Description

5/6/09: On January 5, 2009, the Voice of America News broadcast "Dr. Henry Heimlich: Medical Innovator," a profile of my father by reporter Adam Phillips. The report was rife with factual errors, including false information about the US military, so I promptly called VOA and was directed to public relations director Joan Mower. We had a productive conversation and later that day I submitted a corrections request. That e-mail is the first letter in this file, the rest of which should be self-explanatory.

To date, VOA has published three versions of the story. The second version simply cut out most of the false information I brought to their attention. The third (and current version as of 6/30/09) included a partial correction. Screenshots of all versions are here: http://tinyurl.com/nvnyxx

Despite my repeated attempts making them aware that they published bogus information, publicly-funded VOA News has failed to correct the following nonsense in Phillips's story: http://tinyurl.com/nljwkr

Subhead: "The device saved the lives of hundreds of American soldiers in Vietnam."

'Before long, the valve was also in common use by the North Vietnamese army, America's enemy in the conflict. That pleases Heimlich, who wants his medical inventions to benefit all people, without distinction. Long after the war was over, he recalls, the Vietnamese government invited him and a delegation of other surgeons to visit as its honored guest. "They said I would 'live on in the hearts of the Vietnamese people forever'," he says, adding, "I cried at that moment."'

More on my father's bizarre Vietnam chest valve lie here: http://tinyurl.com/nm64h6