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Saturday, August 05, 2006
Letters with Dr. Vic Wulsin
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
Malariotherapy is the issue that will come back to haunt the Wulsin for Congress campaign unless they come clean. This column is meant to archive, in public, the history (and patience) I have exhibited in giving Dr. Wulsin every chance to do the right thing. After all, Wulsin is a much better candidate (well, at least her talking points are) than Jean Schmidt.
Dr. Wulsin was involved in Dr. Henry Heimlich’s malariotherapy experiments on Africans. She has continuously claimed that she never supported that project—but the report which would totally substantiate her claims is one she seems strangely reluctant to release.
My history goes all the way back to March 26, 2006, when I sent her the following email:
Dear Dr. Wulsin:
I publish the Cincinnati Beacon, an online magazine. A reader just posted a recent letter from you: http://tiny.bz/05w/
Would you please send me a copy of the report you wrote for the Heimlich Institute? A digital file is preferred, otherwise my mailing address is below.
Thanks and I look forward to receiving the material.
Sincerely,
[The Dean of Cincinnati]
After not getting a response, I re-sent the above, with another message, near the beginning of April:
Dr. Wulsin:
I’m sure you’re busy with your campaign, but I haven’t received your reply to my e-mail of March 26 (below).
I’m working on an item which involves your “malariotherapy” report for the Heimlich Institite. If I don’t hear from you promptly, you leave me no other choice than to report that you failed to respond to repeated requests.
Thanks for your attention to my request and I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
[The Dean of Cincinnati]
On April 5th, Dr. Wulsin provided a response:
Dear [Dean],
First I’ve read of you; perhaps earlier e-mails were spammed out by my anti-spammer.
I’ll forward my response (someone else asked recently).
Thanks for spreading the word!
Victoria
Then, a short time later, I received the following email. The subject line said, “As Requested”—so I expected the message to contain her report. Instead, it contained a new summary of the report written just for the sake of the email:
Dear [Dean],
Thank you for your interest in my background, and I appreciate your writing to find out. In 2004 I researched malariotherapy, which is giving [usually by injection] someone Plasmodium falciparum or Plasmodium vivax, the most common pathogens causing malaria, for the sake of immunologic responses that benefit the patient. The long-term goal was to see if a component of the pathogen could be used in some form or formulation as a vaccine or treatment for HIV/AIDS. I began by a review of the literature regarding the epidemiology of malaria and HIV co-infection.
Although millions of people suffer from both diseases every year, the scientific evidence for a salutary effect between the two diseases was close to nonexistent. Furthermore, malaria is a serious, painful, infectious, and life-threatening illness. For many reasons (outlined in my summary document to the Heimlich Institute, who had hired me), actually giving anyone malaria willfully is unethical. I recommended that the Heimlich Institute discontinue its investigation of malariotherapy. The epidemiologic evidence did not indicate a likely factor that would warrant further immunologic (e.g., in vitro analyses) study. My consultancy for the Institute was terminated the following day by Dr. Heimlich.
Since that time, I have returned to my passion in public health: preventing disease. SOTENI International, the non-profit corporation a group of us founded in 2003, is dedicated to preventing and mitigating the effects of HIV/AIDS among the world’s most vulnerable populations. We have begun by establishing four community-led programs in Kenya to enable and empower the ~ 8,000 orphans and vulnerable children [almost all of whom are HIV-negative] to remain AIDS-free.
I am running for Congress in large part because our government does not adequately protect our public health. I hope you will support me in bringing about the change needed to put into action what epidemiologists have been advocating for decades.
Sincerely,
Victoria Wulsin
According to her email, Wulsin did the right thing: she claims to have called the experiments unethical, and she says she recommended the Heimlich Institute discontinue their research.
If this is true, why not just provide the report?
In any event, for awhile I put the issue on my back-burner. Then, a few weeks ago, I decided to call the Wulsin campaign office to ask personally if I could receive the report. I was told that Dr. Wulsin would be happy to share the report, and that she just had to find it amidst some papers at home. I was told to expect a call by the end of the week.
That did not happen.
Then, just a couple weeks ago, I got a mass email from the Wulsin campaign. One item in the newsletter caught my attention, so I sent the following:
Dear Wulsin Campaign:
I just got this excerpt in an email from your campaign:
=====
*WANT TO HELP*...with Vic’s communications strategy? We need your help in getting Vic’s message out to the press and the voters. Contact Ady to talk about the numerous opportunities to join our communications team: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
and 513-233-4180.
=====
I have a suggestion for improving your communication strategy. When members of the press (even if the independent press, like myself) contact repeatedly to obtain a piece of information—respond promptly and cooperatively. It helps to clear the air of suspicion and to cooperate with any potential allies.
So can I have a copy of Dr. Wulsin’s report to the Heimlich Institute, where she allegedly encourages them to stop investigating malariotherapy?
Thanks,
[The Dean of Cincinnati]
On July 26th, I got the following response:
Jason,
My apologies. I will talk to Vic again tonight about getting me the report asap. I appreciate your patience.
Ady
After hearing nothing for a few more weeks, I sent the following message on August 4th:
Ady,
It has been several weeks since I was first told I would receive a copy of Wulsin’s report to the Heimlich Institute on Malariotherapy. I have been told repeatedly that the report is forthcoming, and then I promptly hear nothing until I inquire again.
If I don’t receive Dr. Wulsin’s report for the Heimlich Institute by August 7, 2006, I’m going to print stating that Dr. Wulsin refused to provide it.
[The Dean]
Again, for all you Wulsin-lovers out there: what does this woman have to hide? If the report says what she claims, then it shows that she took the proper actions to distance herself from an unethical situation.
Since this issue keeps bubbling to the surface (as it has here, or here, or here, or here), then why won’t Wulsin cool things down before they boil over?
The fix is easy.
Provide a copy of the report.
C’mon, Vic. It doesn’t say something different from what you claim, does it?
I’ll remain hopeful that the report finds its way to my inbox by Monday.
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05 Aug 2006 at 11:22 pm | #
maybe she cares more about her own campaign than contributing to a ( deserved) slam on the heimlich’s. maybe, she simply doesn’t have the time to pull the report(i hear running a campaign is a 24/7 job in itself and this “job” demands undivided attention . Or maybe, as a consultant to the institute, she is considering the legal ramifications of releasing “work product” completed while on the instiutute’s payroll.
who knows ...
she should just say she doesn’t have the time right now, she has bigger fish to fry trying to get that idiot schmidt out of office and saving her district 4 years of hell.
06 Aug 2006 at 07:11 am | #
I don’t view this as a slam on Heimlich. This is about her ethical conduct. As such, it is a campaign point.
Listen, this issue is not going away. The blogs have been burbling with it for months. It is likely to hit mainstream the closer we get the election.
Is that what she wants? A scandal near the election?
Better to make this go away, by providing the report.
If there were some legal reason as to why it cannot be shared—well, then I imagine she would have been saying that all along.
She has not.
06 Aug 2006 at 09:38 am | #
Since 1998, Deaconess Association has wholly owned the Heimlich Institute. Read item 5 from the articles of incorporation:
The sole Member of The Corporation shall be The Deaconess Associations, Inc., an Ohio Nonprofit corporation.
Therefore, Deaconess is also responsible for any unethical or illegal activities involving the Heimlich Institute, such as conducting illegal human subjects experiments. Perhaps Wulsin’s report will shed more light on Deaconess’s role.
Interested parties may also wish to contact attorney Joe Dehner at Frost Brown Todd who has been the longtime treasurer of the Heimlich Institute. Mr. Dehner would be aware of the funding of the Heimlich Institute’s human subjects experiments in Africa, China, and elsewhere.
06 Aug 2006 at 10:22 am | #
Who’s going to haunt her, Jason? You? Last I checked, local blog readership wasn’t big enough to have any kind of impact on elections, and you don’t have any clout necessary to get your story into the real news.
06 Aug 2006 at 11:38 am | #
Dean,
I wanted to do an interview with Vic Wulson. If anyone knows
I have been an stong supporter of kicking Jean out of office.
This is the email I sent her…
Mrs. Wulsin,
My name is Peter Deane. I am with the Cincinnati Beacon, which is a blog publication that deals with politics in the Cincinnati area. I am hoping to do an interview with you for the Beacon. Can we set up a time and place?
Sincerely,
Peter Deane
P.S. I have heard nothing yet! I’ve tried twice and
today I’ll try again.
06 Aug 2006 at 12:51 pm | #
Peter Deane, you said you were with The Beacon?
Should have just said “freelance independent journalist.”
06 Aug 2006 at 05:06 pm | #
Conservative blog Project Logic spreads the love:
http://projectlogic.blogspot.com/2006/08/wulsin-tries-to-hide-from.html
06 Aug 2006 at 05:37 pm | #
Comment posted at ProjectLogic blog:
Is holding a physician accountable for professional misconduct limited to one’s political perspective? The Heimlich experiments on vulnerable African AIDS victims raise important ethical questions for all thoughtful people, regardless of their political affiliation. Abusive research by exploitative corporations and individuals like Dr. Henry Heimlich using unprotected patients in underdeveloped countries is about universal human rights, not which lever you pull in the voting booth.
I’m concerned that Congresswoman Schmidt has failed to criticize Dr. Wulsin’s participation in the illicit Heimlich human subjects experiments because doing so would lead to an examination of the role played by Phil Heimlich, who besides being a well-known Republican running for re-election, is the longtime vice president of the Heimlich Institute.
Dr. Wulsin deserves to be criticized for her role in Heimlich’s exploitative experiments. Congresswoman Schmidt is in a position to make a principled stand by raising this as a campaign issue rather than leaving it to her supporters do the job, simply because they want to defeat Wulsin in the election.
I urge Congresswoman Schmidt’s supporters to ask her to take a public position on the Heimlich Africa experiments in which Dr. Wulsin participated.
Just as he raised the issue with Dr. Wulsin, I urge the Dean of Cincinnati to also raise the issue with Congresswoman Schmidt.
06 Aug 2006 at 08:10 pm | #
Deano-
Ask her what IRB- Internal Review Board took a look at this human experiement! That will just cause her to stir in her panties. We all know that there was NONE. All experienements that are conducted on humans have to have run past an IRB- Hey anyone got a Master’s degree that had to do reserch and a questionaire have to have IRB approval? Huh? I know I did! And it was nothing to do with health care! Just working conditions of employees. So——ask her about an IRB!
And I agree- anyone- Francis the talking Mule is better than Jean Schmidt…
06 Aug 2006 at 10:30 pm | #
Ask her what IRB - Internal Review Board - took a look at this human experiment!
Also ask Dr. Wulsin: 1) If she saw any consent forms from patients who took part in the experiment, and 2) What her opinion is regarding experiments in which treatment for a disease is purposely withheld as was done in the notorious Tuskegee syphylis experiments. For example, what does she have to say about a situation, for example, if a patient is HIV+ or AIDS+ and conventional treatment for those conditions is withheld in order to observe the effects of induced malaria?
Of course, no respectable physician with years of PhD level clinical research experience (which is what Dr. Wulsin told Cincinnati Magazine about herself) would ever participate in such violative research, right?
07 Aug 2006 at 01:07 am | #
BTW, that should be Institutional Review Board. It’s been a long day….
07 Aug 2006 at 06:36 am | #
Right Angle Blog joins the fun:
http://www.rightangleblog.com/?q=node/524
07 Aug 2006 at 09:25 am | #
Congrats, Jason. You’re with your natural allies, white republicans.
07 Aug 2006 at 11:40 am | #
Talked to Ady Barken of the Wulsin campaign. We discussed the issue
and it looks like the interview might be on. He said that he’ll call
me back as soon as all is discussed with others.
He seemed like a pretty good guy.
07 Aug 2006 at 08:18 pm | #
Anon, you should hold people in your own party accountable or they will continue to become just as bad as the Republicans. As bad as mean jean is, if this is true Wulsin is dispicable.