Dept. of Irony: The Heimlich Institute resuscitates itself after I informed them Ohio had terminated their corporate status

About a week ago I reported Ohio Secretary of State (again) cancels existence of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute; is the organization finally down for the count?

Ironically, as a result of me posing that question to Deaconess Associations (the Cincinnati corporation that wholly owns the Institute), they re-upped with the state.

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Here's the August 3 response I got from Jackie Wiesman, assistant to Deaconess chairman Anthony Woods, a Queen City tycoon who who arranged the acquisition of the Institute in 1998:

Peter: Our office address changed and the recertification request that was sent this past month was not forwarded to the new address. It is being reinstated as we speak. Jackie

Per my previous item, the recertification notice from the state was dated March 22, not this past month -- so Ms. Wiesman got that wrong.

On the other hand, the Institute -- a 501(c)(3) nonprofit -- hasn't had any employees since 2005 when it became nothing but a website.

And as of 2015 the organization had zero assets, so presumably no one's minding the store.

Via the Heimlich Institute's most recent annual IRS filing (2015)

In flusher years, the Institute was the focus of investigations by the CDC, FDA, and the Justice Department for overseeing and funding notorious offshore experiments in which US and foreign patients suffering from Lyme Disease and AIDS were infected with malaria.

The "research" was paid for by hundreds of thousands of dollars from funders including director Ron Howard, actors Jack Nicholson and Bette Midler -- and even Muhammad Ali..

During those years, Woods and my brother Phil Heimlich (a former elected official who was tossed from office in 2006 after a bi-partisan landslide) served on the board of the Institute.

As of 2015, they still did.

Despite considerable related reporting (much of it based on research by my wife Karen and me), to my knowledge, neither Woods nor Phil have ever been asked by reporters about their knowledge and roles in the abusive experiments which bioethics experts have called medical "atrocities."

Moving right along, I sent Ms. Wiesman at Deaconess these follow up questions:

1) Are you able to provide me with the current assets of the Heimlich Institute (HI)? Per my blog item, the most recent IRS 990 (2015) shows bupkis.

2) Who are the current members of the HI board?

3) My understanding is that the HI has no employees. Is that accurate? If so, in what year did the organization last have employees?

4) My understanding is that the HI is currently an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Is that accurate? 

Her reply:

Peter: Not at liberty to disclose this information.

Here's another question.

Now that it's a shell of an organization, should the Heimlich Institute still be entitled to 501(c)(3) nonprofit status?

I'll ask the IRS and will report the results.

Ohio Secretary of State (again) cancels existence of Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute; is the organization finally down for the count? [UPDATED]

UPDATE: August 13, 2017, Dept. of Irony: The Heimlich Institute resuscitates itself after I informed them Ohio had terminated their corporate status.

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Via A Letter from Henry J. Heimlich, M.D., The Heimlich Institute's Caring World newsletter, Vol. One, Issue One, Winter 1998:

The mission of The Heimlich Institute is "Benefiting Humanity Through Health and Peace." When Deaconess Associations Inc. invited the Institute to become affiliated and to move into the Deaconess Hospital complex, it brought together two organizations with the same goal – saving lives. Most meaningful for me is that the creativity of The Heimlich Institute research will now continue in perpetuity. Some say it will be for Cincinnati what the Pasteur Institute is for Paris.

If this letter dated yesterday (with a misspelling of my last name in the address) is any indication, "perpetuity" lasted about 19 years:




Per this 2006 ABC Chicago expose by investigative reporter Chuck Goudie, for over a decade the Institute has been a shell organization without any employees:




Per this screenshot from the Secretary of State's website, this isn't the first time the organization's corporate status has been cancelled and revived, so perhaps it's premature to cast the final shovelful of grave dirt:

On the other hand, from the Institute's most recent -- and perhaps final -- IRS filing (2015), the organization's paltry assets have been zeroed out:

From the same filing, here are the most recent officers of the corporation. As widely reported, my dad died in December, but I'll follow up with my brother Phil and perhaps the others and will report the results.