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October 28, 2013

Dean CappelloChief Content Officer and Senior Vice President of Programming

 WNYC Radio160 Varick St.New York, NY 10013

Mr. Cappello:

 According to National Public Radio's website, your station produces Radiolab, a program “heard on more than

450 public radio stations across the country,” according to Radiolab's website. 

Based on my experience, Radiolab's brand of journalism includes: failing to correct provably false information;reporting information known to be false; reporting fabricated information; cutting unethical deals to obtaininterviews; obtaining interviews and information under false pretenses; and censorship.

 Astoundingly, all that malfeasance occurred in the reporting of a single story, The Man Behind the Maneuver, a25-minute documentary about my father, Henry J. Heimlich MD, known for “the Heimlich maneuver.”

Based on the following information, this is to request that you initiate an investigation to determine if thereporting of The Man Behind the Maneuver is in compliance with WNYC's standards and practices, the PublicMedia Code of Integrity , and the NPR Ethics Handbook .

I. INTRODUCTION

In 2002 my wife and I began researching my father's career. Since Spring 2003, our work has resulted innumerous media reports that exposed him as a charlatan who for decades promoted unfounded medicaltreatments that put the public at risk and resulted in considerable harm, including the loss of life.1 Further,articles in the British Medical Journal, the Boston Herald, Radar magazine, and other publications havequestioned whether my father deserves credit for inventing “the Heimlich maneuver.”

On August 29, 2012, I received an e-mail from a Radiolab producer named Pat Walters informing me that he'd“read the extensive materials on my website” and that he wanted to interview me for a story he was reportingabout my father's career. I'd never heard of Radiolab, but after listening to a handful of stories on the show's

 website, I politely declined. (I thought the program was long on style, short on substance.)

I then received a pair of lengthy e-mails from Mr. Walters. Here's a sampling:

I can assure you that I take this work very seriously, that I respect what a privilege it is to be trusted withthese stories. In all these cases, we’re after the truth. And so, yes, we do talk about science and history,we teach, we explain. But what sets us apart, what gets us a little closer to the truth, I think, is the effortwe pour into trying to help our listeners understand something about the people behind that information.

So, yes, I want to talk about the Heimlich maneuver, the history of where it came from, its rise to fame. Iwant to talk about the science behind it, whether it works better or worse than, say, slapping someoneon the back or compressing their chest — I’ve been in contact with several doctors about that questiontoday.

 And, of course, I want to talk about the controversy surrounding your father’s later work — theesophagus operation,2 using the maneuver for drowning, malariatherapy. Your website is tremendouslyinformative on these issues, and there are experts I can talk to....But the fact is, we know about all those

things because you brought them to light...(It’s) impossible to talk about your father without talking aboutyou. The world learning about your father’s later work is your part of the story. Which is why I need totalk to you.

1 Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute funded and supervised notorious experiments, in which US and foreign nationals sufferingfrom cancer, Lyme Disease, and AIDS were infected with malaria. The work been condemned as a medical "atrocity” andhas resulted in investigations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Justice, the Foodand Drug Administration, and the University of California in Los Angeles. For recent information, St. Louis University Under Fire for Work with Doctor Who Infected AIDS Patients with Malaria by Sam Levin, Riverfront Times, September 9,2013. Also see Some of the victims - casualties of the Heimlich maneuver for drowning rescue on my website.

2 Most of my father's work in esophageal surgery long predates the introduction of the Heimlich maneuver in 1974.

However, he continued to work as a surgeon until May 1977, when he was fired for misconduct at his last hospital job,

Director of Surgery at Cincinnati's Jewish Hospital.

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 As I’m sure you could tell from listening to the program, it is a documentary show, in which the guestsspeak as much — typically quite a lot more — than the producer/host. The stories we make belong asmuch to them as to us. I don’t want to talk about you. I want you to speak for yourself. There are manyreasons for this, but foremost, for me, is that you be represented accurately. And deeply. As thethoughtful, multi-faceted person you are. And without doing an interview, it’s impossible for me get to thekind of understanding, the kind of knowing, that requires.

...My overall focus isn’t why you “chose to drive the story into the media,” though as I’ve said, that is a

piece of the plot, and I’d like to hear in your words. Nor is my focus why the “medical profession and themedia failed” to get the word out about your father’s activities post-maneuver. My focus is a short (butnot uncomplicated) question: Who is Henry Heimlich? Answering that obviously requires dealing withothers: Where did the Heimlich maneuver come from? Is it actually the best way to save a chokingvictim? What are we to make of Heimlich’s advocating that the maneuver be used for drowning (whichmedical experts seem roundly to agree is wrong and dangerous)? Of his work using malariatherapy totreat AIDS and cancer?

...I’m casting a wide net right now. Reading tons — just printed out about 30 medical journal articles onthe science (most of it is “science”) behind choking treatments, and the debate about what the right thingto do is. Talking to lots of experts. Et cetera. All this is just to say, as I’ve explained, to tell this storyproperly, I need to do a taped, on-the-record interview with you.

Based on those assurances, on December 19, 2012 I did a two-hour phone interview with Mr. Walters. Further, based on his encouragements in phone calls and e-mails, I provided him with considerable information anddocuments in the months before and after the interview.

On March 6, 2013, I received a brief e-mail from Mr. Walters informing me that his story (which he'd worked onfor over a year) was posted on Radiolab's website and thanking me for my contribution.

Upon listening to The Man Behind the Maneuver,3 I was surprised to learn that the foundation of Mr. Walters'sstory was a choking incident from his childhood in which a school nurse performed the Heimlich maneuver onhim. During our six months of phone calls and e-mails, he never mentioned that to me. If he had, I might haveasked him and his editor this obvious question: Can someone who believes his life was saved by the Heimlichmaneuver report objectively about the treatment and its purported inventor?4

In any event, I had no concerns regarding the parts he included from my interview. I did, however, catch these

three factual errors in the story and promptly submitted a request for published corrections: 1) Incorrectly-reported information about a woman's cause of death in a 1972 choking incident.

2) Incorrectly-reported information about a train wreck that took place in South Kent, CT and was reported onthe front page of the August 29, 1941 New York Times .5

3) That prior to the introduction of the Heimlich maneuver in 1974, my father tied string to pieces of meat which were inserted into the throats of dogs.

In response to my request, Mr. Walters informed me that Jad Abumrad, Radiolab's managing editor, agreed tocorrect the first two errors, but rejected the third.

That refusal to correct a minor error began an unexpected series of events which, in my opinion, raise reasonableand serious doubts about Radiolab's editorial competence and integrity.

3 It's a matter of opinion if Mr. Walters's report measures up to the extravagant assurances he made to me, but I'd suggestyou compare his work to Aviva Ziegler's The Heimlich manoeuvre, a 30-minute audio documentary that aired four yearsearlier by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

4 In his May 1, 2013 Cincinnati CityBeat media criticism column which addressed some of the reportorial problems withThe Man Behind the Maneuver , veteran reporter and journalism professor Ben Kaufman concluded, “Given the conflict of interest, letting choking survivor (Pat) Walters do the interview was a mistake.”

5  As I informed Mr. Walters when he was reporting his story, I have evidence that raises reasonable doubts about the

version of events he (and the New York Times) reported about the train wreck. That information has not yet been

published, so I didn't request a correction.

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II. FAILING TO CORRECT PROVABLY FALSE INFORMATION

From  An Illustrated History of Heimlich, here's part of a page-size graphic that accompanied the story – pleasenote the dog with the string coming out of its mouth and the accompanying text:

Click here to listen to the relevant audio clip. Here's a transcription:

Pat Walters: So (Dr. Heimlich) gets a dog.Host: He got a dog?Henry J. Heimlich MD: Yes.PW: Where did you get it?HJH: Oh, we had a laboratory and it had some dogs there.PW: So this wasn't like Fido, the Heimlich family pet?HJH: No, no.PW: (He) laid the dog down on the operating table and then he jams this piece of meat...HJH: Probably beef....PW: ...down the dog's throat.Host: Did he at least sedate the dog before this?PW: Dog is anesthetized. And he ties a piece of string around the beef, in case he needs to pull itout.

Not long after my father conducted the research, two prominent medical journals published key articles by my father that introduced “the Heimlich maneuver.” In both articles, he described the dog experiments in detail.

From  Pop Goes the Café Coronary  by Henry J. Heimlich MD, Emergency Medicine, June 1974:

The procedure is adapted from experimental work with four 38-pound beagles, in which I was assistedby surgical research technician Michael H. McNeal. After being given an intravenous anesthetic, eachdog was "strangled" with a size 32 cuffed endotracheal tube inserted into the larynx. After the cuff wasdistended to create total obstruction of the trachea, the animal went into immediate respiratory distressas evidenced by spasmodic, paradoxical respiratory movements of the chest and diaphragm. At this

point, with a sudden thrust, I pressed the palm of my hand deeply and firmly into the abdomen of theanimal a short distance below the rib cage, thereby pushing upward on the diaphragm. Theendotracheal tube popped out of the trachea and, after several labored respirations, the animal began tobreathe normally. This procedure was even more effective when the other hand maintained constantpressure on the lower abdomen directing almost all the pressure toward the diaphragm.

We repeated the experiment more than 20 times on each animal with the same excellent results. Whena bolus of raw hamburger was substituted for the endotracheal tube , it, too, was ejected by thesame procedure, always after one or two compressions.

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From  A Life-Saving Maneuver to Prevent Food-Choking  by Henry J. Heimlich, MD, Journal of the AmericanMedical Association (cover story), October 27, 1975:

Four beagles, weighing 17 kg (38 lb) each, were anesthetized with thiamylal (Surital) sodium givenintravenously. A cuffed, No. 32 endotracheal tube, the lumen plugged by a rubber stopper, was insertedunder direct vision through the mouth into the larynx. The cuff was distended with 3 to 4 ml of air,causing total obstruction of the trachea, simulating a bolus of food caught in the human larynx. Theanimal immediately went into respiratory distress, as evidenced by spasmodic paradoxical respiratory

movements of the chest and diaphragm.

 At first, the rib cage was manually compressed in an attempt to increase the intrapulmonary pressureand expel the bolus. This procedure was unsuccessful. It was later realized that the compressibility of the lungs by this technique was inadequate due to the rigidity of the chest wall. Furthermore, anyincrease in intrapleural pressure would be dissipated by depressing the diaphragm.

Subsequently, I pressed the palm of my hand deeply and firmly upward into the abdomen of the animal ashort distance below the rib cage, thereby pushing against the diaphragm. The endotracheal tube(bolus) popped out of the trachea. After several labored respirations, the dog resumed breathing. Theexperiment was repeated more than 20 times on each animal with the same result.

The clinical situation was then simulated by inserting a bolus of raw hamburger into the dog'slarynx until the respiratory passage was totally occluded. The abdominal pressure maneuver wasrepeated and, in each instance, after one or two compressions, the bolus was ejected from the larynxand normal respiratory exchange was established.

 What's missing is any mention of string.

 Also, in both articles, the meat is identified as raw hamburger. How can a piece of string be tied around a piece of raw hamburger? Further, after being inserted into a dog's throat, if pulled out, wouldn't the string just cutthrough the hamburger?6

I provided this information in my corrections request, so why didn't Mr. Abumrad fix the error?

In an attempt to answer that question, I asked Mr. Walters for his source. He wrote back, “My source for thestring is your father.”

But note that in the audio clip and the transcript, my father doesn't make the claim about the string – Mr. Walters does. So I asked him to provide me with an audio clip and/or a transcript of that part of his interview  with my father.

Here's the reply I received from Ellen Horne, Radiolab's Executive Producer:

(In) February of 2012, our producer Pat Walters spent two days in Cincinnati interviewing your father, Dr.Henry Heimlich, about his career. Dr. Heimlich told Pat the detail about the string during that time.Unfortunately, we cannot offer you a transcript of that exact conversation because Pat was not recordingcontinuously during his visit, and that conversation did not happen to get recorded.

In other words, Mr. Walters recorded his questions and my father's answers about the dog experiments and the beef, but somehow managed to miss the part about the string.

Next I e-mailed these questions to Mr. Walters: Did you take notes during the interview? If so, do your notesinclude the information about the string or did you report the information based entirely on your recollection?

Perhaps not surprisingly, I haven't received a reply. Therefore, would you please ask Ms. Horne to provide thatinformation to me, including copies of Mr. Walters's notes, assuming he took any?

6 This also makes apparent that when he interviewed my father, Mr. Walters had not even read these two crucial articles. If 

he had, he would have been aware of the facts about the four beagles and the string. The same applies to his inane

question about “Fido the Heimlich family pet.”

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But just for the sake of argument, let's assume that my father did provide Mr. Walters with the information aboutthe string. Why would Mr. Abumrad consider my father to be a credible source?

First, at the time of the interview, my father was 92 years old, long-retired, in diminished health,7 and residing inan assisted living facility in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Second, having “read the extensive materials on my website,” Mr. Walters was aware that my father has been aserial fabricator since the beginning of his career. Here are some published examples:8

 A. According to a March 16, 2003 Cincinnati Enquirer front-page article, in 1955 my father falsely claimed tohave invented a surgical procedure that was invented years earlier by Dr. Dan Gavriliu of Bucharest, Romania.(Coincidentally, while reporting his story, Mr. Walters informed me he was traveling to Bucharest for a

 journalism conference and asked me to provide him with contact information for Dr. Gavriliu's family, which Idid. Shortly after his return, Mr. Walters told me he made no attempt to contact anyone.)

B. Years before Radiolab's story, the Wilkes-Barre (PA) Times Leader, the Cleveland Scene, and other newsoutlets reported that my father used fraudulent case reports to promote his claims that the Heimlich maneuver isan effective treatment to resuscitate near-drowning victims.

C. From 2001-2006, my father told reporters from the Chicago Sun-Times, the BBC, and The New Yorkermagazine that he had performed the Heimlich maneuver on a choking victim at a Cincinnati restaurant. But a2009 article announcing the publication of his autobiography stated, “The famous doctor has never had theopportunity to administer the maneuver on a choking victim.” (Click here for a compilation of the articles.)

D. From Rebel With A Cause: Saving Lives an autobiographical article by my father published in the 1998Encyclopedia Britannica Health Annual:

One of the greatest moments in my life came in February 1993 when I traveled to Vietnam with adelegation of chest surgeons, a visit sponsored by the Citizen Ambassador Program of People to PeopleInternational. At the Hanoi airport we were greeted by North Vietnamese chest surgeons. When I wasintroduced, their head doctor said, "Dr. Heimlich, you need no introduction. Everyone in Vietnam knowsyour name. My immediate assumption was that I would hear a story about the invention for which I ambest known: the Heimlich maneuver for saving choking victims.

But the surgeon proceeded to describe how Heimlich Chest Drain Valves, supplied by the Society of Friends (Quakers), "saved tens of thousands of our people during the war. The American Friends

Service Committee kept us supplied with Heimlich valves throughout the war." The physician chairmanwho opened our meetings always began by saying, "Dr. Heimlich will live in the hearts of the Vietnamesepeople forever." The first time I heard those words, I cried. Very few things in my life have given me asmuch satisfaction as knowing that the Heimlich Chest Drain Valve saved countless lives on both sides of that horrible war.

Here's another version from Heroes of Ohio by Rick Sowash, a book for children published in 1998 (originalpage):

Today America is friends with Vietnam again partly because of Dr. Heimlich. A few years ago Dr.Heimlich went to Viet Nam [sic] to try to build a friendship between the two countries. Again and again hewas told, “Everyone in Vietnam knows your name. Your valve saved thousands of our people.”

“I was surprised,” he says now. “At the beginning of every meeting, someone would say, almost like aprayer, 'Dr. Heimlich will live in the hearts of the Vietnamese people forever.' When I first heard this, Iburst out crying.”

This absurd claim - that a U.S. organization would be permitted to provide medical equipment to an enemy army during wartime - was debunked in a November 10-11, 2005 Radar magazine article  by Thomas Francis.

7  As Mr. Walters undoubtedly observed during his interviews, my father wears hearing aids in both ears.

8 Mr. Walters was aware of all these facts, none of which he reported. He also chose not to report that the late Edward A.Patrick MD PhD, my father's 30-year colleague, issued a May 28, 2003 press release claiming to be the uncredited co-developer of “the Heimlich maneuver” which, according to his full-page obituary in the March 13, 2010 British Medical

Journal, he called “the Patrick-Heimlich maneuver.”

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Regarding my father's state of mind, consider his quote in a Spring 2000 fundraising newsletter published by Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute, 12 years before the Radiolab interview:

Dr. Henry Heimlich celebrated his birthday February 3rd, and like every other year, Dr. Heimlich can’thelp but recognize an amazing coincidence which corresponds with his date of birth. Best known for hisManeuver to save choking victims, Dr. Heimlich shares a connection to a historical lifesaver with asimilar legacy.

St. Blaise of Sebaste, a bishop under Emperor Licinius c. 316, is known for saving the life of a boy whowas choking to death on a fish bone. By the 6 th century, St. Blaise became known as the Patron Saint of choking and throat disorders. The Blessing of the Throats ceremony began in Catholic Mass in the 16thcentury and is still celebrated today every February 3. Just a coincidence? Maybe, but Dr. Heimlich stillmarvels at the calendar connection between himself and the Patron Saint of choking.

“I’m very moved,” says Dr. Heimlich. “I think it has to be fate more than simply coincidence.”

My point is that even if my father did provide Mr. Walters with the information about the string, why would Mr. Abumrad ignore facts published in leading medical journals shortly after the dog experiments took place andinstead give precedence to the word of a nonagenarian in diminished capacity with a history of making upstories? And since Mr. Walters didn't even record the claim about the string, why would Mr. Abumrad stand

 behind it?

I can think of only one explanation. Correcting the error would mean completely re-doing the  Illustrated Historyof Heimlich page-size graphic that prominently features the dog with the string coming out of its mouth and theaccompanying text.

If that turns out to be the case – and this is to request that you ask Ms. Horne to provide me with a thoroughexplanation why Mr. Abumrad chose not to correct the error – it raises obvious concerns about his editorial

 judgment and commitment to provide Radiolab's audience with accurate information. III. REPORTING INFORMATION KNOWN TO BE FALSE; REPORTING FABRICATED

INFORMATION

During my interview with Mr. Walters, he asked me whether I thought that “the good my father had

accomplished outweighed the bad.” I asked him to clarify – that is, what “good” and “bad” was he referring to?He replied that regardless of the harm for which my father may be responsible, “the Heimlich maneuver hassaved the lives of many thousands of choking victims.”9

I then asked him for the source of that number. He replied that it came from choking death statistics published by the National Safety Council. (I'm familiar with those statistics, so I realized he didn't know what he wastalking about.) I replied that I'd answer his question after he reviewed those figures and got back to me.

 About a week later, I received this in a December 27, 2012 e-mail from Mr. Walters:

I checked my NSC stats, and it looks like I was wrong. I’d had an intern run the numbers for me initially,with the intention of checking them later, which I always do. Here’s what I’ve found: I only have data upto 2009 (from the 2011 report),10 which I believe you said you have, too. I’m waiting on the 2012 report

from the com people at NSC so I can avoid paying 90 bucks for it. But anyway, according to that dataand my back of the envelope calculations using population estimates from the US Census, in 1973 (pre-Heimlich manuever [sic]), choking was listed as the cause for 1.42 deaths per 100,000 people in the US.In 2009? The rate was 1.49 per 100,000.

So, if anything, the rate has gone up a bit. But just a bit. Not even significant, if you ask me. Mytake on this is that, essentially, almost nothing has changed.

Interesting.

9 I don't have a complete copy of the interview, so these quotes are paraphrased to the best of my recollection.

10 Click here for a copy of the NSC's 2011 edition of Injury Facts – choking deaths per capita from 1943-2009 are on pages

55-56.

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Interesting indeed.

But here's  what Mr. Walters reported:

(Thousands) and thousands – maybe even millions – have been rescued by the Heimlich maneuver.

In an e-mail to Mr. Walters shortly after his story aired, I asked how he arrived at the “thousands and thousands– maybe even millions” figure? From his March 8 reply:

The maneuver has been around for 38 years. If 52 people have been saved by it in each year of itsexistence, it has saved “thousands” of lives over the course of its existence.

In other words, he ignored his own conclusion about the NSC data, and chose to make up and report his own.

IV. CUTTING UNETHICAL DEALS TO OBTAIN INTERVIEWS; OBTAINING INTERVIEWS AND

INFORMATION UNDER FALSE PRETENSES; CENSORSHIP

On April 12, about five weeks after the broadcast of The Man Behind the Maneuver, I received an e-mail fromMr. Walters stating that, “A note outlining the corrections has been appended to the web copy,” (referring to the

first two of the three corrections requests I described above).

Mr. Walters neglected to mention that this “Producer's note” had also “been appended to the web copy”:

We made some minor changes to this story that do not alter the substance.

First, we removed the audio of Peter Heimlich, Henry Heimlich’s son, from the version now on the site.When we approached Henry’s other son Phil to arrange an interview with his father, one of Phil’sconditions was that we not air audio of Peter. We thought he’d waived that provision in a subsequentconversation but he contends he did not. So we are honoring the original request.

Imagine my surprise being made aware of this for the first time and realizing that:

 A. Radiolab cuts unethical deals to obtain interviews.

B. I was approached by Mr. Walters months after Radiolab cut the deal with my brother, an arrangement that was never disclosed to me. In other words, Radiolab solicits interviews and obtains information from sourcesunder false pretenses.

C. Radiolab engages in censorship.11 

In response to my follow-up inquiry, Mr. Walters wrote me that:

 At every step, (Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich) and my editor were keep [sic] closely apprised andwere aware of these agreements.

 As I told media critic Ben Kaufman for his Cincinnati CityBeat column:

“Rest assured that if I'd been aware of this behind-the-scenes duplicity by Mr. Walters and his superiors,I wouldn't have given him a minute of my time. And I'd advise other sources to steer clear of Radiolab.”

11 Click here to listen to the per-censored version of The Man Behind the Maneuver that includes my voice.

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 V. CONCLUSION

The reportorial problems with The Man Behind the Maneuver are so egregious that I strongly doubt it's anisolated example of junk journalism at Radiolab.12 Via Mr. Kaufman's CityBeat column:

Over the years, Peter (Heimlich) has dealt with lots of reporters. I asked, "Have you encountered thiskind of deal before?"

Peter responded, “I've never heard of a deal like this...and how many other Radiolab stories haveincluded deals like this?”

In my opinion, these problems are systemic: incompetent editorial oversight at Radiolab and perhaps inadequateoversight by WNYC.

If you agree to initiate an investigation, this is to request that you obtain and review all on-the-record interviewsconducted for The Man Behind the Maneuver and all records associated with the censorship deal; that, exceptfor information protected by privacy laws, those and all other relevant materials be made available to the public;and that WNYC provide me with a thorough, point-by-point response to this letter.

Thank you for your consideration of my request and I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Peter M. Heimlich3630 River Hollow RunDuluth, GA 30096ph: (208)474-7283

 website: http://medfraud.info blog: http://the-sidebar.com

cc:

Richard A. Duschl PhD, Director, Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings, NationalScience FoundationJoyce Lannert, Chair, WNYC Community Advisory BoardStuart Seidel, Managing Editor for Standards and Practices, National Public Radio NewsDoron Weber, Vice President, Programs, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

12 September 30, 2012 published apology by co-host Robert Krulwich for another problematic Radiolab story produced by

Mr. Walters.