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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine

The fundamental intellectual dishonesty of Eric Merola and his promotion of Stanislaw Burzynski

About a month ago, Eric Merola screened his second movie about “brave maverick doctor” Stanislaw Burzynski, Burzynski: Cancer Is A Serious Business, Part 2 (henceforth referred to as “Burzynski II”), a screening that Brian Thompson and an unnamed colleague from the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) attended, took notes, and even managed to ask a […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

Apparently, according to Eric Merola, Orac is a white supremacist who eats puppies

It’s been less than a week since I wrote about Stanislaw Burzynski. In fact, as hard as it is to believe, I’ve been trying not to. Obviously, I’m failing, but what can I say? Things keep happening. In particular, there’s Eric Merola. You remember Eric Merola? He’s the producer of a propaganda film extolling the […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies Television

R.I.P., Seán Ó’Laighin

This will be an uncharacteristically short (for Orac) post. A couple of months ago, I wrote about the sad story of a young man from Ireland named Seán Ó’Laighin diagnosed with an inoperable brainstem glioma at age 19. Even more sadly, this young man heard about the Burzynski Clinic in Houston and believed the claims […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Disease, “dis-ease,” what’s the difference?

I’ve had a rule of thumb for a while that helps me identify quacks with a high degree of accuracy. It’s not very sensitive, as a lot of quacks don’t exhibit this trait, but it’s very specific. A lot of quacks don’t use the term; so not hearing says nothing about a practitioner. If you […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

The long, strange case of Abraham Cherrix continues

Discussing 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 over to ScienceBlogs and have covered sporadically since then. I’m referring to the case of Abraham Cherrix. Cherrix, for those who haven’t […]