A Burzynski Shill???? Is Burzynski Paying Me? Are YOU stupid, or what?

Cancer Treatments and Prevention

I receive a lot of e-mail and comments.

I do not delete any of them if they are serious posts… Regardless of whether the author agrees with me or not.

Some are relevent enough to be posted as part of a blog posting of their own.

Some are particularly offensive to me.

This comment from ‘John’ is really offensive. But I think his questions should be answered in public… Just to set the record straight.

‘Steve, is Burzynski paying you? A very detailed anecdote along the Burzynski party line with overt appeals to emotion? Sounds totally legitimate to me (sarcasm). How convenient for the Burzynski clinic that this “woman” shares their opinions AND knows how to express those opinions with all of the polished diction of a Burzynski shill. Oh my, did I just say that? She’s certainly not a shill, no, no, certainly not. Couldn’t be. She’s an anonymous woman who sent you a long, detailed email about her experience with the Burzynski clinic AND who’

1. No, I am not paid by Dr Burzynski. I have no relationship to him or his organization. In fact, my wife died in October without the benefit of his treatments because I could not afford them, and no accommodation could be worked out despite the fact that I had excellent insurance and my wife had been told before we traveled to his clinic that we could work something out.

2. I clearly noted at the top of the posting that you are so upset about that I did not vouch for this person’s authenticity. But her posting did relate the cost and other details that I often get questions about, and I clearly stated this was the case. To refresh your memory, this is what I said:

‘This parent’s post answers many of the questions I see coming in… I do not know her, and do not guarantee what she says is true… but the facts about costs etc.. are true as far as I know. Hope you find this useful…’

Seems pretty straight forward to me.

3. I believe Dr Burzynski’s treatments work for some patients. In fact, I personally observed one who had experienced a remission of stage 4 prostate cancer that simply does not occur naturally.

4. I also believe that there are several treatment options detailed in other postings on this site that are at least as effective for some patients, and I urge patients to seriously consider them.

5. I maintain this website with no financial assistance from anywhere. Readers are welcome to believe in what is detailed or not. I strongly believe they will live longer and better if they integrate some of the treatment options I discuss into their therapy regimens.

6. So, now we get to you… Why the f_ck do you care whether people go to Dr Burzynski or not? Who’s paying you? I think that’s a question readers must ask themselves…

26 thoughts on “A Burzynski Shill???? Is Burzynski Paying Me? Are YOU stupid, or what?”

  1. Why the f_ck do you care whether people go to Dr Burzynski or not?
    Amen.

    My condolences.

  2. “I believe Dr Burzynski’s treatments work for some patients. In fact, I personally observed one who had experienced a remission of stage 4 prostate cancer that simply does not occur naturally.”

    A few questions:

    What previous treatments had the patient received, prior to receiving antineoplastin therapy?

    What conventional treatments, if any, did he also receive as part of the Burzynski clinic’s protocol?

    How was it determined that the patient was in remission?

    For how long has has the patient been in remission? Recall that for regional stage IV prostate cancer (cancer that has spread beyond the prostate to nearby lymph nodes, etc.) 5 year survival is close to 100%. Even for distant stage for stage IV prostate cancers, where it’s spread to distant lymph nodes, bones and other organs 5 year survival is almost 30%.

  3. Steve, Burzynski and shady business practices? That is an understatement. Have I got a story for you. How do I contact you privately?

  5. You say you can’t vouch for the authenticity of the email, but aren’t you endorsing the contents of the email, thus implicitly vouching for its authenticity, simply by posting it on your site? Same thing with Burzynski’s treatments – you actually are endorsing them and vouching for their effectiveness by posting about about them in a positive way, as a health care professional. I’ve been to your blog a few times now, and you tout your own expertise and that you thoroughly research these treatments you recommend people consider. But then you take no responsibility for your recommendations. I also don’t care what YOU spend YOUR money on, but you’re recommending, with your expertise and after careful research, that OTHER people spend THEIR money on these treatments, which you then claim not to endorse. It’s not your problem that Burzynski is defrauding people, but it IS disturbing that you, as a health care professional, are helping him do it, and then absolving yourself of all responsibility. You must know that ‘anecdotal evidence’ is a contradiction in terms. So you must know that “I personally observed one…” doesn’t demonstrate anything, which I suspect is why you absolve yourself of any liability, since you also know Burzynski only has anecdotes to back up his claims that his treatments work. You can’t have it both ways – you can’t recommend treatments as a health care professional and then take no responsibility for your recommendations.

  6. That’s a Burzynski trick – if you assume all cancers are the same, you can say the slow progressors are responding. This is why peer review is important for protecting people from quackery. Anecdotes are seldom reliable and nearly always provide incomplete information.

  7. hello, michael.

    i am not quite certain what your concern about burzynski is, or what drives your anger. i don’t know if you work in an environment where cancer patients are treated and live and die, or if you have had to listen to a dying person talk about what they think when it hits home that they’re not going to make it. and i don’t know if you have held a dying person in your arms and ached for another option. if you have, well… i’m sorry.

    i will tell you that i have, and my beliefs are strongly biased by what i have seen and experienced.

    but we see the situation differently.

    i will repeat what i think i have clearly said before.

    i strongly believe there are other options detailed on this website that people should take a hard look at. i would try them first myself if i had time.

    but, having tried them and not gotten relief, i would try burzynski if i had the money.

    i’ve been there. i’ve talked to people who have worked for him in the past. i’ve read his writings and have had students who are the most scorching of personalities review them. i fully understand the shortcomings of his published work.

    i don’t have to like the man’s business operation to give my opinion that his treatments might work for some. this site isn’t published for his benefit.

    that’s what i believe at this time, people can pay attention or not.

    i warrant nothing, and try to always direct patients to their health care provider .. i’m not a physician, and know nothing about the details of individuals cases… and don’t pretend to.

    if that bothers you, well… your comments will still be here, and the info i’ve written will be here too as long as i can afford to support the site… just in case you hear those terrifying words – you have cancer – one day. peace be with you.

    steve

  8. i was talking to a person a day or so ago, and the discussion turned to the cancer chemoprevention benefit of taking an aspirin a day.

    if you track thru the posts and find the one about breast cancer death reductions… take a look at when it was submtted, and when it was finally published.

    how many women do you think died because of the delay in bringing this information to publication? and what do you think finally drove its publication?

    i think that a person who waits on the peer review process is a dead person.

    simple as that.

  9. When you say you’ve read his writings and have had students review his writings, I’m curious about exactly what you’ve read and reveiwed.

    I know you’re not referring to published reports detailing the results from the more than 60+ Phase II clinical trials Burzynski has registered and has been charging subjects to be part of over the past couple of decades, becasue tehre are no such published reports. According to informations available on the FDA website only one study has even been completed, that in 2009 with no results published. All others have either been terminated without results published, withdrawn after failing to recruit subjects, or are listed as ‘status unknown’ because Burzynski hasn’t bothered to even update the records.

    So what exactly have you read and your students reviewd that supports a claim antineoplastons are a safe and effective treatment for advanced cancers?

  10. JGC….

    Did you pay attention to the reason I was at the Burzynski clinic? No, probably not.. Too busy trying to bang on Burzynski… which is – to me – an extremely curious thing since i can’t imagine why you would, since you probably aren’t studying antineoplaston theory itself.

    I wasn’t there for lunch. I wasn’t there to collect medical histories. I was there to talk to Dr Burzynski about my wife’s terminal cancer situation. My wife and I witnessed this person, and heard his story from himself and his wife in two separate conversations.. I have no idea what other treatments he had had.. although I got the impression that he had not had other treatments. However, in my previous post I avoided saying this … based on the comments I heard from him he had had stage IV prostate cancer that had metastasized to many distant sites throughout his body, and now all sites were gone (based on PET scan) except a small site embedded in bone somewhere..

    That’s what I know..

    However, he did not have the look of a patient who had been through the various treatment options we subjected our patients to at the hospital I worked for at the time, and we treated a large quantity of prostate cancer patients with what would have to be standard of care therapies.

    As an aside, many of the posts I get from those trying to get me to reverse my position on Dr Burzynski completely miss the point that very few patients actually get to be treated by the anti-neoplaston infusion.

    Instead, they are given the oral medication that breaks down to one of the primary antineoplastons in the body’s metabolic processes. It is also my understanding that they are sometimes given chemotherapy. You probably ought to read some of the other posts to see what my position is relative to where to get different therapy modalities…

  11. I have read what Burzynski has provided his patients.. in great detail. I have read articles written by various establishment cancer associations and organizations… in great detail… But I have not – to the best of my recollection – referenced these anywhere in my postings or comments.

    In fact, my students and I have very little interest in clinical trials data.. At least this is the case as far as Burzynski’s antineoplaton therapies are concerned . My interest is along the lines of understanding the history of antineoplaston therapy and the theories behind their origination, metabolism, and theoretical effects on cancers.

    The fundamental question we ask is this – ‘IF antineoplastons have been able to postively impact the prognosis of various cancer patients, and IF Dr Burzynski’s finding that cancer patients are deficient in them reflects reality, WHY ARE THE CANCER PATIENTS DEFICIENT IN ANTINEOPLASTON QUANTITIES, and how can the deficiency be rectified using naturaly occuring bodily processes?’

    For you see, it is my belief that the key to antineoplaston therapy is the reestablishment of the body’s ability to provide what is missing instead of having to travel to Dr Burzyinski’s clinic to get them reintroduced.

    As far as safety, as compared to what? I assume you are actually much smarter than that and are only kidding with this statement. You seem smart enough to know better. Shame on you for trying to misrepresent the safety of current cancer treatment methodologies..

    Since you’re obviously more than capable of doing a google search – or a pub med search – I won’t bother to cut and paste the articles we’ve been reading.. in fact, we view that list – and the interpretation of what is contained within the associated articles – protected intellectual property that belongs to us.

    You are welcome to believe or not believe in antineoplaston’s efficacy… I obviously believe there is something to be learned at the root of it…

  12. ‘As far as safety, as compared to what?”
    Current standard of care, or no treatment at all. Antineoplastins are chemotherapy, and at the doses prescribed cause serious side effects (such as severe hypernatremia).

    “Shame on you for trying to misrepresent the safety of current cancer treatment methodologies.”
    Where have I misrepresented the safety of current treatments in any of my posts? Provide a direct quote where I’ve done so, please.

    “I obviously believe there is something to be learned at the root of it…”
    Clearly, but what I’m wondering is why–what is the basis of your belief there’s something to be learned? I’ve done the necesary due diligence to have an informed opinion–read the journal articles indexed at Pubmed, the FDA’s information on Antineoplastins, etc., but have found nothing that suggests antineoplastins are effective at treating advanced stage cancers. As his antineoplastons (AS 2.1 and A10) are metabolites of phenylbutyrate, which has been the subject of a number of clinical trials but has never been found promising as a treatment for cancer (it’s currently approved for treating urea cycle disorders) there’s actually clinical evidence suggesting we should not expect them to be effective.

    Burzynski himself seems to rely entirely on patient testimonials rather than actual evidence to support claims of efficacy–and that’s despite the fact he’s been conducting Phase II ‘clinical’ trials for more than a decade (he has over 60 registered with the FDA), results of which he refuses to publish.

    If the results of those clinical trials show no signs antineoplastons are ineffective but he continues to unethically charge patients to enroll in clinical trials to receive them, he’s a fraud. If instead they show they ARE effective, and he withholds publishing and making the treatement available to all cancer patients so that he can enjoy a highly lucrative monopoly on a cure, he’s a monster.

    “I won’t bother to cut and paste the articles we’ve been reading.. in fact, we view that list – and the interpretation of what is contained within the associated articles – protected intellectual property that belongs to us.”

    Surely you’re smart enough to understand that evidence no one else is able to see is functionally equivalent to no evidence at all?

  13. “…in fact, we view that list [as]… protected intellectual property that belongs to us.”

    Your reading list is intellectual property?!?! Haha! I haven’t heard that one before. You’ve got to be kidding me.

    Too bad, Steve. You might have been able to redeem Burzynski. But now the world will never know, because you won’t share your patented reading list.

  14. Michael, I suspect that you’re more sophisticated than this post indicates.

    You know that intellectual property is not patented property. Instead, it is data and/or information that an organization or company feels is critical to the research path they have taken in pursuit of an end product.. which might ultimately be a patentable idea or a trade secret, etc..

    There is nothing secret about Burzynski’s publications and writings, nor the things that have been written about him and his research.

    But embedded in those writings – and you will note that I included writings about his research and observed effects – is an idea string that we are researching. It may bear fruit, or be a dead end. Time will tell.

    In fact, I’ll toss you a bone.. There is mention of one of the critical ideas in the posting you commented on yesterday. Surely, with your extensive knowledge base you will pounce on it immediately.

    If you have the background, education and intellect and are willing to really think about the implications of Dr Burzynski’s theories and treatment effects versus other non-mainstream treatments that have shown some efficacy you should be able to google your way to seeing where my interest lies.

    If not, well… it doesn’t matter, does it.

    As far as redeeming Burzynski, that is not my job.

    You don’t like it that I voice my opinion and it doesn’t agree with yours, But I leave your postings here for all to read so that they can get a more balanced review of Burzynski’s treatments.

    And you will note that many of my posts about Burzynski are repostings of information that is not favorable to him and/or his clinic.

    You will not find that anywhere else in the world.

    I think it is important that the information and beliefs from both sides be available to people who are searching for answers.

  15. Now you’re just inventing definitions. Well good for you – it’s your blog. You can help SB profit from the sick and desperate and you can make up your own definitions for legal terms if you want. You certainly have that right.

  16. Burzynski has had forty years, Steve. Forty. Papers typically take 6 months to publish, submission to pubmed indexing, if they get favorable peer reviews. Burzynski has had eighty times that amount of time to publish his evidence. Let’s assume for a second that antineoplastons are an effective chemotherapy for cancer. How many people do you think have died because they couldn’t get or couldn’t afford antineoplastons in the last forty years?

  17. “i am not quite certain what your concern about burzynski is, or what drives your anger.”
    –
    Who’s angry? I comment on your blog because I don’t like seeing people like you (yes, you) get victimized by cancer profiteers like SB. It’s unfortunate that he has recruited you to proseletyze for him. Not officially, of course, but he’s made a believer of you despite that he withheld treatment (effective or not) because you couldn’t pay. This is where I’m conflicted, because I see you as a victim, but I also feel a responsibility to be a voice of reason to your proseletyzing. People who are looking for hope after a cancer diagnosis may encounter your blog and be led to believe that SB is the hope they’re looking for. I want those people to see my comments (which you quite fairly leave up), so they don’t waste their time with something that hasn’t been demonstrated to help anybody.
    –
    “i don’t know if you work in an environment where cancer patients are treated and live and die…[or]… held a dying person in your arms and ached for another option.”
    –
    Reading your blog, I can tell you’ve been through some really gut-wrenching pain. Recently, from the sound of it. Still, no matter how badly you want SB’s treatments to work, it’s much, much more likely that they don’t. You’ve written in other comments that cancer patients don’t have time to die waiting for peer review research to, at long last, tell them what they could find for themselves – that experimental drug X could have saved them. At the same time, you suggest this alternative ‘therapy’ that has not been proven to be useful, despite 40 years of testing. In doing so, you’re doing exactly what you claim you want to avoid – you’re wasting people’s time, insofar as you’re helping SB do it. You claim to be knowledgeabe on the subject, and yet your recommendation is not based on knowledge at all, it’s based on you really wanting antineoplastons to be effective. I know you’ve gone through some difficult stuff, but despite that I think you have good intentions, you’re not actually helping people with cancer. I believe you think you’re helping, but you’re really just helping SB waste their time.

  19. ML,I too would like to thank you for speaking out. I wish more pelpoe would. IMO you have done everything right for yourself. You have made rational, effective decisions regarding your choice of treatment. Then there are the pelpoe who when face with these difficult decisions let emotions rule the day. They will be the one’s who become vulnerable to the Burzynski’s of the world.I hope you continue to do well and are one of the one’s who beats the odds.Best RegardsSusanG

  20. as well as other information and also went with a coapmny that produced A grade nutritionals & safety conscious products free of harmful toxins, (Neways they are the pioneers & still lead the world in the removal of toxins out of our everyday personal care products. You may look at this through my website address kim-bradshaw.myneways.com.au) I attribute my success (within 9wks) to the information and the products I used. I also chose only to listen to people that talked about success not impending failures. The reason I did this is because in my own research every cancer can be related to chemical toxins in our bodies which also contributed to parasites, nutritional deficencies etc. (as you know the list never stops) Thus making the healing process harder and also the more likely-hood of it reoccurring in a number of years. Hence the biggest problem the conventional medical world will not acknowledge. I didn’t do chemo or radiation even though I was threatened. It just doesn’t make sense. let food be thy medicine, thy medicine be thy food We never crave a drug we only crave a food. So why when your body is screaming for clean living do we poison it or deface it.Congratulations on this site. It will help a lot of other people. I also help others know and believe it or not, I am grateful for what I went through so I may share and help others to make better choices with there lives.Kindest regardsKim

  23. – What a wonderful sisoesn and I am happy you shared his story. I just participated in the Susan G. Komen 3Day this past weekend and I have to say that awareness for men having breast cancer is gaining speed. I pray for this family and these images will be cherished.

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