The Cincinnati Beacon - Dr. Vic Wulsin: Ethically Challenged? Part I

When asked about her involvement in the Heimlich Institute’s “malariotherapy” experiments—in which patients suffering from AIDS are deliberately infected with malaria parasites—Congressional candidate Dr. Vic Wulsin claims the idea is not one she supports. “I did a literature review, and determined that there was no evidence to show that it was effective or helpful,” says Wulsin. “It’s not something that I think has any scientific validity.”

Fair enough. Such an answer puts Dr. Wulsin in the company of leading immunologists and bioethicists who for decades have been criticizing Heimlich’s ethics as well as his medical expertise. Unfortunately for Wulsin, however, her statements don’t match what she wrote in her report on malariotherapy to the Heimlich Institute. Seems Wulsin might be “ethically challenged.” No wonder she doesn’t like sharing the report: it calls her to task for her misinformation campaign!

But before we get more specifically to Dr. Wulsin, here is some history for those of you who don’t know the details of malariotherapy.

Dr. Henry Heimlich has no background in immunology and hasn’t held a hospital job since the 1970s, when he abruptly left Jewish Hospital for reasons that remain murky. But that didn’t stop him from trying to push for quackery!

Beginning in the early 1980s, when the Heimlich Institute was at Xavier University, he started claiming that infecting patients with malaria cures not only AIDS, but also Lyme disease and cancer. His offshore human experiments in Mexico and China have been the subject of numerous media investigations. Now Heimlich has moved his malaria roadshow to Africa. Here’s an excerpt from Tom Francis’s Radar Magazine article:

Mekbib Wondewossen is an Ethiopian immigrant who makes his living renting out cars in the San Francisco area, but in his spare time he works for Dr. Heimlich, doing everything from “recruiting the patients to working with the doctors here and there and everywhere,” Wondewossen says. The two countries he names are Ethiopia and the small equatorial nation of Gabon, on Africa’s west coast. “The Heimlich Institute is part of the work there—the main people, actually, in the research,” Wondewossen says. “They’re the ones who consult with us on everything. They tell us what to do.

A car rental agent is Heimlich’s “research director”? That seems like one reason Dr. Wulsin might not be entirely enthusiastic about Heimlich’s project. An ethical doctor might even be compelled to blow the whistle on Heimlich.

Though Wulsin currently says malariotherapy has “no scientific validity,” she has refused to share the report which would substantiate her claims. For months, she and her campaign people have promised to give me a copy but they never quite get around to it.

However, thanks to the redoubtable Robert Baratz, MD, PhD, DDS, and president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, The Cincinnati Beacon now has a copy of her report, which we’ll be examining in the coming weeks. The report Dr. Wulsin wrote doesn’t match what she’s been saying about it.

For example, Dr. Wulsin said she was hired by the Heimlich Institute to conduct “a literature review.” The first paragraph of her report shows there was much more to it.

I. Background

Three months ago I began a consultancy with the Heimlich Institute [HI] for two reasons. First, I was to evaluate the viability of Malariotherapy Therapy as a focus for HI and to recommend to HI’s Board of Directors the requisite next steps in developing it as a life-enhancing &/or life-prolonging intervention for persons living with HIV/AIDS. Second, I would identify the comparative advantage ("market niche") of the Heimlich Institute in developing Immunotherapy or any aspect of life-enhancing &/or life-prolonging interventions.

Wow, Dr. Wulsin wasn’t just writing a literature review, she was conducting market research! Turns out that infecting AIDS victims with malaria isn’t a crackpot theory after all. According to Dr. Wulsin, a career public health professional with a Harvard pedigree, it’s a “market niche”! In other words, infecting third world AIDS patients with malaria is a product to be marketed.

Mark Harrington, director of the international AIDS activist organization, Treatment Action Group, shared a slightly different opinion with Reuters: “If Heimlich is really doing this, he should be put in jail.” Dr. Baratz has repeatedly voiced similar concerns, comparing “malariotherapy” to Nazi-era medicine. He told the UCLA Bruin in 2003 that it has no basis in scientific fact, and is better referred to as lunacy.

Then there’s the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectionus Disease who in 1994 told the following to the Los Angeles Times: “Heimlich’s life-saving maneuver for people who aspirate food doesn’t qualify one as an HIV expert,” said leading AIDS researcher Dr. Anthony Fauci, who called malaria therapy “quite dangerous and scientifically unsound.”

But back to Dr. Vic’s marketing analysis, which reads like a corporation’s annual report:

Institutional sustainability is the third side of the sustainability pyramid. This requires high-quality personnel, with appropriate job descriptions and policies regarding human resources; a vigorous, effective, and diverse board of directors; transparent and trustworthy decision-making; and most importantly, a solid, inclusive, effective, flexible, and scientific strategic plan supported by all the major stakeholders involved in the organization.

X. Recommendations vis-a-vis Immunotherapy

Brainstorming leads to a host of potential actions the Heimlich Institute could take. These are meant for discussion only. They are not meant to be prescriptive.

Programmatic Next Steps

1. Write a strategic plan for the Heimlich Institute.
2. Rename malariotherapy “Immunotherapy” ["IT"].
3. Verify and elaborate on East Africa Phase II trial.

Dr. Vic, who knew you were such a marketing whiz? The name change alone is a stroke of branding genius. “Malariotherapy” has become radioactive because of Heimlich’s years of bad press for his atrocity experiments. But “Immunotherapy”? Very high tech, futuristic, with plenty of curative zing. Best of all, it removes any hint that you’re infecting people with malaria.

If only you’d been around to write a government report for the Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiment. It might have read something like, “Recommendations vis-a-vis witholding penicillin from victims: rename syphilis experiment as ‘Spirochete Syndrome Therapy.’”

So contrary to your public claims that you renounced Heimlich’s disgusting experiments, the truth is that you worked up a marketing plan for him.

Dr. Vic, I don’t have your credentials or expertise, but here’s some “brainstorming” you might want to consider passing along to the Heimlich Institute’s board of directors and “all the major stakeholders involved in the organization.” It might really improve the “high-quality personnel” side of “the sustainability pyramid.”

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