Closing down Dr Burzynski – updated
from BlackCatte’s blog
Chemotherapy often doesn’t work. Everyone admits it’s not a perfect treatment. So, why, when a man comes along with a new approach that seems to yield amazing results, does the US medical establishment and the FDA unite to try and close him down and even put him in jail?
If you believe Big Pharma is all about curing people and increasing human wellbeing – you probably shouldn’t watch this movie.
Ultimately, it’s not about whether Burzynski’s therapy is a complete cure or simply another partial answer, it’s about whether people have the right to full information on all medical options, and whether the medial establishment is there to serve us or the drug company monopolies.
Oh btw – after twenty years of calling him a fraud, the United States stole Burzynski’s patent and registered his therapy for themselves.
No, really.
UPDATE June 11 2016
When OffG republished this article yesterday I didn’t know Burzynski’s trial was currently ongoing. Pure coincidence. But since this article has attracted some attention, I thought it might be interesting to post this small piece about the situation. It’s one-sided of course, but it helps to balance the comments offered below, and to give a slightly fuller picture of this complex issue.
For those interested in getting more detail, the Burzynski Film Youtube channel has footage of the entire hearing, including testimony of patients who have apparently been cured, or at least had prolongation of their life expectancy, as a result of this controversial treatment.
BTW what to make of this statement from the FDA Burau of Drugs Director back in 1982? Is it simply stripped of context?
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Reblogged this on Eurasia News Online.
I first learned of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski when reading the 1999 edition of Ralph W. Moss’s book The Cancer Industry, which contains an approx. 50-page chapter detailing good physician’s the life, work and struggles with the FDA, who have been on his case since 1977 (seven years after he emigrated from Poland to the US) and who have apparently been persecuting him as vigorously Inspector Javert did Jean Valjean in Les MisĆ©rables since they sent their agents on “search and secure” mission to his thriving clinic in Huston accompanied by an armed US marshall on July 17, 1985. During that raid, FDA Compliance Officer Kenneth P. Ewing, brandishing a search warrant, helped his men load eleven four-drawer filing cabinets into a large truck. They took away over 200,000 medical documents including the confidential records of over a thousand cancer patients. Valjean endured 19 years of persecution in the novel. So… Read more Ā»
I first would like to acknowledge that I never heard of Dr Burzynski, his therapy and the controversy of Antineoplaston as cancer treatment before I read/watched today’s blog. But there surely is a lot of info on the work of Dr Burzynski available on the internet. For instance the HoustonCancerQuack seems to have written an honest systematic review on the work of Dr Burzynski. See: https://thehoustoncancerquack.com What doesn’t look to good is that, though there are cancer survivors in Dr Burzynski trials that a) the treatment is very expensive (easily>100 000 US Dollar), B) that in the trials of Dr Burzynski most patients die, and that the survivor rate is not different as compared with placebo treatment in chemotherapy trials, and c) that most of his trials are either scanty or not published at all (This can be observed at the trial website clinicaltrials.gov, where clinical trials need to be… Read more Ā»
I absolutely have no dog in this fight and am approaching it from a purely objective observer POV, but don’t you think a single issue website called “thehoustoncancerquack.com” just might have an agenda? š The problem is that if Dr B’s therapy really does offer a challenge to the multi-million dollar cancer treatment (not cure) industry then we would expect exactly this kind of response wouldn’t we. A number of allegedly independent blogs and websites devoted to using invective and maybe dodgy or misleading claims to discredit him in the eyes of any casual Googler. So, how can we tell if this is the real deal or simply propaganda? it’s difficult isn’t it. And let’s not fall into the trap of seeing the FDA as some fearless champion of public health. On the contrary it routinely rubber stamps food additives and drugs known to be detrimental to consumers. So, at… Read more Ā»
May I reverse your question and ask if GSK or Pfizer had this type of trial completion record, would you be so forgiving (which I repost for people who might not have seen the other link)? https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=burzynski&Search=Search
Unintentionally amusing of you Bob. There are drugs released on to the market all the time with barely sufficient trials to their name, and no proof of efficacy. it’s not a question of efficacy, it’s a question of what company name is on the pack.
Perhaps I should acknowledge again that I know too little of Dr Burzynski’s work to have a strong opinion on the matter. And thank you for the update on the ongoing trial. That result will be interesting and sure: I hope that Dr B’s treatment works in cancer patients (i.e. with proof from rigourously conducted randomized trials). Regarding the other part of this post, i.e. that the FDA is an agency with double standards: on that I absolutely agree with you. Actually, this is proven. Recently, a number of reports have been published in the BMJ (unfortunately behind a paywall) on two new bloodthinners, rivaroxaban and dabigatran. Both drugs are recently approved by the FDA and EMA despite tremendous problems in the trials. For instance in the rivaroxaban trial, the company (Bayer/Johnson&Johnson) deliberately (proven) compared their drug to the standard drug that was not monitored correctly (meaning that patients bled… Read more Ā»
I believe it’s written into law otherwise, that safety and efficacy should be demonstrated, yes? Well, ideally. I know that there are shortcomings. There’s a really interesting book about called Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre where he talks about how you can cheat the system, but he does it in a way that does not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as it were. (It’s a program of transparency and reform he’s endorsing.) But the fact that something like only 1 in 10 compounds (9.6% over the last 10 years or so) that makes it to Phase I trials makes it to market surely has to suggest that the FDA is not stamping “approved” on drugs willy-nilly based on the name of the company. What I was specifically asking was if another company (and Burzynski is a drug manufacturer, no mistake) had a trial completion record of 0% and… Read more Ā»
But in a non-insanely literal world he clearly does have things to show for it. People who are alive, who were told they were going to die and that conventional medicine had nothing for them. Is this proof he cured them? No. But it’s evidence. of something that can’t simply go undiscussed. And again you miss my real point. Why prosecute this man for simply trying a relatively benign therapy on terminally ill patients with nothing to lose? That is the problem. It’s about asserting control in ways that defy need and logic. I take your point about the trial completion record.But I can’t evaluate it since I don’t know how the process works, or whose decisions govern the publication of results on that site. BTW – of course the law requires the full testing of all drugs for safety, but we’d be naive to believe the law is uniformly… Read more Ā»
I agree with you in that there is evidence that must be weighed and evaluated. (One thing that I tell my students is that everything is evidence for something; it’s just a matter of figuring out what it is evidence of.) In this case it’s just not great evidence. Certainly not the type of evidence that we should use to base medical decisions off of. The general spontaneous remission rate is about 2% (and I’m not going to argue that B’s survivors are spontaneous remission–we can’t know). But, even if we knew that a doctor was only giving cancer patients water and nothing else, we would still expect 2% of the patients to survive. As it stands, we can’t say that any survivor is in that 2% or is likely to have benefited from treatment. Sigh. It’s complicated in Burzynski’s case when you look at the fact that most brain… Read more Ā»
I do think that you’d like the Goldacre book, though. He goes through all the ways you can influence results both intentionally and unintentionally. I got a lot out of it. He wants all trials to be registered and all results reported.
The fact that the FDA likes to hire former pharmaceutical executives to run the agency is a good enough reason to start asking serious questions.
The interesting thing, for me, about Dr.Burzynski is the fact that in over 20 years of investigating this guy, about the best they can come up with is he makes a lot of money.
Well, where else are you going to find people who know how to regulate the industry or examine clinical trials except…. in the industry where they have done clinical trials? That’s not a small problem. And there is so much more than just “him making money” that we are worried about. Heck, if he has what he claims, he can charge whatever he likes and I’ll nominate him for a Nobel Prize. But that’s not the case at all. He’s probably going to lose his license in a few days, if the TMB can prove to the satisfaction of a pair of judges that just a fraction of these charges are true: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2Z0ehSpPFuTa0hhaGNDald2X0k
There are many problems with relying on James Randi as a credible unbiased source for judging anything. For starters, Randi’s own personal integrity has been called into question (an example being Will Storr’s article in the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11270453/James-Randi-debunking-the-king-of-the-debunkers.html). There are also claims that his organization is funded by the Military Industrial Complex, and if you read the site regularly you will soon become aware of the regular commenters there who are forever defending establishment claims and memes, and ridiculing any who dare to question them. (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?70042-The-James-Randi-forum–JREF–is-funded-by-the-military.–Why-it-bans-9-11-truth-) Finally, Randi is a theatre magicianāa faker by trade, and neither a medical practitioner nor a specialist in cancer research. Why should his opinion on a doctor carry any stamp of authority whatsoever? When I want to be informed about whether someone is a quack or a brilliant doctor, I seek out the relevant information on his record and his reputation from as wide… Read more Ā»
Agreed. Randi is not the last word on anything.
I find it fascinating to see how this man has stood against the medical establishment over the past 30 years through constant harassment and legal proceedings and is still going strong. It appears quite certain that he has helped some people back to health who had been given little to no hope by conventional treatments. He has no doubt failed in some cases, made mistakes in others and learned along the way like any other medical practitioner. His crime is not to conform, and particularly to have the audacity to attempt to patent for his own benefit “the treatment” he has been developing. What his case illustrates to me is the monolithic nature of our society’s approach to disease, and how it has become equated (like almost everything else) to money. What the authorities are trying to do under the guise of keeping the public from being exploited is to… Read more Ā»
Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth.
Oh, he definitely has a slant on it, however, he convincingly shows that there is good reason to doubt that anyone who was shown in that movie has responded to the treatment (and that there is evidence to the contrary). With the Ressel case, the one with the marker, it’s not the marker that bothers him. It’s that the tumor apparently doesn’t meet the criteria of DIPG (namely, it should be diffuse, not encapsulated). And the really big problem is that the shadow grows and shrinks independently of the dose of ANP and the duration of treatment, which strongly suggests that the ANP is having no effect on something that is not a brain tumor. And that’s supposed to be his strongest case. Without a biopsy, we can’t know what it was. About Fenton, well, he gives 3 possibilities. The fact that there was a biopsy does complicate things; as… Read more Ā»
With respect you are allowing the man’s rhetorical tricks to deceive you. You say “the really big problem is that the shadow grows and shrinks independently of the dose of ANP,” as if this means something about the treatment. The guy claims airily that – in his opinion – the tumour would have regressed without treatment. But if he had been shown the same disease profile on a patient being given chemo, would he have made the same claim? At best this merely complicates the evidence and certainly doesn’t discredit it. This is mere subjective POV stuff and establishes nothing concrete other than the man’s prevailing prejudice. The case in which he claims the biopsy was actually responsible for removing the bulk of the tumour is such extreme special pleading it doesn’t require a response beyond that. Large trials would be ideal – but isn’t it the FDA that is… Read more Ā»
I suspect that he would give the same analysis if, say, the patient was on, say a breast cancer drug for a brain tumor and he didn’t know it. He merely has seen literally thousands of patients and has a research interest in tumor growth. There’s a difference between “opinion”–which is what you and I have– and “professional judgment” which he has. When patients go on a new drug and the tumor shrinks, that’s a good thing, but when the tumor starts growing again, that means that all the new cells come from ones that were immune to the chemotherapy. So the doctors go to the next drug. It doesn’t make sense that a drug would shrink then grow….and then shrink again. It’s just not how it works. So, it’s not a mere rhetorical flourish. As far as what you call special pleading…even though he’s seen it before with breast… Read more Ā»
Well, a professional “judgement” is still an opinion, and potentially subjective. You could make the same claim about NATO military “experts” alleging Russia invaded Ukraine couldn’t you. Even experts are swayed by prevailing narratives and institutional prejudice. And presenting one side of any argument – as you do – is merely propagandist, whether intentionally so or not. A dispassionate analysis is needed, but not yet provided. The questions are complex and easy to distort in either direction. To give just one example, most of Dr B’s patients were diagnosed as terminal when they entered his care – considered beyond the help of conventional medicine. In these circumstances even minimal success at prolonging life is potentially significant. If only one of his alleged cures are real – that’s actually quite something right there, of itself. Your last question demonstrates you don’t really understand where I am coming from. I’m not alleging… Read more Ā»
Normally I’d agree with you about professional judgment being a sort of opinion but only with a MASSIVE qualification. That a professional’s opinion is overwhelmingly more likely to be correct than a lay person’s. (Burzynski, by the way, not an oncologist and not trained to do clinical trials.) And ultimately that doesn’t change the equation on the other end regarding the patient’s autonomy. They still take the reigns, as it were and can make decisions. I would say, based on the last several years of looking at this issue that when Burzynski loses his license, patients will be better off, that patients are being protected. I’d be very happy if you would look at one story I wrote a few years ago. I’ve found a pattern of Burzynski’s patients celebrating signs of getting worse–unambiguous signs of getting worse that no other doctor’s patients report. https://theotherburzynskipatientgroup.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/burzynski-patient-amelia-s-s-story-3/ I saw it in about… Read more Ā»
Ok, that is fair enough. I will read your work, and let you know what I think.
I appreciate it.
The fact that patients doomed to die shortly after conventional treatment are alive and cancer free decades later, is proof for me. The issue is our right to consent to our care! Who cares about protocols. The end justifies the means. FDA approved meds and treatment are the 3rd largest cause of death and lawsuits , in America. Whether the cure comes from an individual or large pharm should not matter. Busted!
Reblogged this on Worldtruth.
Really, no. If you look at the patent that they are talking about, the researcher cites Burzynski’s prior work. It’s like writing “I stole this car from Jim Henson at #1 Happy Street” on a car you just stole from the front of #1 Happy Street where Jim Henson lives. As far as I can tell, patent theft is impossible, unless you were to have a patent lawyer steal your idea and patent it instead of you. The documentary has all sorts of problems, honestly. A review by an MD: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/stanislaw-burzynski-bad-medicine-a-bad-movie/
Mmmm…I checked out the article. The man is a little biased isn’t he. I mean he clearly starts with the a priori assumption that Dr B and his therapy are “woo,” and proceeds from there. His reasons for throwing out the “success stories” featured in the film seem flimsy and forced. He rejects one because the tumour regressed “too quickly” (seriously?). He rejects another because the pathology report isn’t included and there is a yellow mark added to an image of the diseased brain! He dismisses Dr B as a “woo” merchant and his alleged persecution by the FDA as a “conspiracy theory”, without offering any evidence for this beyond ridicule. But this is unwarranted. In the real world there is ample evidence that the FDA serves the interests of the drug companies at the expense of patients. To dismiss any such allegation out of hand is simply his own… Read more Ā»