Ms during his hysterical act, and looking back it wasn’t the best idea for a comedy gig as I started choking. If it weren’t for Ed, I believe I would have choked to death. I’m still in disbelief that he saved me.”

Not as much disbelief as Byrne was in when he heard about the claim. “This is a great story, only partially ruined by the fact that it’s completely untrue,” the Dubliner tweeted. The “fake news” pieces promptly disappeared from the Mail and Standard websites.

A news editor on the Irish Sun revealed this was a deliberate attempt to hoax newspapers. Told by the Sun that Byrne was denying the story, the woman replied: “He’s probably being modest.”

Comedian didn’t save choking fan, 2 UK sites delete stories by Sydney Smith, IMediaEthics, January 10, 2018:

Blogger Peter Heimlich, whose father is the same Dr. Henry J. Heimlich associated with the aforementioned maneuver, has caches and screenshots of the errors on his website.  In an e-mail to iMediaEthics, Heimlich, who noted he has raised questions about previous reports on people allegedly being saved by the Heimlich maneuver, explained he spotted the Mail Online article and then tweeted Byrne to ask for more information. The next day, he noticed the article had been removed and kept digging.

Byrne tweeted about the Evening Standard‘s story, “This is a great story, only partially ruined by the fact that it’s completely untrue.”  A spokesperson for the theatre, Liz Hall, told iMediaEthics, “We have no record that anything like this occurred” and pointed to Byrne’s tweet.

iMediaEthics has contacted both the Standard and Mail to ask how they learned about the story, how they attempted to fact check and if they are or have published corrections.

Not choking fan (Interview with Peter by Carol Off), As It Happens, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, January 10, 2018:

CO: What was it about the articles that rang alarm bells in your head?

PH: Well, I didn't initially have an alarm bell. What concerned me about the reporting, and I didn't know if the stories were bogus or whether it was just reported not at the highest level of journalism. The first story, which was published on January 2nd; that was a Tuesday, appears to have originated solely from one source. A woman who was identified as Morgan Wilson, and the photo identified her as Morgan Wilson. As I don't need to tell you, Carol, a basic rule of journalism is to confirm facts with two or more sources. But the Mail article didn't quote anyone else. Nothing from Ed Byrne, the comic and alleged rescuer, or from representatives of the theatre where the incident reportedly occurred, or from any medical personnel who were reportedly on the scene, and there were no eyewitnesses who were quoted in the story.

Heimlich’s son questions Dechoker products in A-L schools by Kate Day Sager, Olean (NY) Times Herald, November 1, 2018:

The son of the founder of the Heimlich maneuver has questioned the effectiveness and safety of the Dechoker device currently available at a local school district and other public locations in the area.

But Peter Heimlich, son of Dr. Henry Heimlich, who in 1974 was credited with developing the abdominal thrust meant to clear a person’s airway from an object causing choking, questions the Dechoker’s effectiveness and safety, stating it hasn’t been tested.

..“Why the school district and the sheriff's office thought this was a good idea is a mystery,” Heimlich said in an email to the Times Herald. “There are no research studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals testing the device's effectiveness and safety — let alone on children — and it isn't recommended by any first aid organizations.”

Heimlich said that one doesn’t “have to be an expert to realize that using an unproven, unapproved medical device in what may be a life or death emergency raises serious questions. For example, were parents of students given the opportunity to provide informed consent for the use of the device on their kids? Was a risk manager consulted to evaluate potential liability concerns?”

As for the abdominal thrusts, Heimlich said that procedure has been the topic of a “spirited debate” in the medical community about how best to respond to a choking emergency.

“For example, some experts have suggested that chest thrusts are safer and more effective than the Heimlich maneuver,” he said. “In fact, first aid authorities in Australia and New Zealand recommend chest thrusts, not ‘the Heimlich.’ Are they ahead of the curve? I don't know, but that's one of the beauties of science — it keeps evolving.”

Blogger asks press regulator to consider sanctions against online publishers that pull articles without explanation by staff reporter Charlotte Tobitt, Press Gazette (UK), February 11, 2019:

A US blogger is pushing for a change to the Editors’ Code of Practice – the standards to which most UK newspapers are held – which would see publications sanctioned for pulling articles without explanation.

Peter Heimlich has asked the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee to consider “plugging” a hole in the code which allows publishers to delete online news articles “with impunity.”

...Heimlich told Press Gazette: “’Here today, gone tomorrow’ reporting is not only junk journalism, it’s a thumb in the eye to readers: ‘If we get something wrong, we’ll just bury it and you don’t deserve an explanation.’"

...In a letter to Code Committee secretary Jonathan Grun, Heimlich wrote: “For instance, if an article includes false information, rather than exercising editorial responsibility to correct errors, a publication may simply eliminate the entire story.

“That may shield reporters and editors from embarrassment (or worse), but in my opinion the Orwellian ‘disappearing’ of published news reports is a disservice to readers and to the record.

“It’s also a slippery ethical slope. For example, if an advertiser doesn’t like critical information in a story, could a word in the ear of a person with authority at the newspaper lead to the offending article being sent down the memory hole?”

An AIDS therapy involving parasite injections was discredited. China is reviving it — for cancer by Jane Qiu, Stat news, March 18, 2019

American surgeon Henry Heimlich is best known for inventing a way to rescue choking victims, but a quarter-century ago, he was vilified for promoting a fringe treatment for AIDS and Lyme disease. Called malarial therapy, it involved injecting patients with the malaria-causing parasite, supposedly to stimulate their immune systems.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report saying the procedure “cannot be justified,” and another critic compared its use to the discredited practice of bleeding patients with leeches. Despite the criticism, Heimlich launched trials of the therapy in HIV patients in Mexico and China in the 1990s. Now, the scientist who led the Chinese study is using malarial therapy again — this time to treat cancer patients. And the still-unproven intervention is being hailed in China as a miracle cure.

Spotlight: Experts warn malaria for cancer treatment "scientifically unsound," risky for patients by Tan Jingjing, Xinhua News, March 18, 2018

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, Peter Heimlich, son of Henry J. Heimlich, said his father claimed he could cure cancer by infecting patients with malaria in the early 1980s.

In the late 1980s, the Heimlich Institute conducted clandestine experiments in Mexico which were eventually shut down by the Mexican government.

The Heimlich Institute also oversaw experiments on U.S. Lyme Disease patients in Mexico City and Panama City, before the project was shut down in 1992 after an investigation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) because returning patients infected with malaria were bringing the disease into the United States, according to Peter Heimlich.

Henry Heimlich's "malariotherapy" raised great controversy. Many U.S. medical experts said the theory does not make any scientific sense.

In a phone interview with Xinhua, Robert S. Baratz, assistant clinical professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, said that what the Chinese research team has been working on is no different from Henry Heimlich's "malariotherapy" experiments.

"It (the therapy) has no logic nor scientific basis," said Baratz, who was former executive director of the U.S. National Council Against Health Fraud, adding Henry Heimlich had no background or training in immunology.

"Dr. Heimlich was no expert in malaria, HIV, Lyme, nor infectious diseases," he said.

"In my own opinion, the 'malariatherapy' endorsed by Dr. Heimlich has no scientific basis and should not be used on human subjects," said George J. Annas, a professor and director of the Center for Health Law, Ethics and Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health, School of Medicine, and School of Law.

Dr. Heimlich’s son questions effectiveness of famed maneuver by Jeff Bernthal, FOX2 Now (St. Louis), April 29, 2019:

Dr. Heimlich’s own son believes there could be more effective means of helping choking victims. Peter Heimlich said his father was a very effective promoter and believes that played a big role in convincing the public his method was the best way to help choking victims.

“He was such a gifted marketer he could teach P.T. Barnum a few tricks,” said Peter Heimlich.

Dr. Anthony Pearson, a cardiologist at St. Luke’s Hospital, believes the abdominal thrust method of helping choking victims should be called the Heimlich experiment instead of the Heimlich maneuver.

“It seems to help some people but we don’t know how many are helped or how many would have been improved if they had just gotten back slaps,” he said. “That’s why I call it an experiment."

Pearson said Heimlich tried to discredit those who attempted to promote other methods such as back slaps or chest thrusts.

“He really bullied people to not think of anything other than his abdominal thrusts procedure which became known as the Heimlich maneuver," he said.

Peter Heimlich and his wife have even created a website that includes links to media reports questioning his father’s work.

“The debate which began when my dad first introduced the treatment in 1974 and has continued until now is whether it’s the most effective and safest treatment,” said Peter Heimlich.

The Australia and New Zealand Committee on Resuscitation removed abdominal thrusts from its guidelines in 2010 after the agency discovered there were 32 case reports of abdominal thrusts causing life-threatening harm. The agency determined higher airway pressures could be generated by using chest thrusts rather than abdominal thrusts.

“There has to be a better way to go about doing something that’s looking at trying to prevent 4,000 deaths a year,” Pearson said.

He said there’s no doubt the Heimlich has saved lives. The question remains what’s the balance between the life’s saved and the potential for serious, even deadly harm, according to Pearson.

Dr. Heimlich’s son questions whether famous anti-choking maneuver is the best or safest treatment by Danielle Wallace, FOX News, updated May 14, 2019: 

The American Red Cross began adopting Heimlich’s abdominal thrust maneuver in 1976. in 2005, the ARC "downgraded" abdominal thrusts (aka the Heimlich maneuver) to a secondary treatment response for choking emergencies. Since then, the ARC's recommended first treatment response has been a series of back blows. Here's an ARC poster describing the protocol which they call "the five and five." The AHA recommends to first try using abdominal thrusts on conscious responsive adults and children aged 1 or older to dislodge a foreign-body airway obstruction (FBAO). “If abdominal thrusts are not effective, the rescuer may consider chest thrusts,” the website states.

...The Australia and New Zealand Committee on Resuscitation removed abdominal thrusts from its guidelines in 2010, citing 32 case reports of abdominal thrusts causing life-threatening harm, FOX 2 reported. The agency concluded higher airway pressures could be generated by using chest thrusts rather than abdominal thrusts.

Top editors reject call to penalise IPSO-regulated publishers for deleting stories without explanation by Charlotte Tobitt, Press Gazette, May 30, 2019:

Top editors have rejected a request to change the Editors’ Code of Practice – the standards to which most UK news titles are held – so that publications could be sanctioned for pulling articles without explanation.

US blogger Peter Heimlich asked the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee in January to consider “plugging” a hole in the code which allows publishers to delete online news articles “with impunity”.

Heimlich made the suggestion to the Independent Press Standards Organisation after complaining that three articles published by its members over the 12 months from January 2018, which he said had contained problems or inaccuracies, were deleted with no explanation.

...Heimlich told Press Gazette: “Obviously the committee’s decision puts the authority of editors above the public’s right to know. Plus it provides a perverse incentive to ‘disappear’ entire articles rather than to publish corrections (which have to be acknowledged).

“But the decision also leaves open the door to countless opportunities for misconduct.

“You’re an embarrassed editor because a reporter got a story wrong? Just hit the ‘delete’ key. You’re a big advertiser in a newspaper that runs a story you don’t like? Tell your sales rep that you’re pulling your account and watch the article disappear. You’re a powerful politician and a local paper runs a critical story about you? A quick call to an editor could send it ‘down the memory hole’ and none the wiser.”

State Rep. Jim Marshall’s infant choking bill to be amended to avoid teaching Heimlich procedure for use on babies by J.D. Prose, Beaver County (PA) Times, June 17, 2019

State Rep. Jim Marshall’s recent bill on infant CPR and choking prevention will need to be amended in the Senate after he learned that the well-known Heimlich maneuver is not recommended for babies.

...(Peter Heimlich), the son of the late Dr. Henry Heimlich, who popularized the anti-choking method that involves standing behind a choking victim and giving them abdominal thrusts with interlocked arms, saw a story about the bill online and spotted a problem.

In subsequent emails, Heimlich, who lives in Georgia, said his father’s namesake technique is not recommended for infants. Heimlich said medical groups, such as the American Red Cross, advise against using the procedure on infants.

“What concerns me is that codifying that language in a government statute may inadvertently result in harm to infants,” Heimlich wrote in an email.

Heimlich has also written a letter to state Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera and University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann about concerns he has over the Heimlich Heroes program and its Heimlich choking procedures on babies being taught to Philadelphia students through a Penn Medicine grant.

In Arizona, a County Attorney Candidate’s Past Seems To Contradict Her Pro-Reform Stance: Julie Gunnigle, who is running in Maricopa County, says she supports alternatives to incarceration. But a decade ago in Illinois, she prosecuted a woman for recording phone calls and helped put her in jail for 18 months by Meg O'Connor, The Appeal, August 3, 2020:

MORE TO COME...