As one of the nation’s top burn surgeons, Dr. David Heimbach was a perfect choice to enlist as a star witness. His dramatic testimony about babies burned to death in furniture fires helped convince lawmakers they shouldn’t scale back use of flame retardants.

But the stories weren’t true, and the organization backing him turned out to be a chemical industry front group.

This week, facing disciplinary charges in the state of Washington, Heimbach surrendered his medical license.

State officials had alleged that Heimbach, whose activities were exposed in a 2012 Tribune investigation, fabricated testimony and falsely presented himself as an unbiased burn expert when, in fact, he had been paid $240,000 for his help.

Heimbach and manufacturers have defended flame retardants, which are added to furniture cushions, despite research that shows they don’t provide any meaningful protection from home fires.

Heimbach’s decision to surrender his license, made public Wednesday, represents a stunning fall. For 25 years, Heimbach was head of the burn center at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and was a longtime surgery professor at the University of Washington. He once received an award from the Dalai Lama for his care of burn victims around the world.

But he could not withstand the most serious charge against him: telling lawmakers false stories of babies who suffered fatal burns while on cushioning that lacked flame retardants. The infants, as he described them, did not exist.

By giving up his license, Heimbach avoids further penalties, such as a fine.

“For a doctor to lose his license is a huge blow – and a sorrowful day,” said Suzanne Mager, attorney for Washington’s Medical Quality Assurance Commission, which brought the charges. “Dr. Heimbach was truly world renowned for the good things that he had done.”

Earlier this year, Heimbach told authorities that he had retired from Harborview and the University of Washington, no longer practiced medicine and had moved to Hawaii.

In an email to the Tribune on Wednesday, Heimbach said he did not fight the disciplinary charges because he had no intention of renewing his license. “Fighting back would require lawyers and probably several trips back to Seattle, and might well accomplish the same result,” he wrote.

Heimbach added: “In nearly 50 years of practice I have never been subject to a lawsuit or any discipline. I am sorry this whole business ever occurred.”

The Tribune investigative series “Playing with Fire” prompted the disciplinary charges, which mirrored the newspaper’s findings. The Tribune reported how Heimbach’s testimony was part of a campaign of deception by industry to promote the use of flame retardants – harmful chemicals that migrate from furniture and wind up in the bodies of adults and children.

In an earlier interview with the newspaper, Heimbach said his testimony about babies dying in fires was not about different children but about the same infant. But the Tribune reported that this baby did not die in the way that he described in his testimony and that flame retardants were not a factor.

Heimbach, a former president of the American Burn Association, initially told the Tribune that his testimony was meant to be anecdotal and that he “wasn’t under oath.” Later, through an attorney, he said he changed the facts to protect patient privacy.

In its charges, the commission cited Heimbach’s work for Citizens for Fire Safety, an organization the Tribune exposed as a front group founded, funded and controlled by the three largest manufacturers of flame retardants. When states considered laws that would ban or limit the use of flame retardants, Citizens for Fire Safety stirred the public’s fear of fire and downplayed the health risks linked to the chemicals, such as cancer, neurological deficits, developmental problems and impaired fertility.

Citizens for Fire Safety had described itself as a broad-based coalition with altruistic intentions: “a coalition of fire professionals, educators, community activists, burn centers, doctors, fire departments and industry leaders, united to ensure that our country is protected by the highest standards of fire safety.” As a well-respected burn surgeon, Heimbach gave Citizens for Fire Safety credibility.

In written responses to questions from the commission, Heimbach said Citizens for Fire Safety paid him a total of $240,000 for consulting work in 2010 and 2011 – a fact he never disclosed at legislative hearings.

Heimbach told the commission he was recruited by a former president of the American Burn Association and that he was told Citizens for Fire Safety was a broad coalition. He said he only learned of the chemical industry’s role from the Chicago Tribune’s reporting.

“I should have been more circumspect regarding this, but I was an advocate of fire retardants, and had read the scientific literature indicating that they were useful and that the benefits exceeded the risks of their use,” he wrote to the commission. “I only learned the true circumstances after the newspaper articles appeared. Mea culpa for this.”

Heimbach told the commission he still believes that flame retardants are useful and that his testimony was sincere.

“I don’t believe I misrepresented any of the issues,” he wrote, “and I had no intention of misleading anyone.”

After the Tribune series was published, California regulators, whose standard was responsible for the widespread use of flame retardants in American furniture, changed the rules so that furniture can be made without the use of the chemicals. And the chemical industry front group that paid Heimbach folded.

sroe@tribune.com

pcallahan@tribune.com