Feb 18 2013
Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s cancer “success” stories
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27 Responses to “Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s cancer “success” stories”
I have seen a lot of people who have gone through the muddy-headedness that Hannah experienced. A lot of the time, it is related to the fact that they don’t get to sleep because they are drinking gallons of water a day to not die of the effects of the drugs. I just wrote up the case of John D at theotherburzynskipatientgroup.wordpress.com, and he was routinely experiencing the rash that you point out with Hannah.
Can we nominate Eric for a Razzy?
Bob
[...] the patients held up as success stories by Burzynski and his sycophants, toadies, and lackeys are not convincing evidence for the efficacy of his treatments, particularly given the lack of published clinical trial evidence. Over the weekend, I sensed a [...]
Dr. Gorski,
I’m not sure if you’re aware, but this website linked below has reposted your entire article in toto without giving you credit. The “author” credit is listed as “Admin” at the top of the page. They do provide a link to SBM at the very bottom, but from what I understand about blog etiquette this is not nearly enough. At first glance, their posting looks like original content from their site. They even mangled your headline. Possibly you are affiliated with this site but I doubt it:
http://www.symptoms-cancer.net/cancer/science-based-medicine-dr-stanislaw-burzynskis-cancer/
[...] Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s cancer “success stories” [...]
So the Marc Stephens thing went so well for Burzynski that he’s decided to make it a major part of his next long-form advertisement? Or is Merola out of control? I wonder if the clinic knows he’s planning on the business of naming the evil nerds who insist on published evidence and reliable independent sources?
Dr Gorski, I have a quick question. Pete is quoted as saying:
You then link to an article on/discuss GBM. Did Hannah’s diagnosis change at some point (maybe post biopsy)? I know that what might appear to be cancer X on initial examinationcan can actually be revealed to be cancer Y after full investigation.
Thanks in advance!
I too hope Hannah and Laura are true success stories, but as you’ve said for so long, without concrete trial results and peer reviewed data, nobody can ever really know what’s happening, and if “antineoplastons” are effective chemotherapeutic agents or not.
@Marc Stephens Is Insane
Unfortunately, such trollers who steal content are very hard to stop. At my other blog, all I have to do is to e-mail management, and a lawyer will send a nastygram takedown notice to the owner of the website; that is, if the owner can be identified, which is frequently not the case. This one is owned by someone in Singapore; so I doubt it will be worth my effort to do anything about it.
@elburto
Crap. An earlier version of the post appeared, in which I had misread Pete’s blog. I’ve posted the final version in which the tumor type was correctly discussed. I must have inadvertently reverted the post when I wanted to change something back. It’s fixed now. Gotta love WordPress; I should have been more careful.
Ah, all makes sense now! Happens to the best of us.
Also, I forgot to mention, an anaplastic astrocytoma is a form of glioma:
http://www.braintumor.org/patients-family-friends/about-brain-tumors/tumor-types/anaplastic-astrocytoma.html
What do “anti-Burzynski bloggers” stand to gain from purportedly “preying on desperate cancer patients and families of cancer patients by carelessly misleading their readers about Burzynski and his invention”? At least when the “anti-Burzynski bloggers” make the same accusation against Burzynski, they have a valid point that makes sense — Burzynski stands to gain million o’ dollars.
Not that anyone has any solid numbers on this, but what is the ratio of patients “cured” by Burzynski vs those who have progressed? Is it basically, I dunno, three loud people harping on Burzynski’s so-called awesomeness vs several poor patients who have died and can thus no longer speak for themselves? (I appreciate all the hard work that goes into Bob Blaskiewicz’s The OTHER Burzynski Patient Group.)
I do work in evil Big Pharma, and perhaps this is just part of our … “disinformation campaign,” but as far as I know, grants shelled out by Big Pharma do not necessarily come with strings attached. For example, my company helps fund various patient publications about cancer, but my company has zero editorial control over the content. (I mean the publications funded by grants; publications developed for marketing purposes are a different story.) So just because sanofi gives grants to Wayne State, that doesn’t necessarily means that sanofi is pulling the strings at the university. Duh, Crosby.
On a cancer support board, a new person appeared 10 days ago, the first post was on a Burzynski thread.
“Given 3 weeks Oct 2010 with stage IV pancreatic, colon, lymphoma….I looked up the so called, “crooks and quacks”….[sic]
I’m not only alive but thriving, from a 70 lb dying person . . .I was left to die. Thanks to natural treatments available my 16 yr old son will have a mother still…”[sic]
Later, the woman says she didn’t go there, but received similar treatments.
then she says there are two or three hundred natural things that cure cancer.
She also later has a link to the Burz. thread.
the post was signed, jddh.
Josh David DuHamel??
I was mildly disturbed by this:
“That’s a long time for an active therapy to start to work, particularly for a tumor that is as aggressive as a glioblastoma. It’s possible, but in general, even if antineoplastons really saved Laura, a treatment that takes three or four months to kick in is generally not that enthusiastically embraced by oncologists.”
I understand that oncologists wouldn’t want a “patient died but the procedure was a success” outcome. Still, a therapy (thinking now of a scientifically sound therapy) that doesn’t kick in for four months but sometimes produces pronounced remission strikes me as worthy of embrace, if only for early stage tumors.
The problem with such a therapy is that it might be OK for early stage tumors, as you say, but for tumors that are progressing (such as a brain tumor that’s starting to impinge on the optic nerve, for example), you need it to work faster than that. Also, the length of time it took Laura’s tumor to shrink starts to make cause/effect relationships more difficult to tease out.
[...] Stanislaw Burzynski’s abuse of science while contemplating how even his success stories really aren’t yesterday reminded me of a topic that I discussed rather extensively not long after I moved my blog [...]
Yah, but it’s hosted on Bluehost.com.
(Mr. Wong also appears to be in the alkaline-water business.)
Another rip-off job of your content, Dr. Gorski. This one has someone else’s byline:
http://youngblackusweekly.arttemka.com/1283/science-based-medicine-dr-stanislaw-burzynskis-cancer/
You oughta’ send those guys a Popehat-style warning…
First video clip. 6m12s
Really weird reference to Amelia Saunders. Like she was going to be part of the film. Or maybe not.
Hmmm…
[...] administering unapproved drugs and that is nothing more at its core than an orphan drug without compelling evidence for efficacy and of the “personalized gene-targeted therapy for dummies” based on nothing but [...]
[...] desire for world-wide media dominance), this movie looks bad. Real bad. As bad as the latest Stanislaw Burzynski hagiography that’s going to be released direct to DVD in less than a week and a half. It’s hard to [...]
[...] wrote about this “documentary” a couple of weeks ago, because it had become pretty clear that a significant part of the movie will be dedicated to a PR [...]
[...] Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s cancer “success” stories David Gorski, Science-Based Medicine, 18/02/13 [...]
[...] admit that I was at least a little concerned, because Merola made an explicit promise to “name names.” So were some other skeptics. After all, Merola isn’t exactly known for intellectual [...]
[...] This is such a common attack on me and any other physician who would argue against what we consider to be unscientific medicine and/or quackery that it is worth answering. The charge of being uncompassionate isn’t just a favorite gambit of antivaccinationists who believe that vaccines cause autism either, which is where that charge was first aimed at me. Indeed, it goes far beyond that. Does anyone remember the cases of Starchild Abraham Cherrix and Katie Wernecke, two teens who, along with their parents, chose quackery rather than conventional therapy such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy to fight their lymphomas? The same charges were thrown at me whenever I discussed these cases on my NSSSOB. Remember the case of the teen Jehovah’s Witness who died for want of a blood transfusion, all because of a bizarre and literal-minded interpretation of a single passage from Leviticus? Same thing, along with charges of religious intolerance. Then there was another case, namely Madeline Neumann, the 12 year old girl from Wisconsin who died because her parents thought that prayer would save her from diabetic ketoacidoses, when I supported taking the parents’ remaining children away from them and prosecuting them for their negligence? That’s right; it was the same. And don’t even get me started on the number of times I was attacked for not caring about the desperate patients with cancer who were sold a bill of goods by Stanislaw Burzynski. [...]
[...] There are, of course, two more such patients, Hannah Bradley and Laura Hymas, both of whose cases I discussed a couple of months ago and concluded that Hannah Bradley has very likely seen recurrence of her cancer while Laura Hymas [...]