When I first encountered Stanislaw Burzynski and the Burzynski Clinic around a decade ago, I didn’t know what to make of him. Sure, he seemed quacky, with all the testimonials of miracle cures and the claims that he cured deadly brain cancers like diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) that conventional oncology could do no more than palliate. Sure, it was rather odd that he had never done a fellowship in oncology or an oncology-related specialty. However, he was a Polish expat who seemingly was an excellent student, and he did have a brief career as a real cancer researcher at …
Tag: Stanislaw Burzynski
How online crowdfunding supports cancer quacks
Patients with cancer frequently use online crowdfunding to pay for trips to quack clinics. The Good Thinking has undertaken an investigation that is the first to suggest the extent of the problem. The question is: What to do about it?
Clínica 0-19 and IDOI: Not making DIPG history in Monterrey (part 4 of 4)
Orac has finally located the abstract published by Dr. Alberto Siller and Alberto Garcia, who are selling intra-arterial chemotherapy for the deadly brain tumor DIPG. Let's just say that he's...less than impressed by the results. Shades of Burzynski!
Burzynski’s old lawyer Richard Jaffe throws a quack stem cell clinic under the bus
Richard Jaffe was Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski's lawyer. For nearly two decades, Jaffe defended this cancer quack from the FDA, Texas Medical Board, and the government in the name of "health freedom" and even invented Burzynski's business model of having over 70 clinical trials open that allow him to treat any cancer patient he wants. More recently, he's been a defender of for-profit quack stem cell clinics. Last week, he shocked me by finding one stem cell clinic so quacky that he thinks the government should shut it down, even going so far as to use criminal prosecution if necessary. Basically, …
Some final thoughts (for now) on right-to-try, the Stanislaw Burzynski of drug regulation laws
Right-to-try is now the law of the land. Unfortunately, it's a law custom-made for the unethical who don't mind taking advantage of the terminally ill.
Right-to-try: A bait and switch intended to weaken the FDA
On Wednesday, President Trump signed a federal right-to-try bill into law with great fanfare, making extravagant claims for it. It's time to reiterate one last time that right-to-try will not help terminally ill patients but it will strip important protections from them. It's pure snake oil.
Helen Lawson and black salve: Cutting, burning, and poisoning “naturally”
Cancer quacks frequently characterize conventional treatments for cancer as "cutting, poisoning, and burning." Yet, in Australia a woman with ovarian cancer chose black salve, in essence, "cutting, poisoning, and burning" (but mostly burning and without the cutting) to treat her disease. She died a horrible death. How can black salve still be a thing.
How is it that in 2018 cancer Stanislaw Burzynski is still preying on desperate cancer patients? (Update)
Earlier this week, I wrote about the tragic story of Demi Knight, and 11-year-old girl in the UK with medulloblastoma with only a few months to live. I wondered how cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski could still be taking advantage of such patients in 2018. Here, I note the role of the press.
How is it that in 2018 cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski is still preying on desperate cancer patients?
In the 1970s, young polish expat and cancer researcher Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski thought he had found a cure for many incurable cancers. He dubbed it antineoplastons (ANPs_. Unfortunately, he left the path of science and started treating patients before he had evidence that ANPs work. Four decades later, without ever having published compelling evidence for anticancer efficacy of ANPs, he's still luring desperate patients to his clinic. Now he's set to branch out to quack clinics in Mexico. Why can't the law stop him?
The cruel sham that is “right-to-try” is one big step closer to being federal law
So-called "right-to-try" is a cruel sham that holds out the mostly false hope of survival to terminally ill patients and their families. In return, all they have to give up is patient protections and agree to pay to be guinea pigs to test a drug company's product. The product of an ideology that uses the terminally ill as shields to hide the ideological motives behind the law, which are to hobble the FDA, right-to-try is a terrible idea. It's bad for patients, but it just passed the Senate and could well become the law of the land when the House …