Posted by Media Release

Mr. Weiser:

Despite a trip to Cincinnati and a news conference with references supplemented by a many original articles in a handout, your reporters can’t seem to get it right. 

Example:  posted on your political blog……….. “Baratz condemned Wulsin for conducting a literature review of the Heimlich Institute’s controversial experiments using malaria on HIV/AIDS patients in China and Ethiopia.”

I didn’t condemn Wulsin for conducting a literature review.  I condemned her for not reporting illegal, immoral and unethical human experiments. 

What the Enquirer seems to be missing is that Henry Heimlich had stated on multiple occasions that he had stopped doing this work many years ago.  More than a decade ago, after your own paper had played a major part in uncovering the malaria therapy scheme of Heimlich by reporter Robert Anglen’s front page expose, Heimlich indicated that he was no longer doing this work, anywhere.

Thus, when Wulsin saw new data, and obvious connections with Heimlich it should have been immediately apparent that Heimlich was “back at it”, and, as is the case, had never really stopped.  Wulsin absolutely had an obligation to disassociate herself from this work, and to turn in the perpetrators.  She did neither.

These are not meaningless, esoteric, or unimportant activities to discuss.  What was in front of Wulsin is the fact that these insane and unethical studies are being conducted.  They rank up there with the worst of war crimes, since they violate every rule of protection of human subjects that have been put in place over the past fifty years, and basic rules of conducting clinical trials..

Wulsin knew these rules, was trained in these rules, and even had a Doctorate in Public Health where these rules formed a major part of her curriculum.  Based on their flawed design the Africa experiments could not have yielded useful data.  Thus the clinical trials were doubly wrong, from both scientific and ethical perspectives.  This leads to a further point, that since these studies put people at risk for severe illness and death, yet could not have produced information of clinical utility they fail further ethical standards and should have been stopped and abandoned.  Wulsin failed to blow the whistle on the basic ethics (lack of informed consent), flawed design, and finally the entire construct.

The dates of Wulsin’s tenure at the Heimlich Institute, as reported by experienced journalists after interviews with Wulsin are conflicting.  Thus the report, over which she was allegedly fired, was constructed nearly six months after her tenure ended.  That is extraordinary, and seems to have been overlooked by your reporters.  On top of that she added a frontpiece to the report which conflicts with its contents, and was apparently designed to make it appear she disagreed with malaria therapy, when, in fact, the report promotes it.

While the Enquirer has endorsed Wulsin in the upcoming primary it should not be blind to the fact that its evaluation of her was deficient.  Propagating this endorsement is in essence agreeing that her work at the Heimlich Institute and her failure to report these extreme violations of human research rules now puts the Enquirer in the position of saying these activities were proper.

I fail to see how as an ethical journalist you can continue to do that.  As I noted in my press conference, reporters have an obligation to search for the truth and present it to their readers.  The full significance of what Wulsin has done by acts of commission and omission has not been presented to your readers.

I would be happy to submit an OP-ED piece that further makes these points if you will print it.

Robert S. Baratz, MD, PhD, DDS
Boston University School of Medicine
Medical Director, South Shore Health Center

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The views here are those of Dr. Baratz and not necessarily those of Boston University.

Thank you for reading (and printing from) The Cincinnati Beacon.