Patents can be issued for any unique product or process. There is no test for effectiveness. Being patented is not evidence that a treatment is effective.

exhibit A: http://www.cracked.com/article_15693_the-10-most-ridiculous-inventions-ever-patented.html

exhibit B: http://www.cracked.com/blog/9-self-defense-gadgets-your-mugger-will-find-hilarious/

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5635532.pdf
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6037376.pdf
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5852056.pdf

Good thing the Government isn’t as skeptical as you all are…

The January 16 entry “Burzynski Patient Wayne Merritt’s Story” on the OTHER Burzynski Patient Group website quotes a patient, “[H]owever when the doctor came in to talk with us, she stated that she would not be able to give Wayne the Avastin infusion…. And that no other oncologist would be able to either. They are not allowed to administer drugs not approved for a particular diagnosis, this makes them liable.”

Would this be a legal thing? An insurance thing? Don’t insurance companies follow NCCN Guidelines in order to decide which off-label indications they’d cover (she typed naively)?

Could you imagine Penn & Teller taking on Burzynski?

I think the most sickening aspect of his false hope is the final indignity he offers to his customers: about a month before the inevitable, he provides a jolt of optimism with the “the tumour is breaking up” or “it’s turning into a cyst” and “that’s why you’re getting worse. It’s actually good news!” rote story he tells. I can’t think of anything more cruel to a patient and his family. He knows it’s all BS. Orac knew it was BS just by reading a patient’s blog.

At his day and age only truly lazy can claim ignorance. Again, they may not be the most scrupulous clinic, but they do have a record of helping some patients who otherwise would have not had other options.

No they do not. They claim to, but have completely and utterly failed to support that contention with anything resembling evidence. Burzynski and his clinic have NO established record of doing anything for patients other than lightening their wallets.

1) It is your opinion. I respect it. Mine is that he is not a fraud.

It’s not a matter of opinion. The FACTS are that there is no evidence that his treatments work, there IS abundant evidence that he is not abiding by the terms of his agreement with the medical board, and what he’s doing is grossly unethical on the most charitable interpretation.

There are only two possibilities. Either he actually has evidence – in which case he’s killing uncounted people by not publishing it and letting people benefit. Or, he doesn’t have evidence – in which case he’s taking all this money from patients under false pretenses. The latter is far more likely, and does make him a fraud.

2) Are you kidding? His case certainly attracted enough attention to be on everyone’s radar and then – not enough resources? This is a pretty weak statement.

Take a look at how long it takes for said bodies to deal with even more egregious cases. It’s the plain truth.

It is not merely laziness that makes Burzynski’s treatments appealing. Most patients lack the scientific background to understand what goes into cancer treatment. The general public for the most part doesn’t even realize that cancer isn’t a unitary diagnosis. Burzynski is portrayed as cutting edge science and treatments, and it is neither – it’s high dose chemo and some piss. Genuine cutting-edge scientists have not endorsed or even seen his results because Burzynski hasn’t published them. Burzynski’s clinic also wraps their expensive treatments in rhetoric of conspiracy, exagerrated claims, misleading anecdotes and a dearth of good science. They actively try to suppress dissenting voices, and they do not respond to criticisms of methods by improving their methods. You are equating all hope to be a good thing, but Burzynski is selling, at considerable profit, false hope with deceptive claims about the efficacy of their treatments.

Claiming they have a “record of helping some patients who otherwise would have not had other options” is extremely questionable. Because Burzynski does not engage in actual, rigorous study, you have no idea what their options were. Perhaps the patient would have gotten better untreated (making Burzynski’s expensive options a waste of money). Perhaps the patient would have gotten better getting the same care from a much less expensive conventional clinic. Perhaps they would have recieved a much lower dose of chemotherapy, and thus gotten better without unpleasant side effects. We don’t know, because that asshole doesn’t study anything.

I use “asshole” deliberately, because calling someone a liar is potentially libellious. According to Penn & Teller, “asshole” is legally just fine. And personally, I find it emotionally satisfying.

1) It is your opinion. I respect it. Mine is that he is not a fraud.

2) Are you kidding? His case certainly attracted enough attention to be on everyone’s radar and then – not enough resources? This is a pretty weak statement.

@William

At his day and age only truly lazy can claim ignorance. Again, they may not be the most scrupulous clinic, but they do have a record of helping some patients who otherwise would have not had other options.

@Marc

Thank you, I am in OK health. You are making an assumption about who I spoke with. In one case, it was a person who was told no traditional options were left. Prior to that, all traditional treatments failed. The second patient was a child and his parents had to fight for a right to treat him. He received no traditional treatments.

First of all, I hope you are in good health.

Keep in mind several of the names on the BPG website are dead. Burzynski doesn’t even give them the decency of a memorial.

The patients you spoke to have no idea what cured their cancer. Many of them had regular surgery. Look up the Jodi Fenton case for an example of Burzynski getting credit for something he probably had nothing to do with.

Yes, adults can make their own decisions. But many of Stan’s customers are children: the poor little kids who are being tortured in their final days of life.

Entire communities are being burdened by prospective Burzysnki customers begging for money.

For another side of the story, I’d suggest you read The OTHER Burzynski Patient Group website. Every case is the same: how many lies can Stan tell so many people before he’s stopped?

http://theotherburzynskipatientgroup.wordpress.com/about/

And one more time: critique as you wish, but those who go to see him are grown-ups and it is their choice to make.

Sure, but don’t you think consumers should be able to make informed choices? Don’t you think he has an ethical obligation to finish some of the trials he has apparently “started”? Economics has a concept known as assymetric information to describe situations where choices made by consumers are flawed by one party having more knowledge than the other. This seems like such a situation, Burzynski knows his treatments are unproven, yet still advertises and informs patients as if they were. Not to mention he alleges to be giving individualized treatments and whatnot – when he’s really just shotgunning high-dose chemotherapy at patients with no real rational, plus adding some piss extract dissolved in a solution of 30% sodium in the bargain.

Like so many SCAMsters, he seems to be promising false hope without any evidence, at a considerable mark-up and premium. Preying on the desperate with promises he can’t reasonably support does not seem like a valid choice, it seems like lying for profit. But perhaps that’s just me.

Also, are all his patients grown-ups? Are children prohibited from receiving treatment?

Finally, does your website include a section of patients who did not benefit from Burzynski’s treatments? Probably not – because they’re dead. This is known as selection bias, and is one of the main reasons anecdotes are not science.

So, why am I angry? Becuase large amounts of money is made off of false hope. Because patients deaths could have some meaning if they were involved in genuine clinical trial that answers a scientific question rather than being thrown away at considerable expense. Because Burzynski just seems like a greedy, unethical douchenozzle. I think those are pretty good reasons.

If he were a fraud, don’t you think it would have come out by now?

It has.

Or, to rephrase this, why is he so powerful to be able to continue doing what he’s been doing while he is being accused of being such a quack?

Because the FDA and Texas Medical Board don’t have the resources to pursue the case properly.

With all due respect, he was a subject of Congressional hearings and has been under scrutiny for a long time. If he were a fraud, don’t you think it would have come out by now? Or, to rephrase this, why is he so powerful to be able to continue doing what he’s been doing while he is being accused of being such a quack?

Again, I don’t condone his clinic’s emphasis on money. The conversations that I had with them left a really bad taste. But I did personally spoke with two of his long-time patients (the referrals came from a common acquantance) and I am convinced that he is for real. His methods don’t work always (I don’t believe he ever claimed that), but it does work for some. Here is a link, the list of the patients is on the right, some with the contact information:

http://www.burzynskipatientgroup.org/

And one more time: critique as you wish, but those who go to see him are grown-ups and it is their choice to make.

Maybe the water is building up and the dam is at last about to break … if people in the UK start to ask their governments what the truth of such matters is, then the matter may be raised on a political level, between governments. Texas may be goosed into making some serious investigations, even taking action, in order to stop this scandal.

But first people have to see that it is a scandal … not giving hope to the hopeless, not “personalised” treatment, but human hyaenas cynically targeting the easy prey – the sick, the pregnant, the young, the old. For that we need stories, lots of stories, videos, Youtube and dokkies on TV, to get the message across in a palatable form. Great to hear that it is happening!

“Dr.” B is in clinical trials, unless that has changed, so him demanding money is unethical to me. At most I would expect people to pay for travel, but never cost of care during a clinical trial. I too would like to see the source of these “saved” patients.

If he has actually cured anyone he would have published it in a heartbeat. But of course he is a maverick doctor that is being suppressed by big pharma, so they would never let his work see the light of day.