Stanislaw Rajmund Burzynski, Stanislaw R. Burzynski, Stanislaw Burzynski, Stan R. Burzynski, Stan Burzynski, S. R. BURZYNSKI, S. Burzynski, Arthur Burzynski, Hippocrates Hypocrite Hypocrites Critic Critics Critical HipoCritical
—————————————————————— Pat Clarkson, and I come from Danville, California, which is near San Francisco, and I have multiple myeloma; which is not a common cancer
About 20,000 people in the United States have the disease, and about 10,000 die every year, and 10,000 get the disease
So it’s a relatively small number of folks,that have it
So it’s not well
It’s not as well researched as some of the other cancers, um, but we’re hoping that the, um, Burzynski Clinic can help me
There’s not much hope for me
I, I have probably, a, uh, prognosis of a couple, couple years
Maybe a year or two to live, um, without, um, without I, I, an alternative method of treatment, and that’s why
——————————————————————
If I could say this a little differently
The conventional medicine, or what we would call conventional medicine, which is, you know, chemotherapy, radiation, uh, surgery; which is not possible with, uh, multiple myeloma because there is no, no large tumor that can be surgically removed, uh, the doctors have told us basically there is no cure, and that, and I, I say doctors; this is our local oncologist, um, and the head of oncology at, um, University of California, San Francisco; which is a very well respected school, uh, hospital, that there is no, uh, no reasonable possibility of a cure
Um, by contrast, uh, Dr. Burzynski, we have found out, has, uh, cured several people with myeloma, and he’s cured many other people with different kinds of cancer
The problem is, uh, that the FDA in its wisdom, will not allow us to, uh, be treated with the, uh, antineoplastons that are the backbone of the Burzynski therapy
——————————————————————
Well they’ve told us that they don’t have evidence that it’s, um, that it’s an effective treatment
Uh, that, they don’t have evidence that it’s not, non-toxic; which in fact, uh, is incorrect because the FDA does have evidence that it’s non-toxic
——————————————————————
Through the Senator’s office at the, the FDA is saying that they, they don’t know for sure that it’s not toxic; that’s not true, uh, and they don’t know that it will cure the disease, and therefor they can’t approve it
We’re willing
Pat’s willing to take the odds of a treatment, that is not 100% guaranteed, and let’s face it, most of the treatments that are approved by the FDA, are toxic, and are not guaranteed
So we don’t really understand, uh, why they have an issue with it, except that, uh, there’s an awful lot of money involved
Um, one of the peculiarities of the FDA, we understand they’re, by law, required to get much of their funding from the very companies that they’re supposed to be supervising
As, as I understand, uh, the Constitution, there is no basis in the Constitution for the Federal Government to be telling, an American, who they can use for a doctor or what drugs that they can use for, uh, their, their illness
Yet, over the years this, uh, this power has grown and been accepted at the FDA, and now it’s a, uh, uh, it’s, it’s out of control
——————————————————————
We have asked the FDA what is different about my case
Why I don’t get an exemption
We don’t have a response yet to that, to that question
——————————————————————
While doctors are generally very bright; they have to be to get through medical school, but they don’t have any training in critical, critical thinking, and most of them that I run into are not particularly good critical thinkers
The world they live in is to memorize a set of symptoms, then to look up or remember what those symptoms suggest in terms of a disease, and then remember or look up what the treatment is
So, here we have, um, uh, Dr. Burzynski, who is also a Ph.Dbiochemist, which is a, a interesting and, and very useful, uh, combination, who discovered that, um, in people who have cancer, they generally don’t have, or they have very reduced levels of what he now calls, uh, antineoplastons, and neoplaston is simply the medical jargon for cancer; so it’s anti-cancer, in effect, um, he discover the people who, uh, don’t have cancer, do have, high levels of this, and determined from research that these are controlled by, um, by the genes, and it’s part of the body’s immune system, in effect
We all produce cancer cells everyday of our lives
Like we produce bac, or have bacteria in our gi, digestive tract, that is controlled, by certain genes
In this case, um, he discovered that by, uh, by injecting, uh, or infusing, uh, these, they’re called peptides, peptide, that the patient could be helped
How, how innocuous, or how anti-toxic, can you have
It’s a, it’s a substance th, the body itself produces, unless the genes have shut down
Which is the case in, uh, some, in most, or at least half I guess, of multiple myeloma cases
——————————————————————
My, my message would be that they don’t have the right to tell me to hold a, a life or a death, um, decision
They, they don’t have the right to tell me that, um, I can’t have treatment that I seek, or I will die
I don’t think they have that right to do that
——————————————————————
Treatment is available
Uh, it is our choice
We are free Americans
We’re well informed
Uh, well educated
It should be our choice, and the Federal government in any, in any form should not have the authority to interfere with that
——————————————————————
Uh, nothing’s guaranteed in this world, um, but we’ve got, um, we’ve got some confidence in this clinic and in this treatment
======================================
Pat & Steve Clarkson
January 27, 2012
Houston, Texas
6:25
2/3/2012
——————————————————————
GorskiGeekstarts off his soapbox stump speech:
—————————————————————— “I was very pleased last Friday, very pleased indeed”
——————————————————————
Of course he was
After all, it was as if USA TODAY was quoting directly from “The Skeptics™”fave Fahrvergnügen pharyngula and GorskGeeks’sjackedJulyjabberwocky at “The Amazing Meeting”2013 (TAM 2013 #TAM2013) Twitter Twaddle-fest
Given the normal subject matter of this blog, in which I face a seemingly unrelenting infiltration of pseudononsensepseudononscience and hackery into even the most hallowed halls of hacademic medicine, against which I seem to be fighting a mostly uphill battle, having an opportunity to see such an excellent non-deconstruction of science and medicine in a large badmainstream news outlet like USA TODAY, GONE TOMORROW is rare and ungratifying
GorskGeek gambits:
—————————————————————— “As you might recall, USA TODAY reporter Liz Szabo capped off a months-long investigation of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski and his Burzynski Clinic with an excellent (and surprisingly long and detailed) report, complete with sidebars explaining why cancer experts don’t think that Burzysnki’s anecdotes are compelling evidence that his treatment, antineoplastons, has significant anticancer activity and a human interest story about patients whom Burzynski took to the cleaners”
——————————————————————
My question ?
GorskGeek, how do you know it was a:
“months-long investigation” ?
The article does NOT indicate HOW LONG the USA TODAY“investigation” took
From this, I can only conclude, as I did after 1st reading the article, that based on the comments of Dr. David H. Gorski“Orac”, that there must have been collusion between “The Skeptics™” and USA TODAY
Most of this, of course, is no news to my readers, as I’ve been writing about Dr. Burzynski on a fairly regular basis for over 8 months now
—————————————————————— GorskGeek goofs:
—————————————————————— “It’s just amazing to see it all boiled down into three articles and ten short videos in the way that Szabo and USA TODAY did, to be read by millions, instead of the thousands who read this blog“
—————————————————————— Thousands read his blog ?
Does he mean over the 2 year period he’s been writing about Burzynski ?
GorskGeekInspector Gadgets:
—————————————————————— “Szabo also found out who the child was who died of hypernatremia due to antineoplastons in June 2012, a death that precipitated the partial clinical hold on Burzynski’s bogus clinical trials, about which both Liz Szabo and I have quoted Burzynski’s own lawyer, Richard Jaffe, from his memoir, first about Burzynski’s “wastebasket” trial, CAN-1“
—————————————————————— GorskGeek and USA TODAY both hashtag Failed to point out that a boy, the same age as Josia Cotto, survived a serum sodium (Na+) level of 234 mEq/L
If GorskGeek actually knew how to do real “science-based medicine” research, and if Liz Szabo and Jerry Mosemak had really actually done a “months-long investigation”, maybe USA TODAY and “Orac” could have had enough time to have figured the above out, as well as the clinical trialBurzynski’sattorney, Rick Jaffe, was referring to, was the CAN-1, which even you did NOT display any knowledge of in the July TAMmany Twaddle [3], and your 11/15/2013article[4]
——————————————————————
Naturally, upon reading Liz Szabo’s “ story,” I wondered how long it would be before there would be a response from GorskGeek or his minions
Both responses contain the same sorts of tropes, misinformation, and pseudononscience that I’ve come to expect from GorskGeek[1-2+4]
USA TODAY is biased and in the pocket of “The Skeptics™”
It was a “Shite Muslim Militia” piece
—————————————————————— GorskGeekdreamsicles:
—————————————————————— “I’ve deconstructed these, and many more, of Merola’s nonsense over the last two years”
“Odd how @BurzynskiMovie pretends I haven’t deconstructed his “evidence” in depth before”?
Really ?
GorskGeek is so much a monumental myopic Mythomaniac
GorskGeek all you did was “cherry-pick” what you wanted to blather about, and selectively ignored everything else
——————————————————————
What actually surprised me was the viscousness of the counterhackattack
For example, in counterhackattackingEric Merola’s letter to Liz Szabo, GorskGeek tries unsuccessfully to claim that Merola actually hopes that her child will get cancer, so that Burzynski supporters can gloat about it and Szabo will have to apologize to her children for her “perfidy” (in GorskGeek’s eyes, at least):
—————————————————————— GorskGeek gesticulates:
—————————————————————— “He denies that he hopes Szabo’s children will develop brain cancer, but then gloats gleefully over the possibility that she would have to face them after having—again in his mind—”helped to destroy the only thing that could have helped” them”
——————————————————————
In the dictionary, under the definition of “spin bowel movement (SBM),” there should be a picture of “Dr.” (and I use that term very “loosely”) David Gorski
GorskGeek would have fit in holistically as the propagandist for Hitler, Lenin, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc.
Then, just when I thought GorskGeek couldn’t go any lower, he does, this time in his longer response on his blog
—————————————————————— “Eric Merola and Stanislaw Burzynski respond to the FDA findings and the USA TODAY story. Hilarity ensues”
——————————————————————
Obviously, to “Orac” asking GorskGeek to follow normal rules regulating medical ethics and human subject protections in critical trolls’ blog trials is exactly like murdering millions of people’s brain cells, carrying out horrible medical experimentation on common sense and sensibility, making untold numbers of Africans, slaves to his stupendousmess, and harassing, gratuitously, families of soldiers “killed” by his word salad battle
Didn’t anyone ever teach GorskGeek that you need to build up to that sort of climax ?
Of course, the big difference between Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, unfortunately, is that compared to “Orac,” he had talent, and David GorskGeek does NOT
GorskGeek is a hack and is only funny by accident because he has no filters that tell him when he’s going way under the top
To him, Burzynski is an infidel
I do not share his belief, but, even worse, I have the temerity to criticize his god“Orac,” or, to mix metaphors shamelessly, to point out that GorskGeekhas no clothes
Since I’ve dealt with so many of the tropes included in GorskGeek’snot-so-little rant, I hardly see the need to repeat myself
However, as a breast cancer surgeon’s skeptic, I find one of GorskGeek’slies to be as despicable, or perhaps more so, than his ad hominem comparisons
—————————————————————— GorskGeek, the Hitler of hipocracy, came up with this hit parade of paranoia and “conspiracy theory”:
—————————————————————— “I don’t know what sort of attacks on the UK bloggers who produce the bulk of the skeptical blog posts about Burzynski are coming in Burzynski II, but when it comes to me no doubt Merola is referring to this bit of yellow journalism in 2010 from an antivaccine propagandist named Jake Crosby, entitled David Gorski’s Financial Pharma Ties: What He Didn’t Tell You” [5]
—————————————————————— GorskGeek then ad hocs ad nauseum about ad hominem fallacy
“In this fallacy, rather than addressing the actual evidence and science that demonstrate their favorite brand of woo to be nothing more than fairy dust, the idea is to preemptively attack and discredit the person“
“The ad hominem is not just insults or concluding that someone is ignorant because, well, they say ignorant things and make stupid arguments (in which case calling someone stupid or ignorant might just be drawing a valid, albeit impolitic, conclusion from observations of that person’s behavior), but rather arguing or insinuating that you shouldn’t accept someone’s arguments not because their arguments are weak but because they have this personal characteristic or that or belong to this group or that“[6]
—————————————————————— GorskGeek, the huckster of hackery laments that “The Skeptics™” are subject to character assassination, NOT because of their “science-based medicine”, but, alas, for being biased, lying, cowards
So, he must justify that as to why he then ad hominems those who he harangues:
—————————————————————— “In Burzynski The Movie, Dr. Whitaker has his nose embedded so far up Dr. Burzynski’s rectum that Dr. Burzynski wouldn’t need a colonoscopy if Merola just strapped a light to Dr. Whitaker’s face“[7]
——————————————————————
—————————————————————— “In the meantime, I realized that seeing Josh Duhamel stick his proboscis firmly up Burzynski’s posterior was not enough to explain the disturbance that I was feeling“[8]
——————————————————————
—————————————————————— GorskiGeek seems to have an unhealthy infatuation with ASS
My suppositorsition is that GorskiGeek, the highfalutin’ He-Man of hypocrisy, does wax on, wax off, waxes phonetic about ASS, because he is the apex of ASSmuchness
——————————————————————
In essence, he denies the toxicity of water in terms I’ve never seen anyone try to downplay before:
Water… is toxic?
This was perhaps the most stunningly malicious use of emotion to manipulate the reader in any of the propaganda pieces against H2O in history
—————————————————————— GorskGeekclaims:
—————————————————————— “Josia, as readers of Liz Szabo’s report will know, was the six year old boy with an inoperable brain tumor who died of hypernatremia (elevated sodium levels in the blood) as a result of Burzynski’s therapy“
—————————————————————— GorskGeek gassticulates:
—————————————————————— “As I pointed out last Friday and Szabo reported in her story, before his death Josia’s serum sodium was measured at 205 mEq/L, way above the normal range of 136-145 mEq/L and well into the lethal range”
“As I pointed out then, I’ve never seen a sodium level anywhere near that high“
“During my residency, the highest I recall ever seeing was maybe around 180 mEq/L”
——————————————————————
As I already pointed out previously in this article:
GorskGeek and USA TODAY both hashtag Failed to point out that a boy, the same age as Josia Cotto, survived a serum sodium (Na+) level of 234 mEq/L
GorskGeekclaims that Josiadied of hypernatremia (elevated sodium levels in the blood) as a result of Burzynski’s therapy
GorskGeek does NOT provide ANY citation(s), reference(s), and / or link(s) in support of his claim, and does NOT provide a copy of the autopsy
GorskGeek’s brain cells must be “sleeping in excess”, hence the symptoms of lethargy progressing ignorance of adverse events which approach critical black hole levels
Of course, none of this is new information
—————————————————————— GorskGeek hacks:
—————————————————————— “I also note that one of Burzynski’s most famous patients, Hannah Bradley, who with her partner Pete Cohen proclaims herself cured of her brain cancer, thanks to Burzynski, suffered some pretty serious toxicities from antineoplastons herself, including high fevers to 103.9° F, shaking chills, and severe rashes“
“Pete even documented how badly Hannah reacted to antineoplastons in his YouTube documentary Hannah’s Anecdote”
—————————————————————— GorskGeekflummoxes in that he erred to elucidate that the “rash” which Hannah experienced, even entailed epilepsy anti-seizure medication [4]
GorskGeekgambols the gabroni gambit by giving nothing but glib reasons for his genetically challenged gestation of Hannah’svlogs after gears up for Great Britain
Yes, GorskGeek is gabless about Hannah’sprogress in the G.B. as a germinating gerbil, as far as flu or fever, perhaps fearing his failure to feature any fact-checking facilitation a fanboy of Fanectdotes should fittingly fictionalize
——————————————————————
The rest of GorskGeek’srant reads like a greatest hits compilation from cancer hacks
You get the picture
That’s the whack-n-hack counterhackfensive trying to shore up Liz Szabo’ssorryarticle
—————————————————————— GorskGeekblowshard and long about the FDA Form 483′s findings, but does NOT heed his massive failure to be persuaded that:
“The FDA has not yet issued final conclusions”
——————————————————————
Who would doubt that if GorskGeek were to blog about Burzynski’s1997 criminal trial, that he would NOT list each and every one of the 34 counts of mail fraud, 40 counts of violating Food and Drug Administration regulations, and the 1 contempt-of-court charge; all “allegations”, which netted the U.S. Gubment absolutely NOTHING ? [9]
—————————————————————— GorskGeekidolizes the Burzynski Research Institute(BRI)IRB, because of Burzynski’sscientific publications, which indicate:
—————————————————————— 2003 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
—————————————————————— 3/2004 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
—————————————————————— 9/2004 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
—————————————————————— 2004 – Membership of Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in compliance with FDA guidelines [10]
—————————————————————— 6/2005 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
—————————————————————— GorskGeek then does a piss-poor“slight of hand job”, jerking the reader off about Pseudoprogression, pseudoresponse, so-called pseudoprogression, and “One phenomena, termed Pseudo-Progression (psPD)”
GorskGeekfalls flat face first for failing to show this phenomenon has factually happened [11]
I’ve made no secret of how much I dispute David H. Gorski, a la “Orac”, the “self-proclaimed”brain cancer doctor and brain cancer researcher who has been treating readers with an unproven, unapproved, NOT ordinarychemotherapeutic agent since Jesus just left Chicago, bound for Nawlins, seemingly Elaphe longissimaslithering around, under, over, and past all attempts to intestate him and shut him up
Along the way, GorskGeek has become a hero to the cancer hackery industry, touted as the man who can cure incurable insomnia that science-based medicine can’t, even though his treatment, insolence, allegedly pop tarts isolated from bloopers and Uranus that normally keep insomnia in check in healthy people, are by any reasonable definition NOT ordinary chemotherapy
Indeed, they are toxic, with a number of side effects reported, the most common and dangerous of which being life-threatening hyperactivity (elevated sugar levels in the blood)
All you have to do is to type GorsGeek’s name into the search box of this blog, and you’ll find copious documentation of the abuses of patience, science, and critical trials perpetrated by “Orac” and the cult of impersonality that has evolved around him
He’s even acquired his very own film perpougendist, a credulous fellow named Bob Blaskiewicz, who has made 2 astoundingly bad hackumentaries that are nothing more than unabashed hagiographies of the brave maverick doctor curing insolence where no one else can
They’re chock full of misinformation, pseudononsense, spin, and obvious emotional manipulation, and the 2nd one, at least, was very popular
For the longest time, I’ve been hoping that major mainstream news organizations would take this story on
—————————————————————— GorskGeekclaims:
“Now, thanks to Liz Szabo at USA Today, we know from her article Doctor accused of selling false hope to families [1]:
“Yet hypernatremia is one of antineoplastons’ most common side effects, known to doctors for two decades”
—————————————————————— GorskGeek, of course, does NOT care to mention the 2 hypernatremia studies that I listed in the 2nd of my 3 critiques on USA TODAY’s“hatchet job” of Burzynski[2], because, as he accuses others:
THEY DO NOT FIT HIS NARRATIVE
—————————————————————— GorskGeek continues:
—————————————————————— “showed a blood sodium level of 205 millimoles per liter, a level that is typically fatal“
“I was astounded to see that number“
“I’ve never, ever seen a sodium level that high“
“Typically, normal is typically between 135 and 145 mEq/L, with slight variations of that range depending on the lab”
“Burzynski’s excuse, which I’ve heard at various times as being due to an “improper blood draw” or as described above, is purest nonsense”
“Unless the technician spiked Josia’s sample with 3% saline or something like that, there’s no way to get the leve that high”
“Josia almost certainly died because of hypernatremia from antineoplaston therapy“
“To me, this is the biggest revelation of the story:”
“The story and identity of the child who was killed by Burzynski’s treatments“
——————————————————————
I did NOT know that GorskGeek was the Medical Examiner for the United States Food and Drug Administration
—————————————————————— GorskGeek is mistaken, as the “purest nonsense” is his nonsensical claim:
“I’ve never, ever seen a sodium level that high“
The reasonGorskGeek has:
“never, ever seen a sodium level that high”
is because he’s a “hack”, who’s more interested in churning out as many blogsplats as he can, rather than doing real“science-based medicine”research
As evidence of MY claim, I submit:
—————————————————————— 9/2004 – A Non-Fatal Case of Sodium Toxicity (Hypernatremia)
—————————————————————— “6 year old boy who was taken to the hospital following a seizure attack, and lab analyses revealed a serum sodium (Na+) levels of 234 mEq/L”
“A search of the boy’s house led to the discovery of rock salt in the cabinet and a container of table salt”
“Extrapolating from the serum sodium (Na+) level, it was estimated that the child had ingested approximately 4 tablespoons of rock salt, leading to the acute toxicity“
“A literature search revealed that the serum sodium (Na+) concentration in the present report was the highest documented level of sodium in a living person“
Non-Fatal 193-209 mEq/L have been reported previously [3]
——————————————————————
We also learn that—surprise! surprise!—GorskGeek is an enormous tool
(as opposed to having “an enormous tool” His cranium is too small to have “enormous tool”)
—————————————————————— GorskGeek then hacks:
—————————————————————— “Look at him dismiss his critics, particularly former patients, many of whom, let’s recall, have terminal cancer, many of whom are dead:”
“Burzynski dismisses criticism of his work, referring to his detractors as “hooligans” and “hired assassins.””
—————————————————————— GorskGeek, you are a “hooligan”, liar, lame, loser, et al.
—————————————————————— GorskGeek proceeds:
—————————————————————— “You know, whenever I hear Burzynski fans like Eric Merola accuse skeptics of attacking cancer patients, of accusing them of horrible things”
“I think I will throw this quote right back in their faces”
“Here’s Burzynski calling his patients prostitutes, thieves, and mafia bosses, and “not the greatest people in the world,” while accusing them of wanting to “extort money from us.””
—————————————————————— GorskGeek, LAME attempt at another LIE
Burzynski did NOT CALL his patients what YOU claim he called them
Let me repeat it for YOU, because I have the sneaking suspicion that YOU are “intellectually challenged”
BurzynskiSAID:
“We see patients from various walks of life”
“We see great people”
“We see crooks”
“We have prostitutes”
“We have thieves”
“We have mafia bosses”
“We have Secret Service agents”
“Many people are coming to us, OK?”
“Not all of them are the greatest people in the world”
—————————————————————— GorskGeek, just in case you did NOT learn this at the University of Michigan, there is a difference between SAYING“WE SEE” and / or “WE HAVE”, and CALLING someone something
Allow me to provide you with a great example
If I SAY that YOU are the BIGGEST POMPOUS ASS I’ve ever seen, and YOU are NOT a BIG POMPOUS ASS, then THAT is derogatory
However, if I CALL YOU the BIGGEST POMPOUS ASS that I have ever seen, because you really and truly are a BIG POMPOUS ASS; as you are, then THAT is NOT derogatory
—————————————————————— GorskGeek tries again:
—————————————————————— “Not surprisingly, he also liberally uses the Galileo gambit, but that’s not surprising, as he’s repeatedly made the hilariously arrogant and scientifically ignorant claim that he is a pioneer in genomic and personalized cancer therapy and that M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and other world-class cancer centers are “following his lead.””
“Indeed, he claimed to have invented the field 20 years ago”
“Sadly, his publication record does not support such grandiose claims“
—————————————————————— GorskGeek, how would you know ?
You proved that you weren’t smarter than a 5th grader when you could NOT find Burzynski’s1997 Antineoplastons, oncogenes and cancer [4]
—————————————————————— “Curious as to just what the heck Burzynski was talking about here, I searched PubMed for this alleged review article”
“I couldn’t find it on PubMed“
“Perhaps Burzynski proposed this “revolutionary” new idea in a peer-reviewed article that’s not indexed in PubMed, but if he did I couldn’t find it using Google and Google Scholar“[5]
So why should ANYONE believe that you were able to locate the rest of his publications
and review all of them?
Now THAT would be a “grandiose claim”
—————————————————————— GorskGeek was also the village “idiot savant” (minus the “savant”) who face planted:
“how Burzynski never explains which genes are targeted by antineoplastons … “[6]
GorskGeek must have fumed for days when he found I “fact-checked” his fluff and found it false: [7-8]
—————————————————————— GorskGeekhopes to wreak havoc when he harrumphs:
—————————————————————— “For instance, experts are saying the same things I’ve been saying for a couple of years now about Burzynski’s anecdotes of “miracle cures,” such as Hannah Bradley and Laura Hymas”
“The reasons for these anecdotes include:”
“Burzynski often relies on anecdotes, which don’t tell the full story”
“Burzynski’s therapies are unproven“
“Burzynski’s patients may have been misdiagnosed“
“Burzynski’s patients may have been cured by previous therapy“
“There’s a reason why I’ve spent so much time deconstructing Burzynski anecdotes, and it’s for all of those reasons plus that anecdotes are often interpreted incorrectly by patients without medical training”
“Even doctors who are not oncologists sometimes interpret such anecdotes incorrectly to indicate that the cancer therapy chosen is the therapy that cured the patient“
“It’s not just Burzynski patient anecdotes, but it’s any cancer cure anecdote“
“That’s why clinical trials are necessary to differentiate all these confounding effects from actual effects due to the treatment”
—————————————————————— GorskiGeek displays what an abject #FAIL he is, as the question he should be asking is:
Why is the Food and Drug Administration FORCING patients to #FAIL conventional treatments; such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, before being allowed to utilize antineoplaston therapy ?
If the FDA was NOT doing this, then GorskGeek and the “so-called experts” would NOT have this crutch to fall back on
GorskGeek, please list all the other phase II clinical trials where the F.D.A. has done this, and please also explain what would you do if the FDA did this to YOUR clinical trials ?
I know this might require some “Grapefruits” on your part, but do try and see if you can find yours in order to pull this off, if you’re NOT the coward I think you are
And when you’re done with that, please try to explain away the case of Jessica Ressel-Doeden
GorskGeekwinds up for the pitch of bullshit
He ratchets back his right arm and rockets it right into his rectum, reaches ’round and pulls out this righteousness:
—————————————————————— “Not coincidentally, Hannah Bradley had surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, and Laura Hymas had radiation and chemotherapy”
GorskGeek, Hannah Bradley NEVER had chemotherapy, unless you are now going to claim that by “chemotherapy” you meant antineoplastons [9]
Hannah specifically mentioned:
“Chemotherapy also mentioned but not strong enough for that” [10]
—————————————————————— GorskGeek:
“Even doctors who are not oncologists sometimes interpret such anecdotes incorrectly” ?
I think you meant, even breast cancer oncologist specialists who are NOT brain cancer oncology specialists interpret incorrectly, you JackASS
====================================== [4] – 1997 – Burzynski. S.R. Antineoplastons. oncogenes and cancer. Anti-Aging Medical Therapeutics, Vol.1. Klatz RM.
Goldman R. (Ed). Health Quest Publication 1997; Marina del Rey, CA. USA
Pg. 24
——————————————————————
====================================== 4/2012 – Pete Cohen chats with Rick Jaffe (33:59) 11/9/2012 Richard A. Jaffe, Esq.
======================================
How did you meet Dr. Burzynski?
A long time ago in 1988, um, he hired us to represent him in his Medical Board case, so, uh, started working for him then, and then there got to be more and more work, and, uh, at some point it was so much work, it was just easier for me to be down here
So I moved from New York to Texas, mostly just to, to represent him, and my wife was in the oil industry, so, it was a “no brainer” for her to move down here too
And how, were you intrigued by this whole case ?
I mean, did you work out straight away that this guy was genuine, and there was really something here ?
No (laugh)
How do you know, you know ?
At the time we represented, uh, a number of a alternative health practitioners around the country, and we heard a lot about Burzynski, but you don’t really know
I mean, um, um, there are a lot of stories out there
Every doctor seems to have a few patients, uh, that were helped
So initially, I mean, how do you know ?
His operation was larger than most of any, uh, health practitioners, alternative health practitioners in the country, and, uh, seemed a lot more sophisticated, but, uh, it’s not really until you dig in the medical records of the patients that you really see what’s going on
I mean, that’s what you really need
I mean,
It’s not really even, it’s
’cause this whole thing about anecdotal evidence, that everyone has testimony
so every doctor
You know what I mean ?
anybody
Even charlatans have testimony
people
one or two people
or 3 or 4 that’ll come, and say w
they were cured, and maybe, maybe the patients really believe that to be the case, but, um, oftentimes there’s other explanations
Prior treatment, um, the nature of the disease
Sometimes it’s such that their natural, the natural history is not straight linear, um, but after looking at some of the medical records, I mean, you know, I think
it’s just,
uh, anybody would become a believer, and indeed, I mean, government, government doctors have come down here and looked at
some of the records, and they were convinced that, that the treatment was causing remissions in some brain cancer patients
So, I mean, obviously lawyers, I imagine many lawyers all over the world would often take on a case, when they know, possibly the guy isn’t telling the truth, but they can see there’s still a story, and they, they, they, they, uh, represent that person, but for you, I suppose
that when you realized that there really was a story here, did you kind of get, emotionally caught up in this whole thing and think: “Right, th this guy’s got a cure for cancer, and I I need to bring this to, bring him to just, not bring him to justice, but, clear his name
Well, I think with Burzynski, more so than any client I’ve ever represented
He represents a unique constellation of medical services
He’s the only guy in the world doing what he’s doing with antineoplastons and now with this treatment, so, it’s really different
Uh, you know, with Burzynski, most of the patients, are in bad shape
They’re either dying, uh, they, or they have a disease for which there is no known cure, you know, like a lot of these brain tumors
So, even from the beginning, what’s different is their are many, many patients back then who were on the treatment, that uh, that felt that without this treatment they were going to die, and so that, that’s much different, than the average, any kind of lawsuit
Right ?
So th th these lawsuits, the Burzynski cases back then and now, uh, these cases matter, in a, in a deeper, and fundamental, and personal way than most anything, well I think that any lawyer does
I mean, any criminal defense lawyer, who defends an individual, is defending that person’s, uh, liberty
Alright ?
Versus incarceration
But here it, it wasn’t so much, or, it wasn’t exclusively about Burzynski, it was really about all these other patients, and they certainly believe they needed him, and, uh, uh, many of them, obviously did
So, so that, that, that’s a whole ‘nother dimension, which typically we lawyers don’t get involved in
So, I mean, it’s a responsibility but also a great privilege to be working on these kinds of cases
You’ve been representing him for how long ?
For a long time
Since 1988, continuously
And can you believe this is still going on ?
Well, you know, uh, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s just ongoing
I mean, until there’s a cure for cancer, for all cancer, either done by acknowledged
or, uh, uh, to be Burzynski’s cure or somebody else’s
I mean, this is ongoing
And I guess the problem is, you know, ultimately, there’s nobody yet
Not even Burzynski has the cure for every cancer or
even every stage, or even ev, every, ev, ev, every person that had cancer
So, because it’s such a tough battle, and because, it doesn’t work on everyone
So you have these open questions
Ah, so, so,
Yeah, I mean, I guess, I, I can’t believe he’s still messing around with these clinical trials
I mean, I think that if the drug didn’t have his name attached to it, it’d probably would have been approved by now
So, and I think, so that, that’s unfortunate, I think, that when you fight the FDA, and even if you win, you know, the F, the repercussions, you know, you know I, you know I
Hopefully the drug will be approved, sometime in the future, but, but who knows ?
So, um, why do you think, why was it, I mean, obviously I came over here as you know, for this case, which is now not going ahead at the moment
Why, why, why is that ?
Wha, what has the judge, said ?
Well, of course, you have to (under)stand, this case involves a different type of treatment
It doesn’t involve antineoplastons,the drug Dr. Burzynski invented, and your friend is receiving, and it involves a new approach to cancer, which is sort of like personalized medicine, where they take a bunch of FDA approved drugs, that have shown some promise, on a particular cancer, but are not, uh, approved for that indication, and based on these early clinical trials showing promising results for genetic testing they give these combinations of FDA approved drugs, off-label to patients, and that’s really what the, this case is about, and, uh, you know I think, I don’t think they, they never had a case
I mean, they never had a case
The, the main allegation, in each, of the 2 patients involved, is that they used this treatment, which wasn’t sufficiently tested, and was non-therapeutic, and whatnot, and we had a, what I would call a dry run
We presented the evidence to the Board, or 2 members of the Board, in both of these cases
In each, in each case, the Board members felt that the treatment, was within the standard of care, given the advanced condition of the patient, or one patient, and given how rare the other patient’s tumor was
So, we had our dry run in each case, and the Board found in our favor on the main charge
They had some technical issues with medical records or whatnot, and, uh, the Board basically said, they took the position, ok, agree to some kind of sanction on these little charges, or, or we’re going to go after you on everything
So, we refused the honor, and, uh, the Board then charged him with the same thing that they already cleared him with, or on, and, and so we had to do, you know, basically the same case again, and, uh, the irony in, is in these 2 cases Burzynski wasn’t even in the country
He was, he was, he was away for, uh, in both, for both cases, when the patientscame
So, uh, the question is how do you hold someone responsible
Even if you own the clinic, for treatment administered and prescribed, by other doctors, and that concept of vicarious liability does not, uh, exist in jurisprudence, and in the law governing professional re, responsibility, anywhere in this country
So, the Board’strying to start that
You know, I think they just got in over their heads, they
Most people just knuckle under
You know, most people don’t, are afraid to go to court, so they’ll sign anything just to, you know, not to go forward, but, you know, Burzynski faced serious stuff
I mean, he set, faced, 5, 10, 15 years in jail
So he wasn’t going to be intimidated, by the Medical Board, and he refused to give in
So when I told the Board at the time, and I told them all along, they have no case, and o on the merits they have no case
We already won, and they have no case now, and, and slowly I think, the Board is starting to understand that
And what sort of a person would you say Dr. Burzynski is ?
Well I think he’s a complicated person
I mean, I think, uh, uh, you know, he, I think like a lot of mavericks; I represent a lot of mavericks around the, uh, uh, country
One of the main characteristics of these guys, is that they have absolute and total certainty, in what they believe in, in what they do, um, and no doubt
Uh, they all think they’re right
They all think that history is going to vindicate them
Now, I’ve represented some people where I personally doubt (laugh) that, uh, uh, that belief, but not in Dr. Burzynski’s case
I mean, I think he’s all, he’s definitely helping people
He’s definitely, uh, uh, uh, making, extending people’s lives, and curing some people that otherwise would have died, and so I think he, and so I think he happens to be right
So, uh, you know, so, but, but he’s a human
He’s got a big ego
He thinks he’s, uh, he thinks he has made an important, contribute to medicine, and he’s not shy about sharing that sentiment
So, uh, I think, and I think that he’s, uh, not American
So he comes with a completely different mentality towards, say, the government
Alright, he grew up in communist Poland, where everyone, where everyone, has to work around, the government, and I think that’s much harder here, and, you know, I think he has expectations that, that he would have a lot more freedom, than it turned out he had, too, and he thought he would not have to deal with the kind of government, uh, rigamarole that you have to deal with in communist, Poland
And, and how do you think it might all pan out for him ?
I mean, I know you don’t have a crystal ball, but if you could look, 5 or 10 years down into the future, and, do you think that he will have got somewhere, to be accepted in the medical (?) of oncology ?
Well, I certainly hope so
I mean, 5, 10 years from now
I mean, I think, at a minimum, what’s going to happen, there will be many, many patients who will be alive, and continue to be alive because of him
Some, will have their lives extended
Some will be cured
Some wi, won’t be cured, and will die
So, I think that’s for sure, going to happen
You know, is there going to be an end to, uh, all this ?
We had a period of maybe 10 years where there was very little action with the Board, but, uh, you know, it’s hard, frankly, I mean, just in, and again my perspective, like I’m in a, like a, a sergeant in the trenches, in trench (laugh) warfare
So, it’s hard for me to see the big picture
I mean, I just keep fighting these battles, and there’s one, after another, after another
So this is really just the latest, and on there’s civil lawsuits, and then there are people on the Internet, and then, you know, there could be more Medical Board investigations
So, lo, look there are a lot of people who don’t like what he’s doing
They think what he’s doing is either unethical or wrong, or shouldn’t be giving drugs, these drugs to people, except under clinical trial conditions, and, you know, he has detractors, and he has a lot of supporters
I mean, uh, mostly amongst the patients he’s cured
So, I don’t know that, that, that is gonna resolve itself
I mean, ultimately, he’s one of the few people in the country, that, or maybe the only person in the country that does what he does, and, it’s not the way medicine is practiced, in this country, typically
Right, and, you know, I think what he does, is, is more, is more patient oriented, in a sense that, once you’ve been told you’re terminal, why should you just get the palliative care that a medical oncologist thinks, you know, they should be given
even though when, no one ever gets cured of chemotherapy, once it’s palliative, once you have stage 4, solid tumor
Mmm
I mean, they give chemotherapy for what they call palliative reasons, which means, not curative
So, this concept of giving, just conventional chemotherapy to make you feel better, extend your life 9 weeks, I mean, y, not everyone wants to do that
Some people want a shot for a real cure, and, you know, based on the evidence with antineoplastons
, I mean, he seems to be giving people that shot, and curing some of the people
So, you, you know, I don’t see how, this thing gets resolved
Up until the time that the treatment, the antineoplastons is approved by the FDA and, you know,
it’s, it’s hard to see a clear path, for that, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is financial
I mean, it takes dozens of 10’s of millions of dollars
Mmm
or 10, 100’s of millions
So, I mean, someone has to finance the clinical trials
The drug companies aren’t interested right now
They’d just as soon, buy a drug that’s been fully tested
So, I mean, the drug company response has not been overwhelming, because, even though this phase 2 phase, have resolved, and, and, uh, they have excellent results, the drug companies want to wait and see
So, uh, it’s, it’s big money
I don’t think there’s any way in the world Dr. Burzynski, himself, can fund phase 3
I mean, he, he funded everything else now, but phase 3 are, is a much bigger stage involving dozens and 100’s of patients, and that’s just within the financial means of any individual
it seems like it’s unlikely that its going to happen right
I mean, even from the point of view of, what, with phase 3 trials, they’ll be with children
with brainstem gliomas, right
and the FDA’s saying they’ve got to have radiation
Yeah I, um,
I unfortunately, I haven’t been involved in that process
I just see the result, and I, I, I just don’t see how any parent agrees to that, you know
I don’t see how any parent agrees to it
I don’t see how clinical investigator, agrees to do it
Um, I don’t know
I got so, I got some questions of the FDA as to, why they forced him into this particular protocol
I mean, I don’t know
I don’t have any facts or evidence, but I, I, just doesn’t make any sense to me
what’s you’re about that ?
I don’t know
I mean, I, it just doesn’t seem to me, that it’s a, that it’s a fair clinical trial that
Mmm
either an investigator would find ethical, or a patient, or a family, would agree to have their patient treat, their, their kid treated under
I mean, it just doesn’t make any sense to me
I mean, it’s worse than
I mean, both phases, both phases, both arms of the study, you get radiation
It’s radiation alone versus radiation with his stuff
So, I mean, it just doesn’t make any sense to me, given, given the clinical, the phase 2 clinical trial results
So just a, so just a few things, like, you know I’m going to talk about big Pharma, and then talk about the FDA
Right
They talk about the many people as if they’re one person, but, you know, they’re obviously a collective group of individuals who work for an organization, right ?
Well, I mean, I think, the concern is, that the FDA now, by statute is, in no small part funded, by the pharmaceutical industry
It’s like “Pay as you go”
So the, the pharmaceutical ind, industry now, pays for, the processing of the clinical trials by the FDA
So, and then you have the whole concept of the revolving door
You have a lot of government officials going into the drink, uh, drug companies
So I think that’s another problem
So, I mean, you know, I think conspiracy is too strong of a word, m, but, you know, I will say, I don’t think the system’s set up, for an individual like Burzynski, to get a drug approved
I, I, I just don’t see
There’s no support for that
I mean, the days
I mean, it’s like, Einstein, you know ?
He sat in a patent office, and, and doodled, and had his little theory
He could never get his, stuff published today, you know ?
Where did he go to school ?
Where was he teaching, you know ?
So Burzynski has a lot of the same problems
They say he doesn’t publish, but, they won’t let him publish
So, uh, or they won’t let him publish , in, in the mainstream journals
So, I, I, I think though, I think the, I think the system, has a strong bias, against a guy with a discovery
So, that’s not quite saying, there’s a conspiracy, but it’s, it’s sort of along the same lines, and, you know, the conspiracy implies some kind of, um, intentionality on the part of one or two, or some small group or coterie of people, and I don’t know, I don’t think that’s really the case
I think what happens is, the institutions are such that, they allow certain things, and disallow certain things
Alright ?
I think that’s just
there’s no
I don’t think there’s any 2, 3, 4, or some, coterie of Rocka, they’re like a Rockefellerconspiracy
People are saying that there are 12 industrials
That they control the world
I mean, I don’t see that happening, but, the whole system is such that, you know, it’s, it’s
I guess what, uh
The, there’s a book by, uh, a, a, Thomas Kuhn, the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and he talks about, normal science, and how science progresses, in terms of paradigm shifts
So, normal scientific medicine, works, uh, by big institutions doing, studies about combinations of drugs, after drug companies, invent mostly, modifications of existing drugs, and, less commonly, completely new drugs, and, uh, less commonly, different classes of drugs
So, you have a whole, you have a whole pipeline from a drug company, a whole, uh, uh, mechanism of testing, by the universities, funded by the pharmaceutical company, uh, all the pharmaceutical companies, and that, that just doesn’t lend itself, to one guy, sitting someplace in Houston, or wherever, and having a drug, put through that process
That just doesn’t happen Burzynski is, so far as I can tell, the only person, to ever completed, a phase 2 trials on a drug he invented
I don’t think that’s ever happened, before, and I don’t think it’ll ever happen again
Ah, was it ’98, was it the chairman, uh
Kessler ?
Kessler
I saw, an interview he gave, press, a press conference where he was explaining about, being able to fast-track
The FDA trying to make it possible to fast-track, you know, drugs that have shown, you know, positive, rather than going through all of this sort of clinical trial, and there’s a guy in the, in the press conference who started asking questions about Burzynski
Right
and you could just see quite clearly he was very uncomfortable
Right
asking questions about, uh, about Dr. Burzynski
How do you think someone like him,
would view, someone like Dr. Burzynski?
Not favorably
I think that, uh,
Do you think they must know ?
Do you think they must, even he, let’s just say, if he were on his own, he, he knows there’s something there
That he’s obviously got something
I,
I don’t know, uh
I think, that, the guys in conventional medicine, because Burzynski came from orthodox medicine
He was at Baylor
He was a researcher at Baylor
So, I think, they’re not going to Burzynski, is that, he didn’t go about it, the way, other physicians would have done it, other scientists would have done it
So normally what would happen, is, uh, uh, I mean, I think the critical, point in his story is that, when he was at Baylor, and his, uh, professor was supporting him, this Unger, left, you know, they had space for him
They wanted him to go in the Oncology, uh, Department, but, they wanted the patent, to his drug, and he wouldn’t do it
So, that would have been the more conventional approach
You give up the patent rights, you become part of the team, then some big institution, uh, uh, shepherds the drug through, and then they find some drug company support, who will split the patent with the university
So, had he done that, uh, you know, I think the drug woulda been approved by now, but, you know, it was his drug
He came to America with it, and he wasn’t going to give it all away
So, I mean, I just think that’s, you know, I mean and that’s, you know, I think he wasn’t expecting that kind of thing in America
Maybe in communist Poland, but not in America
So I think that really, you know, set him down the path of being a, a, an alternative health practitioner
And wha, wha, what was it like for you when, uh, winning, the case, in was it, 199, 3, 1998 ?
’97
1997
Well, you know, there wasn’t just one case
I mean, I mean, it was everyone
I mean, I analogize it to, like whack-a-mole, or whack-a-rat, you know
You have, like a rat come out of, of a hole, and you bang him, and one comes out of this hole, and all of a sudden you’ve got 2, and then 3, and, so, you know, during the early ’90’s, I mean, I mean, there were 3 grand juries, uh, we had the Medical Board action, which went to hearing in ’93
The Texas Department of Health sued him in ’92
Half a dozen insurance companies had sued, uh, uh, sued him for, for some, for Racketeering
Uh, Texas Air Quality Department went after him
I’m trying to think who else
So, all of this happened, over the course of 3, or 4, or 5 years, and it was just, continuous, and so, one agency would, would get active, and then, they get beaten down
Then somebody else would come, uh, come up, and surface, and indeed, I mean, you know, it, you know, some of them flat out said they were waiting to see what happened, with this oth, wha, what happened with this other agency, and they weren’t gonna do anything, and then when they got tired, they decided, that this new agency had to do something
So, I mean, that was flat out, what happened
So, yeah, I mean, it culminated in the criminal case, I suppose, but even there it was up and down
I mean, the judge ordered, uh, ordered, prohibited him from giving the treatment to anybody else, because the Texas Medical Board case, ultimately went against us, and then we had to go Congress, and Congress forced the FDA to put all his patients on clinical trials which made the Medical B, Board case moot, and then we won the criminal case
So, after we won the criminal case in, uh, ’97, things got quiet for a little bit
So that, that, that was good
I mean, it was quiet
I mean, relatively quiet, and then, uh, lately in the last couple years it’s been very active again
So the worst case scenario would have been
What would have been the worst case scenario ?
For when ?
And this, this
What could have happened this week if the case had gone ahead ?
Well, the worst case scenario would be, there would be a finding, that, that it’s a depart, it’s a departure from the standard of care to use, uh, off-label drugs, that haven’t been approved by the FDA for an indicated use, and you can’t use the combination of the drugs until someone gives the stamp of approval saying that their safe and effective, which means, you know, you couldn’t, it couldn’t, you couldn’t give the treatment anymore to patients
So you have 100’s of patients that are on this multi-agent gene-targeted therapy, and ultimately that form of treatment is only available at the Burzynski Clinic
I mean, I don’t think that even clinical trials Burzynski, depending on how you look at it, he’s a few years ahead of, of, uh, well, even the clinical trials
I mean, they’re some clinical trials now on different kinds of cancer where they’re doing 1, 2, or 3 agents
He’ll use 4 or 5, albeit, lesser dosages
So he’s treated 1,000’s of patients like that, but there’s no place else in the world where people can get, the treatment
So it’s kinda the same thing as back in the ’90’s
We have people on drugs, uh, which are unavailable, uh, and, only available through Burzynski
So, if he couldn’t give them, to people, then they wouldn’t get ’em, and, they’re terminal, and, they’re doing well
I mean, or they’re not going to do as well, or they’re going to die
So, it’s, I guess it, it’s sort of the same thing here, ah, uh, only, uh, the irony is all these drugs are, approved by the FDA, and most cancer patients get off-label, uh, drugs Drugs off-label
So that’s, very common in cancer
It’s just that not common with the drug used on these patients, and in the combinations used
So, this finally
Whe, when you’ve, uh, won these cases, I mean, there must be, it must be good, right ?
It must be good feeling
I had a good feeling last week
I mean, I mean, you know, or I’ve been working non-stop, for months, every day
I mean, there’s no day off in this kind of stuff
It’s just constant
It’s just, his war
There’s always something to do, and then I’m a solo practitioner
So, when the judge cut the heart of the Board’s case out, I’ve been telling the Board, that they can’t, that they have no basis to, to, to bring charges against him, for several years, since 2010 , 2009, and they’re not listening, and, and, I was pretty sure that once you had a judge look at the case, they would, rule in our favor, you know, but the problem is the Board is, like a law unto themselves, and they think they can do anything, and, uh, they just changed the law, in September
So actually, the Board has no recourse
They, they used to be able to change findings of facts, and conclusions of law, but as of September, 2011, they can no longer do so
So, if the, judges’ ruling s, uh, stands, as I think they will, their only remedy is going to be to appeal to a State District Court, and they’re not used to that, because they, like exercising, uh, complete authority
So, they’re in a new position, and I’m sure this is the 1st case, that they’ve ever, not gotten what they want to, from, from a judge, administrative law judge, and not being able to correct it
So, I mean, that, this is a good ti, completely new experience for the Board, and I feel bad for them (both: laughing)
You, you, you do
As a Board they all sit down, and as a group of people, and talk about Dr. Burzynski, and, and, and work out how they’re gonna bring him down, and then ?
Well, that’s more the conspiracy
I, I, I, I think that, some of the Board members, may know of him
He, but, but, but like I say, he’s appeared in front of these informal settlement conferences, and basically, individually they, I mean, exonerate him, of, of the main charges, but I, I, I think that, you know, when we talk about the Board, the Board other than these a, acting informal settlement conferences, where you have one Board member, and one member of some district disciplinary review committee, we’re not really talking about the Board members, these doctors, and lay members of the Board, we’re talking about the Board staff, and that’s the lawyers and administrators of the Board, and I think, you know, I don’t know
I have some, uh, uh, they need to clean house
I mean, they’re getting some very, very bad legal advice, and I, I just think the legal advice at the top, is, is, is horrible, and, and they need to make some dramatic changes, and I think it would be better for the people of Texas if they, just did some house cleaning with the administrative staff there
And what do you think about the way that, uh, Dr. Burzynski’s been , what’s the word, in England, he’s got a very bad press there
(Alright ?)
and, um, why do you think that is ?
Uh, why, well, I mean, look
I mean, I think, people have opinions
They’re,
they have the right to express opinions
I mean, I think, uh, some of his agents did some things that I think, were not wise, in retrospect
I mean
Mhmm
Uh,
The stuff with the, this kid, this blogger
Yes
(?)
And I think that, uh
I think you have to be very careful, about what you tell people that are expressing opinions, and, you know, I mean, I, I, I think, you know, I think there’s a reason why, lawyers get involved in these cases, and should be involved, and I think what happens is, you know, I think there was a, you know, a well meaning, individual, who just went too far, and I think stirred things up unnecessarily so
You know, I mean, I think someone who had some legal training, acting on Burzynski’s behalf, might not have made some of the, you know, just faux pas that were made
So, I mean, that stirred, some things up, and I think
(?) stirred something up that was already there ?
You know, ’cause, I know, I’ve spoken to so many people in the U.K., and, uh, and you find very few people that have anything positive to say
In fact, a friend of mine who’s a famous doctor on television, when I was here, he was on British television with a little girl, and her father, who were trying to, uh, raise money to, um, come over here and, um, in fact, they couldn’t come anywhere, come, they couldn’t come anyway, because, the, uh, FDA said that this type of brain tumor, she couldn’t be treated anyway
But this doctor, who’s a friend of mine said, uh, Dr. Burzynski is, you know, he’s a medical pioneer
He’s, uh, uh, he said that and then literally, for 2 months, non-stop, I think especially on Twitter, they said that he never should have said this, and the guy is a quack, and he’s a, he’s a fraud, and
So your, your friend got in trouble for saying that he’s a pioneer ?
He didn’t get in trouble, but I mean he got a lot of bad press, for speaking on television with this child next to him, saying that, Dr. Burzynski was, you know, a pioneer, and pioneers often have a hard time, and
Right, right
And, you know, you look at Twitter, uh, you probably don’t
You could be (laugh) and you just see, it’s probably, probably the only, 30, hard, hard core people, who spend, all of their time, trying to
Yeah, I think that’s right
I think it’s a very small group, of people, that are making pretend it’s a big movement
I mean, we’ve looked, at some of the traffic
We’ve analyzed some of the traffic
I don’t even think it’s 30
I think it’s more like, 3, or 4, or 5, that are creating things, and then someone had some friend who’s an actor, who has, you know, 3 million followers, and all
So it’s really a very small group of people, but historically, medical doctors who have stood up for Burzynski, have had negative consequences
We had, someone from the National Cancer Institute, NIH testify, this Nick Patronas, and he got in a lot of trouble for doing that
So, you know, it’s not, it’s, unfortunately, you know, speaking up for Burzynski can have, uh, negative career consequences, or, or just some bad P.R., but that’s, part of being a pioneer
It doesn’t mean that, uh, Burz, I mean, if anything, I mean, it shows, it shows that’s like the medical mafia
Yeah
So, that’s what I call, the church of medical orthodoxy
So, that’s what I call
So
Well I, I think it’s gonna be so interesting when I get this film broadcasted, to see what kind of reaction we get
It, it’s just a story I felt I had to (?)
Where are, where are you going to try and get it ?
I’m going to try and get it
I know people at the BBC
Right
I’ve worked in television
So I’m going to try
Oh really, (?)
I’m gonna try those avenues, but you know what ?
Even if it doesn’t
You have cable
You have some kind of public access ?
Yeah
I’ve, I’ve worked in television for years
So I’ve, I have a very good stab at getting it out there, but if I don’t, I’ll get it broadcasted on the Internet
Oh sure
You do, do a YouTube or something, or do what Merola did as a documentary
(?)
That’s had an amazing impact
Yeah
He’s making a sequel Eric was just over in England
Oh really ?
I looked after him when he came over
Yeah
He wanted to talk to some of the patients and doctors
Eric, I said, ah, you know, so, we’ll see
But listen, I really appreciate the opportunity to ah
Ok, no problem
really, to be able to talk to you
======================================
Gorski wants to play in the kitchen, but he can’t take the heat
2/18/2013, Gorski posted his 1st book report on Hannah Bradley
Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s cancer “success” stories [1]
The year 2012 was rung out and the year 2013 was rung in by news that “Orac” Check-My-Facts-Hack, propagandist for “brave maverick doctor” Dr. David H. Gorski, who claims that sugar doesn’t feed cancer [2], is releasing a sequel to his wildly successful hackumentary (in “The Skeptics™” underground, that is) “How Stanislaw Burzynski became Burzynski the Brave Maverick Doctor, part 1” [3] 😃
In fact, the sequel is coming out on BFD (Blogs For Dummies) on …, well …, just any day now ! 😳
I somehow doubt that GorsKon will send me a screenerBFD to review, but I did review the 4blogettes he posted on Science Based Medicine; home of: “Our only goal is to promote high standards of science in medicine” [4], and National Geographic’s(#NatGeo)Science blogs, because it easily falls into a genre that I like to refer to as medical propaganda posts, which are almost always made in support of dubious blogs re medical treatments 😊
Gorhac’s mostly lame jokes about proposed titles aside (e.g., Burzynski II:”“Pathetic Googleloo, Burzynski II:”This Time It’s Pee-Reviewed, or even Burzynski II: FAQ Harder), it’s very clear that in the wake of his decision to drop his “[I]f I had screwed up, I would have admitted it” [5]claim re Burzynski on a technicality, and his very own spin doctor named “BOrac, are planning on a huge publicity blitz, in which @gorskon will be portrayed as, yes, a “brave maverick doctor” whom “They” (as in the BPG (Burzynski Patient Group), 3’s company, and the Don’t Mess with Texas Board of Education, a.k.a “DJT”) tried to keep down but failed because he has The Natural Cure For Rancor“Two Turntables and a Mr. Microphone” 😝
I come back to this again because Gorac’s strategy for Burzynski II, as I pointed out, is going to involve “conversion stories” of “The Skeptics™” who didn’t believe in @oracknows magic “[I]f I had screwed up, I would have admitted it”, but do now, after Bob ‘n Weave Blaskiewicz proclaimed during the 9/28/2013 “Burzynski Discussion” Google+ Hangout:“I think that professionally he would make, he he he would follow-up on these things” (2:01:00)[6], claims that he’s 75% sure of the identity of someone who has been critical of his work (like me) [7], and, of course, sucky stories 😜
“DOHrac’s” 4 posts consists of four elements:
Bias, MisDisInformation, (anecdotes), including “EOrac’s” “sucky stories”, contrasted with a rehash of “conspiracy theories” from his “review” of the first movie about the “cancer destablishment” trying to suppress common sense with pseudononsense 😄
Never mind that, even if he were FDA-approved, he would be in the same class as “The Skeptics™” that are disdained on social media as being more for hyper-“bull” than anything else because they have been giving B.S. for a long time ☺
He states: “One notes that Burzynski’s protocol requires at least 18 months of near-continuous infusion of high doses of his antineoplastons“
Does Gorski provide any citation(s), reference(s), and / or link(s) to support his claim ?
no
“mOResmACk” reminds me of Pink
That would be the Pink in Pink Floyd, singing: “We don’t need no edumacation”, because he’s like the churlish schoolboy so intent on getting on to make his 2nd mud pie, that he pulls a wanker on the 1st one
Maybe he should learn how to do real “cancer research” like I posted 8/21/2013 [8]
——————————————————————
10/2004 (Pg. 384) 4.3 months – median duration of administration
——————————————————————
11/2010 (Pg. iv72) 4.4 months – median duration of treatment
——————————————————————
10/2006 (Pg. 466) 4 1/2 months – median duration of i.v. ANP
——————————————————————
3/2006 (Pg. 40) 5 months – median duration of antineoplaston administration
——————————————————————
10/2004 (Pg. 428) 5.2 months – administered median
——————————————————————
12/2009 (Pg. 951) 5.4 months – median duration of treatment (ST)
——————————————————————
12/2009 (Pg. 951) 5.6 months – median duration of treatment (SE)
——————————————————————
10/2004 (Pg. 427) 5.7 months – average duration of ANP
——————————————————————
10/2008 (Pg. 821) 5.7 months – median duration of treatment
—————————————————————— 2003 (Pgs. 91 + 96) 6 months – median duration of treatment
——————————————————————
12/2008 (Pg. 1067) 6.5 months – median duration of treatment
——————————————————————
10/2003 (Pg. 358) 9.5 months – median duration of IV ANP
——————————————————————
7/2005 (Pg. 300) 9 1/2 months – median duration of administration
—————————————————————— 2004 (Pgs. 315 + 320) 16 months (1 year 4 months) average duration of intravenous ANP
——————————————————————
6/2008 (Pg. 450) 16.5 months (1 year 4.5 months) – median
——————————————————————
2004 (Pg. 320)
19 months – average duration of oral ANP
——————————————————————
6/2005 (Pgs. 168 + 170)
20 months (1 year 8 months) administered average duration
——————————————————————
10/2003 (Pg. 358)
28.6 months (2 years 4.6 months) – median duration of po ANP
After obtaining at least minor response (SD), the treatment continued with po ANP
——————————————————————
9/2004 (Pg. 257)
655 consecutive days – administration of antineoplastons A10 and AS2-1 with the exception of a few short interruptions
—————————————————————— Gorski continues:
“Attacks on skeptics and critics of Burzynski“
“If you don’t believe me, just read question #12 in Merola’s FAQ, in which he states,
“You will notice the ‘anti-Burzynski’ bloggers refuse to do that or adhere to reputable sources”
—————————————————————— Gorski, you did NOT even provide any “source” for your “claim” that:
” … Burzynski’s protocol requires at least 18 months of near-continuous infusion of high doses of his antineoplastons“
—————————————————————— Gorski adds:
“You might say, they are preying on desperate cancer patients and families of cancer patients by carelessly misleading their readers about Burzynski and his invention.””
—————————————————————— Gorski, let’s check and see where else YOU are “carelessly misleading” your “readers”
One marvels at your amazing level of protestation ッ
However, every movie needs a villain, and it doesn’t take “sidekick” abilities to guess why “The Skeptics™” are portrayed as villains
—————————————————————— Gorski gratuitously gabs on:
“Merola also direly accuses and threatens,
“In the worst case scenarios, some bloggers intentionally publish fabricated information to their readers in an attempt to curb new patients from going to the Burzynski Clinic“
“I can hardly wait”
—————————————————————— Gorski, did you mean to “intentionally publish fabricated information” ? 😮
—————————————————————— “Neither can, I bet, a fair number of lawyers“
—————————————————————— Gorski, who’s your lawyer ?
—————————————————————— Gorski plods onward:
“An attempt to reframe Burzynski’s enormous bills for his antineoplaston therapy and criticism that he’s making clinical trial subjects pay to be in his clinical trials”
—————————————————————— Gorski, BITE ME 🙂
Does Gorski provide any citation(s), reference(s), and / or link(s) to support his claim ?
——————————————————————
CHEMOTHERAPY: 9/24/2012 – hospitals routinely marking up prices on cancer drugs 2 to 10 times over cost
Some markups far higher
nearly $4,500 for 240-milligram dose of irinotecan to treat colon or rectal cancer average sales price: less than $60
about $19,000 1-gram dose of rituximab to treat lymphoma and leukemia roughly 3 times average sales price
about $680 50 milligrams of cisplatin markup: more than 50 times average sales price
Avastin, about $90,000 a year http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/09/24/3549634/prices-soar-as-hospitals-dominate.html
——————————————————————
5/14/2012 – Oral anti-cancer medications generally considered pharmacy benefit
Instead of co-payment plan members often pay % of cost — up to 50% in some cases — with no annual out-of-pocket limit
drugs expensive often costing 10s of 1,000s of $s a year http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-05-14/national/35457286_1_lung-cancer-drug-drugs-work-multiple-myeloma-patients
——————————————————————
RADIATION: 1/4/2013 – new study most comprehensive cost analysis ever, compared costs and outcomes associated with various types of treatment for all forms of disease, ranged from $19,901 for robot-assisted prostatectomy to treat low-risk disease, $50,276 for combined radiation therapy for high-risk disease http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/01/13370/how-prostate-cancer-therapies-compare-cost-and-effectiveness
——————————————————————
3/15/2012 – Using Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare data, 26,163 women with localized breast cancer had undergone surgery and radiation 2001 to 2005
found Medicare billing for IMRT increased 0.9% diagnosed 2001 to 11.2% diagnosed 2005
average cost radiation treatment during 1st year $7,179 for non-IMRT $15,230 with IMRT
billing for IMRT more than 5 times higher in regions across nation where local Medicare coverage determinations favorable to IMRT compared to regions where unfavorable
“The new claim is that Burzynski isn’t making patients pay for his antineoplastons (see question #13 in Merola’s FAQ), just for “clinical management” (as if that weren’t incredibly transparent) Vindication”
—————————————————————— Gorski, “NEW CLAIM” ?
2/4/2013 my post #180 on YOUR blog addressed this “new claim” by referencing a 3/12/1996 note before you posted your article 2/18/2013 [9]
—————————————————————— 3/12/1996: 2nd – 4th paragraphs (2/4/2013 post #180)
——————————————————————
—————————————————————— Gorski, makes an excuse:
“The last time I discussed Merola’s forthcoming movie, I mentioned that he had contacted me in December and asked me to appear as a Burzynski critic“
“After consultation with skeptics with more media savvy than I, not to mention the PR department at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute (whom I thought it wise to give fair warning that one of their faculty might be featured as evil incarnate in a new documentary and to give the background on what it’s all about, in case there were press inquiries), I politely declined“
—————————————————————— Gorski is like fetid HOT AIR, all words and NO action
—————————————————————— Gorski fumes:
“While going on and on about how he thinks most of us have “good motives” and how we want to be the white knight riding in to save patients from quackery (a desire he somehow manages to convey with clear dismissiveness and contempt), Merola turns immediately around to claim that we don’t know what we’re talking about and we don’t read the literature“
—————————————————————— Gorski, YOU really “don’t know what” you’re “talking about” and I’m just getting warmed up 🙂
—————————————————————— Gorski has smoke coming out his ears:
“This, of course, is complete nonsense, as I’ve read many of Burzynski’s papers (such as they are), delved into ClinicalTrials.gov to look at his clinical trials, examined the plausibility of his claims from a scientific standpoint, and examined the literature from others, both on antineoplastons and related topics”
“I’ve dissected Burzynski’s claims for antineoplastons based on science, assessed his “personalized, gene-targeted cancer therapy” claims and found them wanting, and pointed out how what he is peddling isn’t really anything new at all (more on that later), all based on my knowledge, skills, and understanding of cancer as a breast cancer surgeon and researcher”
“No doubt that’s why Merola needs to discredit me“
—————————————————————— Gorski, Eric Merola does NOT need “to discredit” you
YOU have already done a yeoman’s job of discrediting yourself [10] 🙂
—————————————————————— Gorski posits:
“Other bloggers who have been critical of Burzynski might or might not have my scientific background, but they’ve delved just as deeply into his claims and the evidence for them, and, as I have, they’ve found them highly overinflated and largely not based in science”
—————————————————————— Gorski, unfortunately, is NOT able to name these “[o]ther bloggers”
—————————————————————— Gorski deposits:
“They’ve also taken on aspects of the Burzynski phenomenon, such what I consider to be his questionable ethics and finding out what happened to a lot of patients who trusted Burzynski, far better than I have”
“Merola’s dismissal of Burzynski’s critics is, quite frankly, insulting to them and to me.”
—————————————————————— Gorski fails to mention the very “questionable ethics” of his intrepid research bud Bob [11]
—————————————————————— Gorski rants:
“I don’t know what sort of attacks on the UK bloggers who produce the bulk of the skeptical blog posts about Burzynski are coming in Burzynski II, but when it comes to me no doubt Merola is referring to this bit of yellow journalism in 2010 from an antivaccine propagandist named Jake Crosby, entitled David Gorski’s Financial Pharma Ties:”
“What He Didn’t Tell You”
——————————————————————
Does Gorski provide any citation(s), reference(s), and / or link(s) to support his claim that it’s:
“UK bloggers who produce the bulk of the skeptical blog posts about Burzynski” ?
“What He Didn’t Tell You” ?
NO
—————————————————————— Gorski blots:
“Predictable and tiresome attacks aside, Pete and Hannah’s video made me curious about the specific success stories that Merola will focus on as “proof” that Burzynski is on to something; so I decided I should look into their stories”
“On the surface to those not familiar with cancer they do look like success stories”
“If one digs deeper, the true story is a lot murkier”
—————————————————————— Doctor “G” omits, that once “one digs deeper”, HIS“story is a lot murkier”
—————————————————————— Gorski A.D.D.s:
“More importantly, as I will show, even if they really are success stories—which is not at all clear—they do not constitute convincing evidence of the general efficacy of Burzynski’s antineoplastons, nor do they justify what I consider to be Burzynski’s highly unethical behavior.”
—————————————————————— More importantly, as I will show, is what I consider to be Gorski’s highly unethical behavior
—————————————————————— Gorski flails away:
“I will start with Hannah Bradley’s story because I’ve watched the entire 40 minute video Hannah’s Anecdote (whose title is even more appropriate than perhaps Pete Cohen imagined when he made it)”
“The documentary ends triumphantly several months after the events portrayed during the bulk of the film with Hannah apparently having had a complete response to Burzynski’s antineoplaston therapy:”
——————————————————————
Let me just first say something before I begin my usual analysis
I love these reviews 😘
I really do
Yes, it’s true that GorsGeek can be a bit annoying with his seeming desire to validate everything he flogs about some perceived “offender,”as being applicable to him, but I want GorskGeek and “HOrac” to be able to live a long and full life together, growing old in each other’s company
I really do
In fact, I’d love to hang with these two and maybe buy them a pint or two at their local pub (except that it’s pointed out multiple times that GOrackGeek should no longer drink alcohol)
“Such is not my intent, but what are skeptics supposed to do?”
“Shy away from undertaking a dispassionate analysis of patient anecdotes used to promote dubious cancer therapies for fear of what patients will say?”
—————————————————————— Gorski, it might actually help IF you knew how to do a proper “dispassionate analysis” 😐
—————————————————————— Gorski cites from the Team Hannah blog
“Hannah’s treatment options are very limited and her life expectancy is for this type of tumour is normally around 18 months and this is why I started a mission to find people who had the same condition and are still alive today”
“I managed to track down a number of these people to speak to them.”
“In his movie, Pete points out that these people all led back to Burzynski“
Gorski interjects:
“Of course, as I’ve said before, dead patients don’t produce testimonials for alternative cancer cures“
——————————————————————
One wonders why Gorski even makes this comment as the number of patients Pete contacted re Burzynski’s “alternative cancer” cure, were obviously NOT dead 😮
—————————————————————— Gorski segues on to:
“Not long after they appear at the Burzynski Clinic, they meet with doctors there who tell them that Hannah’s most recent MRI scan showed progression of her tumor (around 8:30 in the movie)”
“Now, I’m not a radiologist, much less a neuroradiologist, but I wondered at all the enhancement on the superficial area of the brain, just under where her neurosurgeon must have raised the bone flap to remove what he could of the tumor“
“One wonders if much of the remaining enhancement could be still post-surgical and post-radiation change“
“Certainly, the tumor is cystic-appearing, and after surgery such cysts would likely shrink and be reabsorbed even if the tumor were to keep growing”
—————————————————————— Gorski, if you were NOT in a such a rush to post your blog article “ad homineming” Josh Duhamel, you could have taken the time to do proper “cancer research” and maybe listen to the 9/24/2012 @YouTube video of Pete Cohen talking with Neurosurgeon (Consultant) Juan F. Martinez-Canca (20:31)
After all, HE is an actual NEUROSURGEON
——————————————————————
——————————————————————
Or you could read the transcript I made of the video [12]
——————————————————————
Or you could have contacted him and asked questions http://www.neurokonsilia.com/About-Us.html
—————————————————————— Gorski tangents:
“Be that as it may, there were a number of things I found very interesting in this video”
“First, I notice that nowhere was there anything mentioned about enrolling Hannah on a clinical trial“
—————————————————————— Gorski, if you had let Hannah know you were going to do your article about her, she might have churned her 4/4/2013 article out faster just for you, where she advises:
“Luckily I was able to take part in a phase 2 clinical trial in Texas, USA”[13]
—————————————————————— Gorski stupefies:
“Given what a thorough videographer Pete obviously is, I find this omission very curious”
“Certainly, given how much detail he’s used in this video and in his vlogs I’d expect that if the subject of clinical trials was mentioned he would have included it”
—————————————————————— Gorski, if you were NOT so busy “getting the popcorn” as you “watched the entire 40 minute video Hannah’s Anecdote”, you might have actually noticed at (7:14):
—————————————————————— 12/12/2011 – Day 2 – Monday
Meeting with Dr. Yi and Dr. Greg Burzynski at Burzynski Clinic
—————————————————————— Dr. Greg Burzynski – “We have permission to start you on the antineoplastons”
“Mhmm”
Dr. Greg Burzynski – “which as you know are in the final stages of drug approval”
“Yeah”
Dr. Greg Burzynski – “Dr. Yi is the oncologist on this case”
—————————————————————— Gorski, did you SEE THAT ?
An ONCOLOGIST at the Burzynski Clinic, working with Burzynski
(No wonder you left that out !)
—————————————————————— Gorski ejects:
“The other thing that struck me was just how much Burzynski is full of it when he advertises antineoplastons as not being chemotherapy and, more importantly, as being nontoxic“
“At least a third of the video consisted of the difficulties that Hannah had with her treatment, including high fevers, a trip to the emergency room, and multiple times when the antineoplaston treatment was stopped“
“She routinely developed fevers to 102° F, and in one scene her fever reached 103.9° F“
“She felt miserable, nauseated and weak“
“I’ve seen chemotherapy patients suffer less”
—————————————————————— Gorski whines:
“I’ve seen chemotherapy patients suffer less”, but this is purely “anecdotal”
“At least a third of the video consisted of the difficulties that Hannah had with her treatment”
Let’s do the math, shall we ?
——————————————————————
In America (48 days)
12/11/2011 (Sunday) – 1/27/2012 (Friday)
[4:52 – 35:43]
—————————————————————— Burzynski Clinic 47 days – (7 weeks)
12/12/2011 (Monday) – 1/26/2012 (Thursday)
[5:37 – 35:43]
—————————————————————— 12/13/2011 (Tuesday) Day 3
after catheter – Hickman line surgery
(painful / really painful) [10:30]
—————————————————————— 12/14/2011 (Wednesday) Day 4
(feeling wrecked / absolutely wrecked) [10:52]
—————————————————————— 12/24/2011 (Saturday) Day 14
fever
bad breathing
uncontrollable chills couldn’t stop shivering all Saturday night [18:10]
—————————————————————— 12/25/2011 (Sunday) Day 15
fever
flu symptoms
bad breathing
headache
in bed
absolutely exhausted
little bit of swelling back of head [18:10]
—————————————————————— 12/27/2011 (Tuesday) Day 17
temp 102
temp down / up [19:04]
—————————————————————— 12/28/2011 (Wednesday) Day 18
exhausted
close to breaking / cracking [19:04]
—————————————————————— 12/29/2011 (Thursday) Day 19
hospital – E.R.
“I’m at my wits end”
“I don’t feel I can take anymore” [20:07]
—————————————————————— 12/30/2011 (Friday) Day 20
last week up & down
fever
chills
shaking
viral infection
bacterial infection
had to go to E.R. [20:22]
—————————————————————— 12/31/2011 (Saturday) Day 21
fever in middle of night
flu-like symptoms
temp 102 [21:53]
—————————————————————— 1/1/2012 (Sunday) Day 22
feel drunky
felt like completely drunk
double vision
Nurse said anti-seizure drug she hadn’t taken before
bit shaky [22:34]
—————————————————————— 1/15/2012 (Sunday) Day 36
antibiotics 1st day [24:33]
—————————————————————— 1/16/2012 (Monday) Day 37
over 102 Monday night
antibiotics 2nd day [25:24]
—————————————————————— 1/17/2012 (Tuesday) Day 38
fever
temp 101.8
throat infection
antibiotics been on 3 days [25:24]
—————————————————————— 1/20/2012 (Friday) Day 41
fever 104 (103.9) Friday night [26:54]
—————————————————————— 1/21/2012 (Saturday) Day 42
temp up to 104 (103.9)
Dr. on-call – Ibuprofen
102.5
yesterday afternoon (blood) rash ? [27:50]
—————————————————————— 1/23/2012 (Monday) Day 44
some itch [28:35] ======================================
47 days – Burzynski Clinic 31 days – treatmentNOTmentioned 16 days – treatment mentioned ====================================== 12/25/2011 (Sunday) Day 15 off ANP [18:10]
—————————————————————— 12/27/2011 (Tuesday) Day 17 back on ANP off ANP – temp 102
temp down / up [19:04]
—————————————————————— 12/28/2011 (Wednesday) Day 18 on ANP much smaller dose [19:04]
—————————————————————— 12/29/2011 (Thursday) Day 19
hospital – E.R. [20:07]
—————————————————————— 12/30/2011 (Friday) Day 20
last week up & down off on off on off ANP [20:22]
—————————————————————— 12/31/2011 (Saturday) Day 21
temp 102 [21:53]
—————————————————————— 1/15/2012 (Sunday) Day 36
antibiotics 1st day [24:33]
—————————————————————— 1/16/2012 (Monday) Day 37
over 102 Monday night
antibiotics 2nd day [25:24]
—————————————————————— 1/17/2012 (Tuesday) Day 38
temp 101.8 off ANP (If 102 take off ANP)
antibiotics been on 3 days [25:24]
—————————————————————— 1/20/2012 (Friday) Day 41
fever 104 (103.9) Friday night [26:54]
—————————————————————— 1/21/2012 (Saturday) Day 42 off ANP – temp up to 104 (103.9)
102.5 [27:50] ====================================== 5 – off ANP
May have beenoff ANP5 to 6 days out of 47? ====================================== 12/27/2011 (Tuesday) Day 17
temp 102
temp down / up [19:04]
—————————————————————— 12/29/2011 (Thursday) Day 19
hospital – E.R. [20:07]
—————————————————————— 12/31/2011 (Saturday) Day 21
temp 102 – in middle of night [21:53]
—————————————————————— 1/16/2012 (Monday) Day 37
temp over 102 Monday night
antibiotics 2nd day [25:24]
—————————————————————— 1/17/2012 (Tuesday) Day 38
temp 101.8
antibiotics been on 3 days [25:24]
—————————————————————— 1/20/2012 (Friday) Day 41
temp 104 (103.9) Friday night [26:54]
—————————————————————— 1/21/2012 (Saturday) Day 42
102.5 [27:50] ====================================== 6 days – temperature mentioned
temp 102 – temp down / up – 12/27/2011 102 in middle of night – 12/31/2011 102+ Monday night – 1/16/2012 temp 101.8 – 1/17/2012 104 (103.9) Friday night – 1/20/2012 102.5 – 1/21/2012 ====================================== Gorski scatterbrains on:
“I was also very puzzled at how the Burzynski Clinic could allow a cancer patient to linger with a fever of 102° F and sometimes higher, accompanied by shaking chills, in a temporary lodging without admitting her to the hospital“
——————————————————————
Does Gorski provide any citation(s), reference(s), and / or link(s) to support his claim ?
“It’s not clear what sort of workup was done to evaluate Hannah either, what her white blood cell count was, or what her other labs were“
“Did they draw blood cultures?”
“Did they get urinalyses and cultures?”
“Did they do chest X-rays to rule out pneumonia?”
—————————————————————— Gorski, maybe you should have asked Wayne Dolcefino
Or maybe you should have gone to the Burzynski Clinic
Oh, wait
You think you know everything and could NOT learn anything by going there 😅
—————————————————————— Gorski at least gets one thing correct:
“It’s all very unclear, other than that she apparently was given some antibiotics at some point”
—————————————————————— 1/15/2012 Monday Day 36 antibiotics 1st day
—————————————————————— 1/16/2012 Tuesday Day 37 antibiotics 2nd day
—————————————————————— 1/17/2012 (Tuesday) Day 38 antibiotics been on 3 days
—————————————————————— Gorski wonders:
“Did she have the flu, given her flu-like symptoms, or was this due to her antineoplaston therapy?“
—————————————————————— Gorski, why not “speculate” like “The Skeptics™” usually do ?
—————————————————————— 12/24/2011 (Saturday) Day 14 fever
bad breathing
shivering all night
—————————————————————— 12/25/2011 (Sunday) Day 15 flu symptoms
breathing
headache
uncontrollable chills couldn’t stop off ANP absolutely exhausted
in bed
little bit of swelling back of head
—————————————————————— 12/27/2011 (Tuesday) Day 17 back on ANP temp 102 – off ANP temp down / up
—————————————————————— 12/28/2011 (Wednesday) Day 18 on ANP much smaller dose exhausted – close to breaking / cracking
—————————————————————— 12/29/2011 (Thursday) Day 19 hospital – E.R.
—————————————————————— 12/30/2011 (Friday) Day 20 last week up & down off on off on off fever
chills
shaking
viral infection
bacterial infection
—————————————————————— 12/31/2011 (Saturday) Day 21 temp 102 – fever in middle of night
Dr. SRB thinks flu-like symptoms or tumor actually breaking down
—————————————————————— 1/16/2012 (Monday) Day 37 temp 102+ Monday night
—————————————————————— 1/17/2012 (Tuesday) Day 38 throat infection temp 101.8 – fever – off ANP antibiotics been on 3 days
—————————————————————— 1/20/2012 (Friday) Day 41 104 (103.9) – fever – Friday night
—————————————————————— 1/21/2012 (Saturday) Day 42 temp up to 104
Dr. on-call – Ibuprofen 102.5 – off ANP yesterday afternoon rash
—————————————————————— Gorski ponders:
“The reaction of the clinic staff (i.e., rather blasé, even though at one point Hannah clearly demonstrates a change in mental status, appearing “drunk” and complaining of double-vision) made me wonder if this sort of problem was a common occurrence”
—————————————————————— Gorski, what’s the matter ?
Did you grab another handful of popcorn ?
—————————————————————— 1/1/2012 (Sunday) Day 22Burzynski Clinic feel drunky
felt like completely drunk
double vision
bit shaky Nurse said anti-seizure drug she hadn’t taken before [22:34]
—————————————————————— Gorski, what are some of the side-effects of “anti-seizure” medications ?
dizziness
double-vision
drowsiness
imbalance
loss of coordination
Problems with motor skills
Problems with tasks requiring sustained performance
nausea
slurred speech
staggering
mental disturbances
serious mood changes
—————————————————————— http://umm.edu/health/medical/reports/articles/epilepsy
—————————————————————— Gorski continues his assault on the popcorn:
“At another point, Pete and Hannah come to believe that the fevers might have been due to the tumor breaking down, which strikes me as implausible”
—————————————————————— Gorski, if it “strikes” you “as implausible”, then why did you ask, above ?
“Did she have the flu, given her flu-like symptoms, or was this due to her antineoplaston therapy?“
—————————————————————— 12/31/2011 (Saturday) Day 21 temp 102 – fever in middle of night Dr. SRB thinks flu-like symptoms OR tumor actually breaking down [21:53]
—————————————————————— Gorski blunders along:
“Later, she develops an extensive rash“
—————————————————————— 1/23/2012 (Monday) Day 44 Pete sent pic to Dr. SRB who gave name from pic and Pete verified [28:35]
—————————————————————— Gorski bumbles onward:
“It’s difficult to tell for sure what it is at the resolution of the video, but it looks like erythema multiforme, which is generally an allergic rash”
“What’s the most likely cause of such a rash?”
“Guess”
“Erythema multiforme is usually a drug reaction”
—————————————————————— Gorski, what can cause “Erythema multiforme” ?
“Does this mean that Burzynski’s antineoplaston treatment worked for Hannah?“
“Sadly, the answer is:”
“Not necessarily”
“It might have”
“It might not have”
“Why do I say this?”
“First, she didn’t have much residual disease after surgery and radiotherapy, and in fact it’s hard to tell how much is tumor and how much is postop and radiation effect“
—————————————————————— Gorski, I think it’s safe to say that neurosurgeon Dr. Martinez knows much better than you and your speculation
—————————————————————— Gorski
“Second, the median survival for anaplastic astrocytoma (which is a form of glioma) is around 2 to 3 years, and with different types of radiation therapy five year survival is around 15% or even higher”
—————————————————————— Gorski provides a link to a site which advises [14]:
High-grade tumors grow rapidly and can easily spread through the brain“
High-grade tumors are much more aggressive and require very intensive therapy
All patients with high-grade astrocytomas receive both radiation therapy and chemotherapy regardless of age
Prognosis is poor in this group of patients
—————————————————————— Gorski’s 2nd linked source advises [15]:
These highly aggressive tumors often occur in young adults and typically recur or progress to a grade 4 glioblastoma within several years of diagnosis, despite treatment with surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy
Tumor more resistant to therapy and patients have shorter median survival of only 2 to 3 years
—————————————————————— Gorski’s 3rd link [16] showcases his lame research as one has to read through almost the entire article to find the reference, which directs the reader to yet another publication [17]:
Gorski FAILS to advise the reader that the 2002 study is titled:
“Intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) for previously untreated malignant gliomas“
Hannah Bradley’s WAS previously treated
Gorski also FAILS to advise the reader if this study included patients with grade 3 or 4 tumors
—————————————————————— Gorski claims:
“Thus, long term survival for patients with astrocytomas is not so rare that Hannah’s survival is so unlikely that the most reasonable assumption has to be that it was Burzynski’s treatment that saved her”
—————————————————————— Gorski, nice claim, but you did NOT really prove it
—————————————————————— Gorski suspects:
“More likely, Hannah is a fortunate outlier, although it’s hard for me to say even that because, at only two years out from her initial diagnosis, she’s only just reached the lower end of the range of reported median survival times for her disease”
—————————————————————— Gorski, the operative word is “outLIER”
Gorski then goes all “conspiracy theory” about a supposed “cryptic Facebook post”, a “vlog entry no longer exists”, “Hannah and Pete supposedly being “evasive”, “using vague terms”, a “little blip”, and “lack of new scans”
Next, little green “popcorn munchin'” men 👽
—————————————————————— 3/4/2013 Gorski drops “conspiracy theory, part II” on an unsuspecting audience [19]:
Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s cancer “success” stories update: Why is the release of the Burzynski sequel being delayed?
It’s no secret that I happen to NOT be on several mailing lists of “The Skeptics™”whose dedication to science is—shall we say?—questionable
As I delved deeper, I learned that Gorski’s evidence for the “questioning” of the anticancer efficacy of “antineoplaston therapy” doesn’t hold up; that his “questioning” of “personalized gene-targeted cancer therapy” is anything but; and that he’s an orphan now in what appears to me to be a strategy to bypass restrictions on his use of proper “cancer research “
The CliffsNotes version for those who don’t want to read Gorsack’s previous lengthy post is that he claims Hannah’s tumor, an astrocytoma (which is a form of glioma) did indeed appear to regress, but that regression can likely be explained by the surgery and radiation therapy that she had
Even then, however, he claims it would not be evidence that the antineoplastons saved her because there are occasional complete remissions in this tumor type, and long term survivors, although uncommon, are not so uncommon that Hannah must be evidence that antineoplastons are so miraculously effective that they saved her when conventional medicine could not
Gorski’s claims are anecdotal, as he failed miserably to provide the necessary citation(s), reference(s), and / or link(s) to support his claims
Gorski claims:
“I try very hard not to cross that line, and I think I’ve been successful, for instance, here”
But I proved again, above, how he fails and fails again with his “amateurish” attempts at proper “cancer research”
Similarly, Gorski realizes that it is very effective to appeal to emotions and cast Burzynski’s as heartless
Gorski inserts other Burzynski patients into his posts about Pete and Hannah
—————————————————————— GORSKI FAIL #1 – “One notes that Burzynski’s protocol requires at least 18 months of near-continuous infusion of high doses of his antineoplastons“
—————————————————————— GORSKI FAIL #2 – “The new claim is that Burzynski isn’t making patients pay for his antineoplastons (see question #13 in Merola’s FAQ), just for “clinical management” (as if that weren’t incredibly transparent) Vindication”
—————————————————————— GORSKI FAIL #3 – “First, I notice that nowhere was there anything mentioned about enrolling Hannah on a clinical trial“
—————————————————————— GORSKI FAIL #4 – “Certainly, given how much detail he’s used in this video and in his vlogs I’d expect that if the subject of clinical trials was mentioned he would have included it“
—————————————————————— GORSKI FAIL #5 – “The reaction of the clinic staff (i.e., rather blasé, even though at one point Hannah clearly demonstrates a change in mental status, appearing “drunk”and complaining of double-vision) made me wonder if this sort of problem was a common occurrence”
—————————————————————— GORSKI FAIL #6 – Well, I could add more … 🙂
——————————————————————
My apologies to the following co-authors if you ever had to check the “cancer research” of one: Gorski D., Gorski DH, D H Gorski,
—————————————————————— BB – Bob Blaskiewicz
—————————————————————— 1:25:14
—————————————————————— BB – “Well we do have for for for for one thing, um, I guess to understand is that we are uh motivated by um uh a respect“
====================================== Bob, would that include “a respect” for “facts” ?
Because you seem to be the Hillary Clinton of “The Skeptics™”, in that you want people to think of the “children”, yet you also seem to want people to ignore that your “facts” might be “factually-challenged” and tainted by your “bias” ====================================== BB – “this is the one thing that that all Skeptics I think um are uh respect critical thinking“
====================================== Bob, I am very “critical” in my “thinking” of “The Skeptics™” who indicate that they supposedly want to “debate” and who claim that they will “respond on my blog” because “it only seems fair”, but then do NOT respond
Is THAT the kind of “critical thinking” you are referring to ? [1] ====================================== BB – “um, and um respect scientific uh a we we’re mostly scientific enthusiasts“
====================================== Bob, would that include Trollolo Mark McAndrew (@MarkMcan) who exhibited what type of “scientific enthusiasts”“The Skeptics™” attract, when he Trollolo’d all over “The Telegraph” ? [2] ====================================== BB – “but for the most part we all respect scientific consensus“
====================================== Bob, does that include the “scientific consensus” reached by the doctors who decided that Burzynski’s antineoplastons exhibited “antitumor activity” ? [3] ====================================== BB – “and we respect scientific method“
====================================== Bob, then why does your “The Other Burzynski Patient Group” (TOBPG) blog NOT “respect the scientific method” by indicating if those patients had no prior treatment, biopsy only, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, or some other treatment, and how long they were on any therapy, if any ? ====================================== BB – “and have an enthusiasm for living in the real world”
====================================== Bob, exactly what “world” are you living in that you adopt lying and deception as part of your agenda regarding Burzynski ? ====================================== BB – “this is something that like all of us us are about”
—————————————————————— 1:26:00
—————————————————————— Bob, do you mean what I wrote about above? ====================================== REFERENCES:
====================================== [1] – September 28, 2013 “The Skeptics™” Burzynski discussion: By Bob Blaskiewicz – 2:19:51
—————————————————————— https://stanislawrajmundburzynski.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/september-28-2013-the-skeptics-burzynski-discussion-by-bob-blaskiewicz-21951/
====================================== [2] – “The Skeptics™” Mark McAndrew is Trollolo:
—————————————————————— https://stanislawrajmundburzynski.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/the-skeptics-mark-mcandrew-is-trollolo/
====================================== [3] – Critiquing: National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) CancerNet “fact sheet”
—————————————————————— https://stanislawrajmundburzynski.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/critiquing-national-cancer-institute-nci-at-the-national-institutes-of-health-nih-cancernet/
======================================
“The Skeptics™” Mark McAndrew#whining on “The Telegraph” while citingGuy Chapman’sblog, claims I shouldn’t be citing my own blog, but he does NOT have any problem whatsoever with his Skeptic guy friend, Guy Chapman, citingHIS own blog
Note below, how the moderator leaves my comment as “This comment is awaiting moderation. Show comment”, so that the reader has to select“Show comment” in order to see my reply
Guy Chapman
All of homeopathy, or just the imponderables?
—————————————————————— Didymus Judas Thomas
Mr. Chapman, I’m quite surprised that you’ve been mum about this particular Homeopathy publication on PubMed?
Cell Biochem Funct. 2013 Feb 13. doi: 10.1002/cbf.2960
[Epub ahead of print]
Stimulation of natural killer cells for homoeopathic complexes: An in vitro and in vivo pilot study in advanced cancer patients. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23408699/ Guy Chapman does NOT want to acknowledge that this publication exists
Note below, Mark McAndrew’s comment which gets deleted
Mark McAndrew, you must be the Troll under the bridge that people have to cross to get to the party
#8 – Mark McAndrew – October 22, 2013
Thanks Orac, great takedown
Perhaps you should ask the Telegraph for right of reply?
As a real oncologist (whose entire profession is under attack by these pricks) you have the moral authority to demand it
Comments were fun tho
Although debating the spectacular embarrassment that is Sandra Courtney was a bit like going ten rounds with a propped-up corpse
Good exercise, but not exactly testing
Nor hygienic
BTW, lilady, you’ve accidently upvoted one of the Demented One’s posts, the entirely non-ironic
“I think I have exposed your and other skeptics’ credibility as well
Actually, better than you think you have tarnished mine
More batty arrogance on display.”
(Is it true she reckons magic water saved her life from mercury poisoning from her fillings?
——————————————————————
All comments by Professor Robert J. (Bob) Blaskiewicz of University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire “fame” should be considered as likely LIES until such time as he keeps his word to respond on this blog, to criticism of him on this blog
—————————————————————— “I hope somebody is writing all this down out there, so that we can go back and look at these claims later, right ?”
——————————————————————
1:19:00
—————————————————————— Seriously, Bob ?
Do you really think one of “The Skeptics™” was going to write all this down, when none of them showed that they had written down much of anything of much note about Burzynski 2 when they attended the screenings ? 🙂
—————————————————————— *Some words may or may not be missing, but it doesn’t take away from the final result
I will be adding separate critiques that break this down into manageable parts, but wanted to have entire video comments altogether here
——————————————————————
(0:04:38)
—————————————————————— Are you there ?
——————————————————————
Yes
—————————————————————— Okay, we might as well get started if were going to do this
——————————————————————
Okay
——————————————————————
(0:05:00)
—————————————————————— Alright, so ummm I guess we can start with uhhh bit of a conversation [0]
Uhhh
You’ve been on the Burzynski Hashtag for a long time – what’s you’re motivation ?
——————————————————————
Well as I put in my about page, I agreed with the juror that he was neither guilty or innocent [8]
So, so since I see all this opposition by these Skeptics, and I see that the they’re getting all of their facts straight
(Freudian sarcasm slip)
I decided to take the position of being a Skeptic Skeptic
In other words I am skeptical of Skeptics who do not fact-check their information before they post it on social media
—————————————————————— Okay
——————————————————————
And since I see ahhh y’all pretty much trying to take over the net with y’all’s information I decided to come back and correct all the false information that was being put out by other Skeptics
—————————————————————— So what information have Skeptics posted that they uhhh that they missed that demonstrates that Burzynski’s uhhh treatments are effective ?
——————————————————————
(0:06:00)
—————————————————————— What, what have we missed ?
——————————————————————
Well the major issue is that the FDA’s own information says if phase 3 trials are approved – phase 2 trials is to see if there’s evidence of effectiveness
And so if phase 3 trials are approved, that means you’ve provided evidence of effectiveness
That’s the FDA’s own information – I have that clearly on my blog [9]
Also the FDA has given Burzynski uhhh Orphan Drug Designation in 2004 for uhhh brainstem glioma and then in 2009 for all gliomas [10]
So that must mean that there is evidence of effectiveness, otherwise I don’t think they would be doing that
0:07:00
—————————————————————— Well okay, uh one of the issues that Skeptics have with Burzynski is that in order to, let’s say, elevate uh the profile of his drug, in order to make sure that everybody who needs it can get, is to complete a phase 3 uh trial uh he started uh I believe was it just the one, right ?
Uhmmm, and that’s gone nowhere
In fact, it was withdrawn this I think within the last week
It doesn’t look like its going to happen, and this is, you know, for all the the phase 1 and phase 2 trials, those are very preliminary trials
——————————————————————
(0:08:00)
—————————————————————— Uhmmm, the phase 3 is is will be the gold standard, and also the bare minimum that that the larger medical community will accept uhhh as evidence, so it’s like you’ve lowered the bar for for evidence in a way that that you know oncologists don’t
——————————————————————
Well the issue is he was given 2 phase 3 trials that we know of
One was on uh Clinical Trials . gov – the one about eye cancer
—————————————————————— The the
——————————————————————
The vision cancer
—————————————————————— Right
——————————————————————
And then the other one was not posted on there, but then again the FDA has said, and I posted this on my blog because I specifically contacted and asked them and they said we don’t post all clinical trials on our web-site [11]
—————————————————————— (Correction: NCI)
——————————————————————
And so he obviously had that other one about brainstem glioma, that he was trying to get started [12]
But the other issue is that Skeptics have posted on there that he could not get that accelerated approval until he had published a phase 2 trial and that is exactly not the case because other drugs have been given accelerated approval before their results were published in phase 2 clinical trial publications, cuz, so that question remains as well [13]
(0:09:00)
——————————————————————
9:13
—————————————————————— So, do you think that there is a uh uh conspiracy to keep Burzynski from publishing ?
——————————————————————
Well, what we do know is that in the movie, Merola showed that one page rejection from The Lancet
—————————————————————— Right
——————————————————————
where Burzynski was trying to show his results from like 8 to 16 years, and they said we think your uh publication would be seen best elsewhere, or some ridiculous statement like that
And so, I thought that funny of The Lancet[14]
Of course, I understand their 2nd response, which came out, which Eric posted on his Facebook page, y’all, that y’all have talked about – that, you know, they’re busy, they get a lot of
submissions
——————————————————————
(0:10:00)
——————————————————————
I understand that, so obviously he would have to look for a different publication for both of those, things he’s trying to get published
—————————————————————— Clarification: Burzynski and Tsuda
—————————————————————— Right
So, uhmmm, as far as I understand it The Lancet, uhhh the the question of The Lancet publication ehhh is par for the course, that most people are, when they get a speedy rejection from a uh uh, uh journal, are actually uh grateful, because that means there allowed to go ahead and submit their material to another journal more quickly and get it out there
Uhm, but the reaction that we saw on the side of the Burzynski camp was that, see, they’ll never publish us
——————————————————————
(0:11:00)
—————————————————————— Uhm, which is, eg, taken as far as I can tell as evidence of a conspiracy or that his name is is poison uh I mean, I think it is, but uhmmm, that wasn’t indicated in the in the rejection letter in order to uh claim that it is is to go beyond the evidence which again we’re not really willing to do
So, uhmmm what is the the ration the the something that I think a lot of of a lot of The Skeptics have been curious about when it comes to your your your blog and your behavior on-line uhhh is that that that, that the format of your blog does not make sense to us, we don’t understand exactly what you’re trying to do with it
Could you kind of clarify that for us because it’s uhhh long and it’s it’s intense and there’s a lot of emotion behind it but we don’t understand exactly, what it’s supposed to mean
——————————————————————
(0:12:00)
——————————————————————
Well a lot of the time I’m making fun of y’all’s favorite oncologist, the way he words his blogs, and uhmmm I cite specifically from the FDA, from from the National Cancer Institute, from these other scientific sources, from scientific publications
I give people specific information so they can fact-check me, unlike a lot of The Skeptics who just go out there and say things and publish things on social media, they provide no back-up for their uhhh sayings
And so when I critique an oncologist or any other Skeptic I always provide source material so people can always fact-check me and I specifically said that people should fact-check everything ummm that the oncologist should say because he has, I’ve proven him to be frequently incorrect about his information and misleading
——————————————————————
(0:13:00)
——————————————————————
And so I’ve tried to add those things and allow people to search, on specific things like publications, or what I posted about The Lancet, or specifically about The Skeptics, or specifically about the oncologist
So whenever I see something posted new on Twitter, by y’all, sometimes I’ll check it out and sometimes I won’t, and sometimes I’ll comment on it
—————————————————————— Alright, ah have you read The Other Burzynski Patient Group ?
——————————————————————
I was, on there just yesterday to see some more of your post on there [15]
—————————————————————— So, ahmmm what is your response say to the story of Amelia Saunders ?
——————————————————————
Well the thing is, when you accepted this hangout, I published my newest blog article and I specifically listed all the information I had critiqued from you previously including Amelia, and I posted the specific Twitter responses by BurzynskiMovie; which is probably Eric, to your issues with Amelia, and he disagrees with what the oncologist posted, and so I pretty much let his Twitter responses stand to what the oncologist said [2]
——————————————————————
0:14:24
—————————————————————— Okay, what part of, what did I get wrong ?
——————————————————————
Well I also did a critique of the newspaper story that was put out about Amelia in the U.K. [16]
And they had 2, 2 patients that were dealt with
And
—————————————————————— Uh was that Amelia and Luna ?
——————————————————————
I believe, yes
—————————————————————— Luna was the other one, correct[17]
——————————————————————
And one of the patients, Burzynski has specifically published in one of his scientific publications that maximum dosage is not reached for a month
——————————————————————
0:15:00
——————————————————————
So if someone, so if someone only goes in there and has treatment for a month, they’re not even, you know, they’re finally going to reach the uh maximum dosage [18]
And I think that was maybe the case with Luna, I think she was only there for a month
Oh, I, you’re talking, oh this is one of the very 1st ones that we did on the, on the site
Uhmmm, oh, her name is, her name escapes me at the moment
Um, but she wasn’t there for for very long but uh her condition deteriorated very rapidly
Uhmmm, and one of the questions that we had, we raised, is is, you know, you you don’t need to reach full dosage ’cause the the full dosage for these ANP seem to be pretty high, at least the sodium load that that that patients are asked to to carry, or required to carry if they they go on it
And we wondered if the sodium load was ah to great for someone who has a brain tumor, I mean uh, you know uh sodium load will increase your blood pressure, and these people have extra things in their brains that probably won’t react well to swelling, right, and and wont react well to pressure, so we were wondering, if in fact you don’t have to reach the full dosage in order to have uh severe side effects
——————————————————————
(0:16:00)
—————————————————————— Ummm, you know maybe you haven’t reached a therapeutic dose level, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t have an effect on her
And you can clearly tell, that, you know in the videos, well at least the videos before the family took it down, that she was lethargic and a little bit out of it, she uh the the difference in her conscious state was no noticeable for anyone to see
Ummm, to, you know where she had been up and about to in her bed kind of slurring and and, and and and, in fact just disoriented, just looked like someone had taken the piss out of her
——————————————————————
0:17:00
—————————————————————— I mean, ummm, so that’s, that one, ummm, you know the critique that, reaching therapeutic levels and having a biological effect on someone are are clearly different things in her case
Uhmmm, now I never went on you know on to say ummm that uh she had uh reached therapeutic levels
Uhmmm, I I think as far as I went was that she went, she paid her $30,000 dollars and then she died
Uhmmm, and and and what part of that’s not true
——————————————————————
Well my only thing is, uh, we know that sometimes he will go to a maximum dosage, or you know, the suggested dosage, but he will back down off it, in fact in the uh adverse effects you mentioned those are specifically adverse effects mentioned in his publications, and when that happens normally they will subside within 24 to 48 hours is what it says once you take them off the treatment and let, you know, those conditions take care of themselves, and then you will slowly raise the medication again [19]
0:18:33
——————————————————————
So, you know, it just didn’t tell, if only one month of treatment was enough to even start to do anything for her [20]
—————————————————————— Okay, so, um, going back to Amelia, um, some of the the most um I think the most serious charges is that we see a uh repeatedly in his uh uh stories of his patients, um those are all cited, those are all backed uh by, you know, um at least as good as anything the Burzynski Patient Group has ever done
——————————————————————
0:19:11
—————————————————————— Uhmmm, something that we see over and over are patients reporting over and over that signs of getting worse are signs if getting better
Um, in particular a, uh report that’s very common from from patients is that the center of their solid tumors are breaking up
One of the problems that we we we see is that that is more frequently a sign of ischemic necrosis that the tumor has outgrown its blood supply and that it’s dying on the inside
And when you see something like a 5th of the patients who we’ve been able to to document, reporting this excitedly, we get extremely concerned about what’s happening
——————————————————————
0:20:02
—————————————————————— Uhmmm, what part of that is not absolutely terrifying to you
——————————————————————
Well the thing is, the FDA has approved phase 3 <strong[12]and also given them the Orphan Drug Designation, which means they should have some knowledge about what’s going on, I would think [10]
Plus we don’t know for sure, we’ve heard about, ummm, some of the things supposedly the oncologist has talked about, which is cutting off the blood flow, to the tumor, which is something that some uhhh drugs can do, and I think that’s one of the things Burzynski has tried to do, ah he’s specifically mentioned it in his personalized treatment
But I don’t know for sure if it’s also something that’s done with the ANP’s in just the clinical trials environment
——————————————————————
0:20:02
——————————————————————
So, that could be a possibility
—————————————————————— Well, the the yeah I’ve never seen anyone say that the purpose of the antineoplastons is to cause uhhh, you know, to restrict the blood flow to the tumor and and and uh cause it to die that way, which is certainly one therapeutic approach that’s been, that’s been floated and research has been done on uh and might even be promising and uh what he’s saying is that cancer is caused by a lack of antineoplastons in the system and that basically what he is doing is antineoplaston uh uh supplement therapy uh rath, what’s the word I’m looking for, uhm uh, replacement therapy
Uh and there isn’t a doctor on the planet, uh not a medical specialist on the planet, who, I, who has identified at at as a contributing factor as a contributor to cancer or antineo or lack of antineoplastons
So
——————————————————————
Well
—————————————————————— Why isn’t he, you know, you understand that these doctors, ummm like nothing is true or false because a doctor says it is true or false
——————————————————————
0:22:26
—————————————————————— Uhmmm it’s it’s it but when the entire medical community uhhh who are des are desperately are are every bit as tired of seeing patients die uhmmm and seeing patients suffer or as anyone else’s families are you you imagine what an oncologist sees in that office over the course of of a year and there’s going to be unimaginable suffering
I’m sure that they’re tired of that
And that they would, you know, that if there was the slightest hint that antineoplaston deficiency was a cause of cancer that it would make it into the literature, with or without Burzynski
——————————————————————
0:23:10
—————————————————————— Uhhh ummm, why should we trust him when he has uh the sole uh the only person who had identified antineoplastons as a contributor to cancer when he is the sole manufacturer of the of the therapy uh when he is the uh sole prescriber of the therapy and when he is, where the sole distributor of the therapy from his pharmacy
——————————————————————
Well what I find interesting about these other doctors is like like the doctors mentioned in the movie and BBC Panorama’s report and in some of these newspaper articles where they are mentioned again is that these doctors never do a review of Burzynski’s scientific publications and including our favorite oncologist who refuses to do so [20]
Oh yeah he says he’s read everything but uh you know he claims that he’s uhmmm reviewed, reviewed uh Burzynski’s personalized gene targeted therapy but he, but then just a few months ago he admitted, you know, I don’t know where Burzynski says which genes are targeted by antineoplastons [22]
And I pointed out which specific publications that Burzynski published, publications which specifically mention which genes are targeted by antineoplastons, and I said how can you claim that you’ve read and reviewed every Burzynski publication and you didn’t know which genes are targeted by antineoplastons when that’s specifically in the publications ? [10]
To me that tells me that you do not know how antineoplastons work be because you just admitted you don’t know which genes Burzynski talks about
I mean that’s just funny as heck to me that he would say that
——————————————————————
0:25:07
—————————————————————— Can you go ahead and send me that link that that I saw in the chat that you had uh posted a couple of times in the chat
Could you send me that link, to that publication
I can give you a minute to to go find it if that’s
——————————————————————
Well I’ve, I’ve got it on my blog
Uhm
I mean I can forward it to you at some point
—————————————————————— That would be good
Uhmmm
——————————————————————
But I agree with you about I don’t remember seeing anything about antineoplastons cutting off the blood flow to the, you know the blood brain barrier for sure either
—————————————————————— Well, yeah that’s a, that’s you know one of the major problems that this this cancer has is the location is such a pain to get to
Uhm, and often when we are talking about these cancers, the thing that gets me over and over and over, and this is something that I’ve learned from from working uh with others on the Burzynski Patient Group is what’s it like to be a cancer patient, only by proxy, man I couldn’t imagine really going through this myself, and, you know I’d hate to see my family go through this
——————————————————————
0:26:22
—————————————————————— That these people are at what could be described as a low point, they’re um uhhh, you get a diagnosis of uh brainstem glioma the prognosis is very bad
Uhmmm, there are only a few cases of people recovering from that, I mean they’re there uhm uhhh but, you know that it’s an, it’s an extremely grim prognosis
Uhhh and I worry that when they’re in that desperate state and especially let’s talk about the children, you have these kids who are uh you know 2 and 3 and have had this, you know uh awful diagnosis and the parents are willing to do literally anything to keep their kids alive
——————————————————————
27:16
—————————————————————— What protections are in place for patients as far as that these kids are and and their parents are protected
——————————————————————
0:27:30
——————————————————————
Well I think i know the point that you’re getting at uhhh about the IRB’s and all that good stuff
All I can say is that, you know the FDA can come in with any amount of investigators and say that you did this or that but you have the opportunity to respond, and so they can pretty much say anything, it’s only when the final report comes out that you can take that to the bank
And so all this speculation about what a investigative team may say about the clinic is, to me just like someone going into a lawsuit and saying so-and-so did this, you know, can you prove that, you know, did so-and-so do that [23]
——————————————————————
0:28:09
——————————————————————
So it’s the same thing with the FDA, these um little reports, the final report is what counts, and so, also what I find interesting is some of Burzynski’s publications specifically said, you know this particular uh clinical trial, the IRB was agreed upon by the FDA [24]
Well if if the FDA agreed upon it, you know, then some questions should arise about exactly what did the FDA agree upon
What would we find out from a Freedom of Information Act request on that ?
And, and what I also found interesting is when I did research on other clinical trials for brainstem glioma I found, you know, all these other science based medicine studies where 374 children had died in their studies [25]
——————————————————————
0:29:00
——————————————————————
And what I found interesting is back in 1999, they reported on a clinical trial, they had better results then all these clinical trials afterwards [18]
—————————————————————— Who had the better results ?
——————————————————————
Well, I would have to find you one, there were like 3
—————————————————————— Okay
——————————————————————
There were like 3 major ones that Burzynski has mentioned in his publications to cross-reference his trials versus their trials as far as the results
And so, I, there was one back in 1999 that had better results than a lot of these clinical trials that come afterwards
So when we talk about, you know, what’s really right for the patients well we can see that the drug companies want to test their drugs through clinical trials and, you know, and if your kid dies, well, unfortunately the kid dies
Even though we showed better results in 1999 with a different type of treatment, you would have thought that maybe they would have poured more investment into that particular treatment but that’s not necessarily how the clinical trial system works
——————————————————————
0:30:00
—————————————————————— Hmmm, yeah, the, Guy Chapman has just um uh tossed in a a, a comment
I guess uh that there are a lot of people who wanna talk to you (laughter)
Uh, Guy Chapman has just jumped in and said it looks like you forgot the phase 3 trial is withdrawn and none of the phase 2 trials were published
Uhmmm, this, this is not a minor thing for for for Skeptics
This, this is exactly what will convince us to get on board the Burzynski train is the publication of these trials
But even the preliminary trials, one has been finished, and none has been published in its entirety for over 15 years
When you consider that this is a, as you just pointed out, this is a a cancer, the, especially the brainstem gliomas
That these cancers uh the cases resolved fairly quickly, we know what the outcome are fairly quickly
——————————————————————
0:31:00
—————————————————————— Ummm, do you have any sense of when these trials are going to be published ?
——————————————————————
Well here’s my point, I mean, y’all probably get a better sense from, ummm, Hymas, about what’s going on with that
—————————————————————— From Laura ?
——————————————————————
From her uh fiancé, or husband, whatever his status happens to be right now (laugh)
—————————————————————— Right
——————————————————————
And uh also from Ric, uh they’re more closer to Burzynski than I am, because I have never met Burzynski, I have never e-mailed Burzynski, uhmmm never talked to Burzynski, never met him, blah blah blah
Uh, my sense is that since 1996 when the FDA talked about antineoplastons, that specific FDA Commissioner that was in charge at the time, he set out 7 major points about how there was going to be less people required and there was going to be less paperwork, there was going to be less stringent things about Partial Response [26]
——————————————————————
0:32:07
——————————————————————
And so, to me, the FDA is the final source to go to when people want to complain about how long their trials have lasted uh because the FDA is bottom line, you know, in charge of that
And
—————————————————————— When you, when you think about a major, sorry, go ahead
——————————————————————
And my other point is that, uhmmm, when these trials finish, as I’ve pointed out on my blog, M.D. Anderson finished a trial in 2006 and didn’t publish the results electronically until January of this year [27]
So, just think
Burzynski’s 1st trial we know that finished in 2009
So we would still have more years to go before he caught up to M.D. Anderson as far as publishing
So for him to actually be trying to publish stuff now and The Lancet not publishing because they have other stuff to do, put in there, that’s understandable
——————————————————————
0:33:03
——————————————————————
So, we know that he’s trying to publish, uh but they’re going to keep it close to the vest obviously, from, from how they do their things, and where they’re trying to publish
And plus, like I’ve said before
—————————————————————— Yeah, right, uh
——————————————————————
We’ve still got the accelerated approval thing that’s out there, you know, like the FDA’s given Temodar and, and Avastin, and another drug, whereas they’re not doing the same thing for antineoplastons, eve even though for all intents and purposes from what we know, antineoplastons have had better success rates than Temodar and Avastin when they were approved [13]
—————————————————————— Antineoplastons has a better rate ?
——————————————————————
Well from the information that’s been published in certain um publications
—————————————————————— Right
——————————————————————
And in, and in not only Burzynski’s but elsewhere in, in newspapers or articles, or such like that
—————————————————————— Right, one of the things that that there there are 2 points to be made here
Uhm, the 1st one is that major pharmaceutical companies that are getting this accelerated approval have a track record of producing results which Burzynski does not have
Secondly, when it comes to ummm the rates of antineoplastons, how can we possibly say without a single published trial he, that he has an improved rate over Temodar or anything like that, and that’s exactly what would show to us whether or not his rate is better, the the types of publications that he’s done, that look really good on paper, ummm, to the to the, the common persons eye are these case series where he goes through and picks out people who have happened to have survived
——————————————————————
0:34:47
—————————————————————— But what that doesn’t tell us is whether or not the antineoplaston had anything to do with it
What you need to do is go and separate the background noise, the random weird rare but very real survive, unexpected survivals that occur, and separate those, uhhh, from any effect of antineoplaston, he’s never done that
——————————————————————
0:35:10
——————————————————————
Well what I found interesting is when the FDA approved these other 1 or 2 drugs, some of them specifically said that, uhhh, some of these drugs had, you know, better survivability or they showed no better rate than any previous treatment but we’re approving it anyway [13]
Basically that’s what the publication said and I published this on my blog in an article specifically about, you know, those 2 or 3 drugs that the FDA approved for brainstem or brain related cancers [28]
And so, you know, I’m not going to buy that argument about that, about that specific thing
—————————————————————— But if you think about that, I mean that if it does have a a an improvement rate above uh other treatments
——————————————————————
0:36:03
—————————————————————— That still has an improvement rate, you know, that, that would give another option to people, ummm, even if in the aggregate their rates aren’t better
It might work on some individuals tumors rather than on, you know, you you it it is it taken as a, as a lump but extend life by uh quality of life for 3 months or something um in some cases but, you know, it it still has an effect, a real effect, and deserves to be out there
——————————————————————
Well one of these newspaper articles specifically said, you know, Avastin would maybe keep you alive for maybe 4 more months
So, you know, take that [2]
—————————————————————— That’s a long time when someone is dying
——————————————————————
Well, we can wonder if some of Burzynski’s results are the same, otherwise why would the FDA say, you know, give the ODD [10], why would the FDA give the phase 3 approval [12]
——————————————————————
0:37:02
——————————————————————
Plus I don’t buy some of these doctors coming out and saying stuff, they have the opportunity just like the other doctors in Egypt [29], in Russia [30], in Germany, in, in Poland [31], in China [32 – 33], in Taiwan [34] that have done antineoplaston studies, I’m like, these people can do antineoplaston studies so what’s the excuse for all these other doctors who say that they supposedly can’t do them
You know, the information’s out there and
—————————————————————— Well, one of
——————————————————————
and like these other doctors can do it
—————————————————————— One of the problems that that doctors have in in this country when it comes to doing ummm antineoplastons studies to verify any any effect that uh Burzynski has uhhh I i think back to the one where people say well that the FDA sabotaged his trials, and
——————————————————————
Well, we kind of know that that’s a fact [35]
—————————————————————— Clarification: NIH, NCI, and the Investigators
—————————————————————— Well, if if you think about it though, um, the, the proposed action as I understand it of the antineoplaston is that it’s a deacetylase inhibitor, which slightly unspools DNA, that allows uh, which would allow uh proteins to get into a pair of damaged DNA
And we have drugs that do that which carry a much lower sodium load
Uh, um, it, that would have a therapeutic effect on and that the risks outweigh the possible benefits of using this one particular drug
Um, I’ve seen any number of people looking at um, if you look at the Luna ah Pettiguine uh uh story on The Other Burzynski Patient Group um you see that the doctor is absolutely horrified by the insane sodium load that that Burzynski’s patients are carrying
Um in in some ways that that sodium load is uh leading people to constantly drinking up to I’ve seen 12 liters of water a day
——————————————————————
0:39:11
—————————————————————— That’s not necessary for other deacetylase inhibitors
Um the, why would you prefer that to to another drug if it did essentially the same thing, that didnt have this massive side effect ?
——————————————————————
Well what we know from 1996 from Burzynski’s own information that he’s published, is that not only does he have the original parent antineoplastons, but he’s developed 2nd and 3rd generations, but he can’t just stop in the middle of his clinical trial and use the 2nd and 3rd generations which may be better [36]
(Clarification: 1997)
He can't uh use these other types of um antineoplastons that other researchers, researchers like Egypt [29], or Japan [37] have found um that may be better because he can’t just switch in the middle of the clinical trial
——————————————————————
0:40:04
——————————————————————
Now if he, if the FDA approves his product, well then, maybe he can roll out the 2nd and 3rd generation and these other types of antineoplastons that may be less harsh, but that’s all he’s got to work on and that takes us back to the FDA, having control over the entire process, as far as the paperwork, how many people are in the trials, etcetera
—————————————————————— Well that sss I believe that that’s proposed by the researchers, the design trial, you know they they sign off on it but that is is, is up to uh Burzynski uh my uh David James @StortSkeptic on the[38]
——————————————————————
Right
—————————————————————— ah he has asked everything that Burzynski does looks sort of like the behaviors of pseudo-science
——————————————————————
0:40:56
—————————————————————— So what we’re saying uhhh he does uh uhhh Burzynski like for instance like I said he has vertically integrated, ah, he controls all parts from identification to the creation of the drug uh to the diagnosing uh well he doesn’t do the diagnosing but he does um um prescribe and distribute, he does all that vertically, which is actually something that snake oil salesmen do
——————————————————————
0:41:32
—————————————————————— Another thing that that’s a red flag in Skeptic circles is that his one compound seems to be a sort of panacea for all sorts of different types of, of of cancers, um where we know that cancer has a a varied uh, uh, ideology and and the uh panaceas are are are to be and a variety of different types of causes um, in fact in any one tumor you would, you could say that these, these tumors are are completely uh heterogenous
The idea that there’s gonna be one knockout, it seems rather unrealistic
Um, additionally he charges immense amounts of money for this drug, um, even though the components cost pennies
Um, on top of that, um, there’s something that he asks for a a huge payment up front
——————————————————————
0:42:33
—————————————————————— That’s something that’s been warned against for generations of uh by anti-quack um uh crusaders if if they’re asking for everything up front, then be afraid
Ummm, another thing is that uh the kind of cult that’s sprung up around Burzynski, uh, one that is immune to uh criticism, reason, and pits people who are doing standard cancer research, as enemies, um, creating a black and white version of the world where there are good people and there are bad people
——————————————————————
0:43:15
—————————————————————— There are people who are fighting the disease, and then there are people who are really helping the disease
I mean, if you look at the, the new web-site by the Burzynski patients fighting back group, they say support the cure not the cancer
That’s a manikin world-view of black and white
——————————————————————
0:43:30
—————————————————————— Um, these are all huge red flags, that you’re dealing with a quack
Um, why hasn’t Burzynski done anything to change that ?
——————————————————————
Well I find it interesting that you talk about the cost, because I’ve done a lot of research about the cost, and I was just looking at the cost again this morning, and put it into that particular blog article I was talking about, that I did for this particular program [39]
And, um
——————————————————————
0:44:00
——————————————————————
The thing that’s funny is that people can say, ohhh Burzynski charges a lot, but the fact is, so does chemo, radiation, and some of these newspaper articles that have been published, and specifically in the movie, Burzynski 2, one of the people mentioned how much someone was paying for standard treatment
And I noticed our
—————————————————————— Right
——————————————————————
favorite oncologist didn’t comment about that in his movie review [40]
—————————————————————— Well, there, this is important
This is really important though
Wha, when she’s talking about, that’s Luna Pettiguine’s mother, is is talking about the costs there
Uhmmm, you, when someone is not insured in in this country,
Ahm, the, the the base cost that that’s calculated is, is the hospital only expects to get a fraction, a tiny fraction of that back from the insurance companies, and that’s why the costs are so inflated
Um, usually, when a patient is self-pay there is a self-pay price which is a more reasonable price
——————————————————————
0:45:01
—————————————————————— Additionally, all of those therapies, have demonstrated efficacy, and if Burzynski were to demonstrate his efficacy, $30,000 dollars to start on a life-saving treatment for a child would be a steal, and he would earn every nickel of it
Um, so, those arguments hold very little weight with us
——————————————————————
Well what I find interesting, you know, I’m not sure how people think he’s supposed to pay for the clinical trials, you know, if he’s supposed to go into debt, millions of dollars
—————————————————————— He has a a an enormous house that’s valued in the tens of millions of dollars, he could do that if if the other, the other thing he could do, and this, we would love to see him do this, wousa, would be apply to Federal grant
That, that would be amazing, if he could get a grant to study this stuff
But, you know, um, I I don’t think he’d be able to get one, I don’t think he’s shown uh that he can carry off a uh a research program responsibly
——————————————————————
0:46:08
—————————————————————— Uhmmm
——————————————————————
I find that funny considering the FDA approved phase 3, has given him ODD for brainstem glioma and also also all gliomas [12]
You know, that’s kind of ridiculous [10]
And the people
—————————————————————— Well
——————————————————————
gettin’ off about his house, well who cares ?
They don’t know where his money came for that particular source
—————————————————————— (Clarification: “They don’t know the particular source where his money came from for that house”)
—————————————————————— Oh he, have you noticed the the, the thing on his web-site where if you make a donation to the clinic it goes directly to him ?
——————————————————————
Well, you know, when you have good tax lawyers your tax lawyers will tell you how to structure things, and everybody in America has the right to structure their taxes in a manner that effectively serves them according to our Supreme Court
So, if you have a tax lawyer who tells you, hey this is the best way to do it, to save money, well, you may do that uh based upon your lawyer’s advice
——————————————————————
0:47:00
——————————————————————
So, maybe Burzynski has taken his tax lawyers advice, just like I’m sure he’s taken Richard Jaffe’s ad advice (laugh), which has proved well, for him
—————————————————————— Right
——————————————————————
You know, you know
That’s another thing
—————————————————————— Ummm, o-kay
Uh, I want to turn this over to the people who are watching
Um, I want to give them a a chance to address you as well
Uhmmm, hi everyone
Uhmmm, so, um, let’s, let’s wait for for that to roll in, and I do wait to go back to the, the the, the and let’s be very specific about this, the the things that you see on The Other Burzynski Patent Group, a patient reporting that um uh getting worse is getting better
How do you explain that ?
——————————————————————
0:48:00
——————————————————————
Well I guess we could ask, you know, Ben and Laura Hymas [41]
What was their experience, you know ?
Did they have, did she have to drink uh a lot of water because she was thirsty ?
You know, did she have to drink a lot of water due to the high sodium ?
—————————————————————— Well that’s just a known side-effect, your going to know that going in, but we actually have people say
——————————————————————
So I would ask her about her personal experience instead of saying, you know, instead of quoting some of these other people
—————————————————————— Are there, why why why not, these people, see this is the thing though
The reason that site was started was because the people that don’t make it don’t have a voice
And when you, when you whittle away, when you only look at the at the, the positive outcomes, which is exactly in Burzynski’s favor to only look at the positive outcomes, and to have no sense of how other people’s diseases progressed, right, you’re gonna get a skewed and inaccurate version of the efficacy of this particular drug
Now lets lets lets go back and not talk about Laura, lets talk about these patients who report symptoms of getting worse, as if they were signs of getting better
Some people say that oh it’s a healing crisis or it’s progression of the disease
Or other people say it’s breaking up in the middle, hurrah
——————————————————————
0:49:20
—————————————————————— No, it’s actually a tumor that’s growing
That record there, that’s being left by patients, whose stories are every bit as important as the as the stories of the patients who have lived, are painting a completely different picture
How do you explain that ?
——————————————————————
Well we all know the FDA is in charge of this, and so hopefully they know what’s going on
—————————————————————— Are they feeding these people their stories ?
Are they feeding these people their stories
——————————————————————
No, I’m sure the FDA can look at the records because Burzynski sent them 2.5 million pages according to our friend Fabio [42]
0:50:00
——————————————————————
And uh, you know just something the doctors who came in and did the little ol’ one day, 6 patient records, where they reviewed all the records and slides, and MRI’s, etcetera, you know they can do the same thing, the FDA can do the same thing with all these patients [35]
(Clarification: 7)
And see the same MRI’s and scans, etcetera
I mean, we, we know that with all these 374 children I mentioned dying in other science-based medicine clinical trials [25]
I mean, they, FDA probably went through all their records
And, so, all these people didn’t look good either but, you know, the FDA still gave approval to Avastin and Te Temodar even though a lot of people died in their clinical trials [25]
—————————————————————— Okay I’m going to go back, I want to point something else out to you
Um, I have to, I don’t remember the exact patient so I have to go back to my web-site to take a look at it
Um
——————————————————————
0:51:00
—————————————————————— Because we are, because we’re on a Google+ stream that that’s a lot of data it takes awhile to bring up my, my site
Let me
Uhmmm
——————————————————————
I mean, we could agree that since Burzynski’s publication says that it’s going to take a month to get up to required dosage, and so we know, the tumor can still grow, like he said, up to 50%, he specifically acknowledges that in his publication, so, we know that can happen [43]
——————————————————————
0:51:35
—————————————————————— Well, that seems to give him an instant out, no matter what happens
That turns his claims into something that’s unfalsifiable
If I could give you an example of what unfalsifiable is
Um, and I’ll I’ll draw an uh, uh, case, uh hypothetical case of um uh proposed by Carl Sagan as the invisible dragon in your garage
——————————————————————
0:52:00
—————————————————————— If you say you have have a dragon in your garage, um, you know, you should be able to go over and verify that there’s a dragon in the garage
So let’s say we go over to Carl Sagan’s garage and, you know
Well, I don’t see anything
Well it’s an invisible dragon
Well okay, well then, let’s uh spray paint it
Well, it’s incorporeal
Well, uh, let’s measure for the heat of the breath
Well it’s heatless flame that it breathes
And, you know, okay, well then we’ll put flour down on the ground to see that it’s it it’s standing there
And, oh no it’s ah it’s floating
Well, you know, at some point, when you can’t falsify something
When you cannot, even in principle, prove something false, it’s indistinguishable from something that’s not there
And that kind of out, that oh well the tumor can keep on growing
Th (laugh) that that that’s an invisible dragon, as far as I can tell
——————————————————————
0:53:00
——————————————————————
Well we know from his own publications, he says he can’t just go in and start giving the maximum dose, or recommended dose right off the bat because a particular condition will occur, and he specifically mentions, in the publications what that condition is, I don’t remember it right off the top of my head [20]
But then again, his 2nd generation, his 3rd generation, his other form of antineoplastons that may work in the future, if approved, well those could possibly (not) have the same uh adverse effects that the current parent generation have [36]
But we don’t know, and like I said the FDA I’m sure knows because they have all the records, we don’t have them, and so unlike our favorite oncologist I’m not going to speculate, about what the FDA knows and I do not know
—————————————————————— A every time that I and and and and , and David points this out, that um, you you know your not going to speculate about the the FDA but then at every turn your invoking the FDA as being obstructionist
——————————————————————
0:54:02
—————————————————————— I, I just find that to be contradictory and and self-defeating
Um, let me see
——————————————————————
Well we know they stopped this particular trial, supposedly because a patient died
So what’s the hold-up ?
I mean, hopefully they’ve done an autopsy
What was found
—————————————————————— Well, that’s not necessarily true
——————————————————————
No
—————————————————————— I mean uh when it when it comes to the case um I’ve i’ve talked to oncologists about this
And when it comes to uh for instance in in this case it sounds like it was a pediatric patient who was dying, ummm, who had died, ummm, the,
the 1st inclination is to ascribe the death to, um, to the tumor, which actually, would be to Burzynski’s benefit if there were other cases, I’m not saying there were, but if there were other cases where this type of complication arose, and it was ascribed to the tumor they might well not do it, uh, do an autopsy
——————————————————————
0:55:08
—————————————————————— Um, it’s ah as you could imagine it could be very difficult for the families to do that especially when they have ooh ah, a possibility of what, you know, led to the ultimate demise, that didn’t involve them ultimately somehow being responsible for it, right?
So, it it it doesn’t seem to me that necessarily an autopsy would be um a a done deal
Um, let me see
——————————————————————
And we don’t have a final report from the FDA on what the findings were
—————————————————————— No we don’t and it would be irresponsible to completely speculate on on, on, the outcome of that uh, uh, uh, individual patient, I am still scrolling through looking for this story that I wanted to talk about
——————————————————————
0:56:00
—————————————————————— Uh, and, I guess I’ll
It should be in Amelia’s I I, I packed Amelia’s story with all the stories, um, that I could find um in what we’d written up already
Um
Hold on a sec
She is a cute kid though
Um, alright
Now, our favorite oncologist (laugh), as you keep putting it, um, uh, with with the Amelia story, um, uh, was able to correctly determine that the Saunders family, had a, did not understand the significance of this cyst that had opened up in, uh, that had opened up in the center of the tumor, in fact they were ecstatic
They were delighted
Um, the family, of Haley, um, S, also
——————————————————————
0:57:10
—————————————————————— Uh, the the family of Haley S., also, had the same reading given to them
Um, the same diagnosis uh same prognosis was to, was given to Justin B in 2006
A similar cyst in Lesley S’s story uh ah, was in 2006
Um, and that kept her on uh treatment for a a another month so that could be another $7,000 some odd dollars
We same thing in the, in the case of, uh, Samantha T in 2005
We see it again as far back as 1994, in Cody G’s story
And then lastly and and the worst uh thing that we’ve seen, the patients report that Burzynski himself told Chase uh Sammut
——————————————————————
0:58:00
—————————————————————— The exact same thing
Um, and that was a
Have you read Chase’s story
——————————————————————
I don’t remember specifically
Possibly not
—————————————————————— It would stick with you, because that case is grotesque
The parents, uh, there was even a uh, uh, a fight over whether or not the parents should be allowed to continue treating this kid
He was basically lying, uh, in a uh uh brain dead uh for all intents and purposes, uh, in a in a coma uh without possibility of reversal, in his parents living room for months
Um, eh, all the while, he’s still on the, uh, we’ll I don’t actually, I can’t say that, I don’t exactly know if he was on the treatment the whole time
Um, but, we do have this pattern, that is there, of people believing, that this particular pattern is, uh, progress, a a is not progression of disease but is is inducement to to stay on, um, eh, and this has been going on for decades
Eh, eh just based on what we’ve been able to find that patients have been reporting this for decades
——————————————————————
0:59:20
—————————————————————— At some point, you would think that a doctor would realize that perhaps what these patients are walking away with is inaccurate
Why hasn’t that changed ?
——————————————————————
Well he’s using the same 1st generation drug
—————————————————————— E wel that that that that’s not it
This is this is like the 2nd day of oncology class, that that’s what the tumor looks like
People are reporting that the tumor is no longer growing, um, or that the growing has slowed after they’ve started
Well, okay
There, there is an explanation for that, and why you can’t take that as necessarily being evidence of efficacy
——————————————————————
1:00:00
—————————————————————— Ah, the tumor grows exponentially while the resources are available to it, but then it reaches a point where it’s a self-limited growth, so it, the time between uh doublings in size decreases logarithmically
Um, so this is, this is like basic tumor physiology that we’re talking about, and his patients don’t leave his office, knowing these facts, for decades
This doesn’t have anything to do with the, do with the drug
This this
——————————————————————
Well I’m sure a lot of people leave the doctors office not knowing things (laugh), for decades
—————————————————————— But, but when it’s, this treatment is working or this is not evidence that the treatment is working
That’s pretty basic
I mean we’re not, we’re not talking about deacetylase inhibitors or anything like that were you’d really need to know something about
This is, whether or not, you’re getting the outcome that you want
——————————————————————
1:01:00
—————————————————————— This is the whole reason for going
And it has nothing to do with the with the with the drugs
——————————————————————
Well we know the contin, the tumors can uh continue to grow for awhile, at least, and certain effects that they probably would
—————————————————————— Which is, which is like which we just pointed out was a was an invisible dragon
——————————————————————
Well I’m sure, I mean, it’s going to continue to grow, in any other clinical trial too, for a certain awhile
I mean like
—————————————————————— you’re you’re you’re assuming
You’re you’re you’re assuming that
You’re assuming that
Um, I’m not assuming that
——————————————————————
Well we know that all these other kids died in these science-based medicine trials, and, you know, we can assume that that was the case there too [25]
——————————————————————
1:02:00
—————————————————————— Ultimately it would, but whether or not it it it had a genuine therapeutic effect is a different matter all together
Um, this, what would, what would convince you that you’re wrong
——————————————————————
The FDA not giving him phase 3 approval [12], the FDA not giving him ODD designation [10]
—————————————————————— So you’re saying because the Orphan Drug Designation and the face that there’s a phase 3, therefor it works ?
——————————————————————
And showing that, and showing the FDA that there’s evidence of effectiveness [11]
—————————————————————— So what you’re saying is there’s nothing that would convince you now, that it doesn’t work
——————————————————————
Not until the FDA says it doesn’t work
—————————————————————— O-kay
Um, it’s it’s it’s not the FDA’s, but you understand it’s not the FDA’s job to tell someone that their drug doesn’t work
——————————————————————
Well they seem to be doing a good job of it
——————————————————————
1:03:00
—————————————————————— it’s it’s it’s up to Burzynski
It’s up to Burzynski to show that his drug does work
And it’s always been his burden of proof
He’s the one that’s been claiming this miracle cancer cure, forever
——————————————————————
Well I’m sure, I’m sure they wouldn’t have done things if they didn’t see some evidence that it was working
—————————————————————— Um, I don’t know if you’ve read Jaffe’s book
——————————————————————
No I haven’t read it [44]
—————————————————————— There seems to have been a lot going on there you really should look at it because it’s it’s it’s kind of revealing
Um, that that that it seems that there was a lot of political pressure applied to the FDA which may have been, uh, uh, have influenced the way in which these these trials were approved
I I would say that it is a genuine con uh uh bit of confusion on the parts of Skeptics
We don’t know why the phase 3 trial was approved
I don’t know that we’ve seen even the phase 1 trials, we don’t know why he’s getting a phase 3
And there’s a real story in that, we think
——————————————————————
1:04:02
—————————————————————— Um, that we’d love to see, however we can’t see, however we can’t see it because of proti protri proprietary uh protections that the FDA is giving to Burzynski, right ?
They’re not sharing his trial designs because they are his trial designs, right?
That the makeup of his drug that he’s distributing are his, uh design, and his intellectual property
So the FDA is protecting him, uh from outside scrutiny
While you may imagine that that, that that the FDA is is somehow antagonistic toward him
They’ve given him every opportunity, over 60 opportunities to prove himself worth uh their confidence and hasn’t
Um, but I definitely recommend that you look at Jaffe’s book and you will see, I think, um that um it’s called um, uh Galileo’s
——————————————————————
1:05:00
——————————————————————
I know what it’s called [44]
—————————————————————— You know what it’s called, okay, yeah
Um, definitely look at that
Um, you, you will see, the ways in which, the way that we got to this point, isn’t necessarily having anything to do with the efficacy of the drug
That comes across very clearly
Um, you, you mentioned it yourself, he he’s done well to listen to Jaffe’s advice, right ?
——————————————————————
Right
—————————————————————— So, there there’s a lot to that
Um, uh, but yeah, let me go back to the Twitter feed
Um
——————————————————————
Well I’m just gonna say, you know, the F, the FDA doing what they’ve done, since they approved those 72 initial trials, pretty much speaks for itself [45]
I mean they’ve had every opportunity to shut this down, since then
—————————————————————— Well it sounds to me like they’re they’re not um, the the the you know, they’ve put the clinical hold on now because they now have evidence that somebody may have died because of the treatment
——————————————————————
1:06:06
—————————————————————— Um, I don’t know what the state of that is right now
Um, uh, oh my gosh, um, let me see
Someone has just sent me a, a ah a link to, are you following the Hashtag, as this is going on
——————————————————————
No, I’m just concentrating on what we’re doing
—————————————————————— Okay
I’m doing, I’m doing the 2 things at once and it’s um, ok ok well it’s well ok I can’t I can’t go in and read that right now
Um, I would, ok let me tell you exactly what it will take, for me to come around and promote Burzynski
Um, for me, he needs to get a publication in a uh, yeah, uh uh uh publication in a peer-reviewed journal, a respected peer-reviewed journal, not like the the Journal of Medical Hypothesis or things we just made up
——————————————————————
1:07:16
—————————————————————— Um, something, you know, a a good, respectable journal that oncologists would read, that research oncologists would read
I would need an completely independent group to replicate his findings, and then I’d be all for it
I would say that right now, the business model that the Burzynski Clinic seems to depend on, as best as I can tell from an outsider, that, um, uh, that it depends on people paying money up front
It doesn’t depend on him developing and taking away a viable drug, that he can market to the entire world
His business model as best I can tell, is to keep it in house
——————————————————————
1:08:03
—————————————————————— That seems, if it works, if his drug genuinely works, and he hasn’t sent it along to mass approval, where he gets, for a couple of years at least, you know, exclusive rights to produce and sell this stuff, for one of the most intractable diseases, uh that man eh can can can, you know, can get, um, that suggests to me that there’s something else going on here
Now, someone has just sent a a note, uh that he has failed 3 different Institutional Review Board audits; this is Guy Chapman (@SceptiGuy), uh no other institution has a 3 for 3 fail, according to to Guy iye he knows no other one
Um, that 45% of phase 3 clinical trials fail due to deficient phase 2 design
Um, he has an approved phase 3, but phase 2 was deficient so phase 3 fails
——————————————————————
1:09:07
—————————————————————— Do you think that that could possibly have anything to do with why we’re not seeing the phase 3 advance
——————————————————————
Well #1 I don’t think the one with brainstem glioma where they wanted to use radiation with ANP was really the right way to go, I mean he’s already proven that uh he seems to have better results without [12]
—————————————————————— He’s claimed
——————————————————————
first starting radiation [20]
—————————————————————— He’s claimed
That’s a different thing altogether
And in fact
——————————————————————
Yeah but the thing is radi, I, the FDA was not saying, ok, one study, one side of the study we’re only going to use ANP, in the other side of the study we’re going to use radiation and and ANP like like they would normally do
No, they wanted to make him use radiation in both sides of the study [20]
—————————————————————— Well, you understand why they do that, because in order to, it’s
——————————————————————
They don’t do that with other drugs [13]
—————————————————————— No, they do do this with other drugs, well, it depends on the type
——————————————————————
1:10:01
—————————————————————— Some drugs it’s ethical to give something completely questionable, what they want to make sure that they at least get the standard care, you know which includes radiation
Um, and radiation does seem to extend life, reduce the size of some tumors some times
Um, do you concede, that in order to have a phase 3, you do not need to have a successful phase 2 ?
When 45% of phase 3 fail because they have a deficient phase 2 design, do you concede that ?
——————————————————————
Well I don’t buy anything Guy Chapman sells, considering his past record [46]
—————————————————————— Well, ok
It doesn’t matter where
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— It doesn’t matter where it comes from uh, um
——————————————————————
Well his theories are suspect, anything he hands out, let me tell ya [47]
—————————————————————— So-kay, um that would be shooting the messenger as opposed to dealing with the question, but
——————————————————————
But the question may be bogus, because of where the messenger has been bogus a lot of times before (laugh) [48]
——————————————————————
1:11:04
—————————————————————— the idea, the best, well, the best, well in that case the best response is “I don’t know”
——————————————————————
Well I’m just gonna say what I think about Chapman because he’s proven himself, many times to be questionable
I don’t see him on my blog responding to my criticism [7]
—————————————————————— There’s something that that we don’t know, you’re coming, honestly we didn’t know what to expect when we talked to you
We, were looking at the design, of your web-site and wondering whether or not we would be able to get a a coherent sentence out of you, because the web-site is disorganized, uh
Um, at at at at least it’s the organization is not apparent to the readers
Um, and um according to
——————————————————————
That’s like, that’s like saying that Gorski’s web-site is disorganized, his blog is like anti vaccine one day, Burzynski the next, blah blah blah
—————————————————————— No, that is tied together
——————————————————————
1:12:00
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— But let me, we know that that the the, the central concern is Burzynski
Ah, the source of this ah of of those #’s that I just gave you, Chapman has just updated me and he says um that it is, and I’ll go back to the, the ADR research . com issues in clinical research, so it’s the question, Bay Clinical uh Research and Clinical Development,a white paper called “Why do so many phase 3 clinical trials fail ?”
Uh, it’s prepared by Anistazios Retzios, Ph.D
Is Anistazios Retzios reliable ?
There is a correct here
——————————————————————
Well how would I know ?
I don’t have
—————————————————————— Exactly
That’s the right answer
You don’t know
You don’t know
You need to look into it
Alright ?
Before you dismiss it you have to look into it
——————————————————————
1:13:00
—————————————————————— Everytime somebody throws uh uh something to me, I have to look into it
That’s just, it’s my responsibility as a reader
Um
——————————————————————
Well you didn’t when I tried to get you to do stuff the 1st time, did ya ? [2]
—————————————————————— What, what stuff would you like
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— What stuff would you like me to do ?
I generally, I don’t read your blog
——————————————————————
Well I, the most, the mostly, excuse me, the most recent article I posted on there is the one about this particular conversation, where I went through all your comments that you had posted, and my response to them
And so I tried to consolidate everything into one, particular article
—————————————————————— Uh um, alright
——————————————————————
And that’s the newest article [2]
—————————————————————— Okay, I’ll look at that, and I will respond to it once I’ve taken a look at that, okay ?
Um, and I’ll respond on your web-site
Um, seems only fair
Um, one question I’d wondered, what is the Didymus Judas Thomas reference to
——————————————————————
1:14:00
——————————————————————
Well I thought that was pretty funny because doing biblical research, you come upon, Didymus Judas Thomas, or he’s all, also known by other names
He’s basically The Skeptic
And so, like I said, I consider myself to be Skeptic of The Skeptics
—————————————————————— Oh, so this is the Doubting Thomas
——————————————————————
I thought it was apropos
Of course
—————————————————————— This is the Doubting Thomas
——————————————————————
I’m doubting The Skeptics
Exactly
—————————————————————— Okay, so this is the one, you show me the, you put your your, the, your hand inside the wound
You know, Jesus says, basically, ok, bring it on, check me out, right ?
——————————————————————
Exactly
—————————————————————— Okay
Alright
That that, I didn’t, I didn’t realize that he was also, that that was the same guy
So, it’s it’s the Doubting Thomas
Um, what we would say, um, is that if Burzynski is the savior that he claims to be, that he should, open up his trials, he should open up his uh research uh protocols um and just say, “Look, bring it on”
——————————————————————
1:15:08
—————————————————————— Check out these wounds
But he’s never done that
Instead he he he wants us to just take the words of of of of his apostles
I don’t necessarily trust his apostles
I don’t think that they’re unbiased
(laughing)
I wanna see the data
I wanna see the the wounds in his hands and the the mark on his side
——————————————————————
Well I like how The Skeptics say, you know, all of Burzynski’s successes over the years are anecdotal and uh I consider on the same way that everything negative about Burzynski is anecdotal
—————————————————————— Oh, hey when when we talk about The Other Burzynski Patient Group, I don’t make any pretensions to make that my site proves anything
I I I really don’t
It’s not my job to prove anything
It’s Burzynski’s job
It is a researchers job to prove these things
——————————————————————
1:16:00
——————————————————————
Well my point is he’s proven them to the FDA because they’re the ones
—————————————————————— But we just pointed out, we just pointed out, that the FDA, often approves, phase 3 trials, based on flawed phase 2 clinical trials
That is therefor a real possibility in this case
——————————————————————
Could be, but I would have to read, read the
—————————————————————— Yes you would
T t and what I would honestly expect and hope, is that you would be honest about this, to yourself, and and and that’s the thing we don’t, we often don’t realize that we’re not being honest with ourself
I try to fight against it, constantly
But, um, uh but the way that you’d earlier phrased your uh your response to “could you possibly be proved wrong ?”, . . really did exclude other possibilities of of of of yourself being wrong
So if the FDA
——————————————————————
Well when it comes to Guy Chapman, yeah
—————————————————————— Well I’m not talking about the Guy Chapman
What you off, when I asked you, yourself, you know, what would prove you wrong, you said that the FDA hasn’t approved a phase 3
——————————————————————
1:17:03
—————————————————————— Well, ok
Let’s let’s back, let’s back up
What would the FDA, what happens if the FDA occasionally op op opposes, approves uh phase 3 trials, based on bad phase 2 trials
Would that be, would that cause any doubt in your mind ?
About the efficacy of ANP
——————————————————————
You still there ?
—————————————————————— Yeah, hello, yeah, you’re back
——————————————————————
Yeah, something cut off there for awhile
—————————————————————— Yeah Google+ is a little wonky sometimes
But, would, does, if you were to learn, that sometimes phase 3 trials, uh, are approved, and failed, based on flawed phase 2, would, would that make you reconsider your position of the phase 3 being evidence that it works
——————————————————————
1:18:00
——————————————————————
Well I would certainly look at that, but then again I would also look at the FDA granting him Orphan Drug Designation [10]
—————————————————————— Uh um could you send me that link, the, the, um . me see
I’m just looking at other things that are coming in on the Hashtag right now
Um, so the ANP is Orphan Drug status but is it Orphan Drug for glioma ?
——————————————————————
Orphan Drug for brainstem glioma and all gliomas [10]
—————————————————————— Is it sodium phenylbutyrate or is it the the versions of the drug, the AS10 stuff or A1 or whatever it’s called ?
——————————————————————
Right, it’s both AS10 AS2-1 and AS
—————————————————————— Clarification: A10 and AS2-1
—————————————————————— Okay, that’s what has Orphan Drug status
Alright, I’ll look into that
I hope somebody is writing all this down out there, so that we can go back and look at these claims later, right ?
——————————————————————
1:19:00
—————————————————————— So, oh, um
Do you have any questions for me ?
I’ve spent a lot of times asking questions of you
——————————————————————
Well not really, since you mentioned that you’d go in and look at my most recent article, anything you show in there or any reply you give is going to cover, what we’ve gone over
And so we can re debate it there
—————————————————————— Mhmm
Guy Chapman, throws up the the, the comment, permission to investigate is not evidence of anything other than evidence of a valid protocol, not a uh, evidence of efficacy, in and of itself
That’s another comment
Um, alright then, this is your chance t, there are lots of people have lots of questions about me out there
Uh, about what my motivations are and such
I might as well put that out on the table just so it’s on the record, is that I am taking exactly no money from anyone for this, and have gotten nothin’ but grief from a lot of people, even people who (laugh), even people who support me have given me grief for this
Um, just so that you know, um, there have been, some of the things that have happened, oh, this is an important point too
Um, that when we have criticized this, uh, a # of us, especially Gorski, uh myself, uh Rhys Morgan, uh, um, and and uh Popehat, the the lawyer, blog, uh, um, who else was on there, um, oh, the Merritts, uh, t, uh Wayne Merritt, and his family, people have been critical of of of Burzynski have faced retaliation for opposing him ah and intimidation, and including, um, I had my uh a couple weeks before Christmas my, my, the Chancellor of my University was contacted via e-mail, and uh Eric Merola said that I had been um, uh, been spreading mis truths about Burzynski, that I had been a be, on my my show um had said things that were demonstratively untrue, and he also said that the drug was FDA approved, which it, you know, that’s not right
But um, he said that he was gonna do, talk about me in his new movie, in, uh, relat, in millions of homes, um, and he wanted to get a statement from the University
——————————————————————
1:22:02
—————————————————————— The University of course ignored him, and immediately let me know that I was going to get smeared
Um, I consulted my lawyer and uh uh, you know, the best course of action was figured out, and um uh a Gorski has had his accreditation board contacted, he’s had his bosses contacted, Rhys Morgan received threats of liable suits from somebody who had been hired, by the clinic, to clean up his on-line reputation if he didn’t take down his on-line review of Burzynski, uh, had his a picture of his house sent to him, clearly the message being, “We know where you live kid,” uh, Wayne Merritt; a pancreatic cancer patient, this is something that, that people generally, do not recover from, like generally, die from, received phone calls at home, from, this individual, threatening him with lawsuits; he doesn’t have a law degree so he’s misrepresenting himself
——————————————————————
1:23:15
—————————————————————— Um, but all of this, was done, to critics
Do you think that is deserved ?
Do you think that that is right ?
——————————————————————
Well I’ve specifically stated on my blog that Marc Stephens uh obviously didn’t know what he was doing and went about it the wrong way
My position was he should of bou, got around it, gone about it the way I did, which is, I blog, and show where Rhys is wrong [49], I blog and show where Gorski is wrong [40], I blog and show where you are wrong [2], or Josephine Jones [50], or Guy Chapman [7], etcetera
And, eh, y’all have every opportunity to come on my blog, and I’ve had very few takers, uh, one claiming to be from Wikipedia, who I shot down [51]
——————————————————————
1:24:04
——————————————————————
And hasn’t come back
So, you know, I am welcome to anybody trying to come on my blog, and prove what I posted is wrong, and debate anything
Unlike some of The Skeptics I don’t block people on my blog
—————————————————————— Mhmm
——————————————————————
I don’t give lame reasons for blocking people on my blog because I’m an American and I actually believe in “Free Speech”
—————————————————————— Well to be fair
It it it doesn’t strike me as necessarily a “Free Speech” issue, you know
——————————————————————
Well to me it is when Forbes removes all my comments, in response to Skeptics some, and I showed this from screen-shots
You know, stuff like that [52]
—————————————————————— Was it down-voted ?
——————————————————————
Oh no
—————————————————————— No
——————————————————————
It wasn’t down-voted
—————————————————————— Mhmm
——————————————————————
They, I mean I’ve got screen-shots of where my comments were there, between other people’s comments, and uh, and they just decided to remove all my comments, and I blogged specifically about, you know, what they did and, uh, Gorski’s good friend and pal who authored that particular article
—————————————————————— Mhmm
——————————————————————
So I, I like how The Skeptics run things, you know
——————————————————————
1:25:14
—————————————————————— Well we do have for for for for one thing, um, I guess to understand is that we are uh motivated by um uh a respect, this is the one thing that that all Skeptics I think um are uh respect critical thinking, um, and um respect scientific uh a we we’re mostly scientific enthusiasts, there’s some Skeptics who are not um, uh, you know oh u space nerds, or whatever who are um just sc scholars and the humanities but for the most part we all respect scientific consensus and we respect scientific method and have an enthusiasm for living in the real world, this is something that like all of us us are about
——————————————————————
1:26:00
—————————————————————— And to that end, sometimes that influence is how we run, is how we decide to run our personal web-sites
Um, uh, that whether or not we want our, to give a platform to people who disagree with us, um, you know, uh, when we do, uh . . it it is our sandbox, you know, right ?
This, this (laughter), we’re allowed to to let whoever we want into our sandbox if we, you know, uh if we want
——————————————————————
Well I think that people who really believe in “Free Speech,” and when it’s done rationally, I mean, Gorski would never, really respond to any of my questions, so I [53]
—————————————————————— Did he, did he leave them up ?
Did he leave them up ?
——————————————————————
Well I know that he specifically removed a review I did uh of his review of Burzynski I on his web, on his blog
But he’s pretty much left a lot of my comments up that I’ve seen
Uh, but he never really responded to my questions about, what he based his beliefs upon
——————————————————————
1:27:00
—————————————————————— Right, um, do you think that he is required to answer you
——————————————————————
Well I would think, if you’re going to base your position on a certain thing, and then you can’t back it up with scientific literature, uh, you should answer, maybe not specifically to me, but answer the question
Answer to your readers
—————————————————————— Right
——————————————————————
You know, I can tell his readers come on my blog because it shows that they come on my blog
—————————————————————— Mhmm
Um so a a question uh why were why do you have so many Twitter and Wikipedia sock-puppets
——————————————————————
Well the reason I have so many Twitter things is because, obviously, some of The Skeptics will be on there lying about some tweet I sent, and so Wikipedia, excuse me Twitter will do a little ol’, do their little, hey we’re going to block your account while we do blah blah blah, and I’m not gonna waste my time, going through their little review process, I’ll just create another uh Twitter address because, like, you know, if you read the Twitter information you can have a ridiculous amount of uh Twitter I.D.’s, and I’ll just use another Twitter I.D. and continue on
——————————————————————
1:28:15
——————————————————————
And so Wikipedia can say what they want, because I’ve only ever used one I.P., I’ve only got on there during one time, and when they finally said hey, you know, we’re not gonna uh grant your appeal, I completely left their web-site alone, so all that stuff [54]
—————————————————————— Wikipedia
You left Wikipedia
——————————————————————
that they post [55]
Yep [56]
So all that garbage that they posted about me, about how I supposedly got on-line, on these other articles is just entirely B.S. [57]
—————————————————————— Mhmm
Um a
——————————————————————
And if they can prove otherwise, I’d sure like to see it [58]
—————————————————————— Uh We have uh a response from David James, everyone uh gave you a fair shout
You were a spammer plain and simple
You couldn’t, you couldn’t
work out your questions
——————————————————————
But that’s what y’all always say
That’s what y’all like to say, about everything
—————————————————————— Twitter does not
Twitter does not block people for for arguing
Only for spamming and policy violations
——————————————————————
1:29:05
——————————————————————
Yeah I’m sure that’s what they like to say
I mean, you can report an e-mail, or report a twit, and they’ll block it
But um they’ll never come back and say, and this is why we blocked you, for this particular twit, for this particular reason
—————————————————————— Mhmm
Okay
Um, let me see
Each new account was blocked for additional violations of policies
Um, this is a uh uh referring to the Wikipedia rules too
Um, so
——————————————————————
Wikipedia is a joke [59]
—————————————————————— Um, Wikipedia, do you know why um they’ve locked the Burzynski page ?
——————————————————————
Oh sure, I’m sure, that’s no problem [60]
I don’t have any problem with them locking that [61]
You know, I could tell when I was on there, and when Merola was on there, because he had a different I.P. address than me, I could tell they were his questions because of the way they were formed [62]
——————————————————————
1:30:04
——————————————————————
So I said, well they’re not answering his questions, I’ll just take on that role, and uh ask his questions and ask further questions, and they didn’t wanna deal with it, you know [63]
—————————————————————— Did you notice the part where he threatened, did you notice the part where he threatened to expose Wikipedia
——————————————————————
Expose them for what ?
For doing what they do, which is basically provide false information and one-sided information ? [64]
—————————————————————— We have to, well, they they uh are looking that it’s not one-sided information they want to show
Like they discuss, there is controversy about this guy
——————————————————————
Oh, please
They get on there and they say hey, Lola Quinlan filed a lawsuit, but they don’t tell you anything else
They don’t tell you, you know, Jaffe’s side of the story, and her lawyer’s side of the story
—————————————————————— Yeah, Jaffe’s on there
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— Jaffe’s on there
——————————————————————
Oh Jaffe’s on there but on that specific article about Lola, they didn’t say, here’s the article that was posted on uh Lola’s attorney’s web-site that, that mentions both his responses and Jaffe’s responses, to the uh lawsuit
——————————————————————
1:31:10
—————————————————————— uh well you could add that if you hadn’t gotten blocked
——————————————————————
Uh, trust me, I tried to add that and they wouldn’t add it
——————————————————————
1:32:20 Okay
Um, so, who are you
——————————————————————
(laughter)
You know, The Skeptics like to be nasty, and so, I’ve been like Josephine Jones (@_JosephineJones)
If she wants to play anonymous, I’ll play anonymous [65]
—————————————————————— She’s gotten threats
——————————————————————
Well, I don’t threaten people
I don’t threaten Gorski
I don’t send letters to people’s employers
I deal with them directly, and, you know, if if they won’t answer questions, then, you know, I’ll just post them on my blog for other people to see, and question uh themselves
—————————————————————— So we don’t know who you are
——————————————————————
1:33:01
——————————————————————
Like I said, I’m going to be like Josephine Jones [66]
—————————————————————— Like, she has suffered at the hands of some really mess, and she’s also, you have to realize she’s in the U.K, where libel laws are very lax at this point
That’s changing, ah, but uh, the the legitimate criticism, there is a big case last, me maybe 2 years ago of Simon Singh, talking about an alternative therapy, and, um, he was just saying that there’s no evidence for it but it’s promoted by um chiropractors, or something, or something like that
And he got slapped with a libel suit that cost him several years of his life and a lot of money
Um, so, there are several reasons why someone in the U.K. might uh be uh reticent to use their real name um, uh, and legitimate reasons
Um, in the U.S., I’m not sure that there is
——————————————————————
1:34:00
—————————————————————— I’ve been using my real name for a long time now
Um, you know, Gorski blogs under his real name, and is critical of uh, uh, also, let’s face it, everyone know, knows who “Orac” is
Um, how do we know that you don’t work for the clinic ?
——————————————————————
Because I’ve said so
I’m not even in Texas
I was born in Texas, but I don’t live in Texas
I don’t even, didn’t even, uh live in Houston
—————————————————————— Mhm
——————————————————————
Wasn’t even close to Houston
—————————————————————— Well see, one of the the problems is, Ju, I don’t know if you were around for the BurzynskiSaves thing
Did you ever see that account ?
——————————————————————
Oh, of course, I, I’ve seen a lot of stuff goes on Twitter [67]
I’ve see y’all saying “Oh, we’re “The Skeptics” and y’all know are names,” but, there’s a lot of Skeptics that post on there with pseudonyms, also [68]
—————————————————————— Mhmm
Right
Oh no, I mean you have a right to do that but but I I’ve found that posting under a pseudonym diminishes my credibility
Um, so, . . the quote was uh um, uh, “Happily promotes bogus therapies,” was Simon Singh’s quote that got him sued
——————————————————————
1:35:10
—————————————————————— Um, but Josephine Jones does it to, quote “protect her family”
Um
So there’s that
Um, are you afraid for you’re family ?
——————————————————————
Well, I’m just not sure how some of these uh Skeptics will react considering their past behavior [69]
I mean, when Skeptics refuse to, I mean they block you on your blogs [70]
They block your comments [71]
You know, they decide, “Well, I’m maybe going to accept one comment from you, but I won’t accept anymore [72]
You know, to me that’s just ridiculous [73]
Uh, the action on Forbes that happened, the action on The Guardian that happened, where, you know, you had someone on Gorski’s blog basically lie to the Gua, to The Guardian to get them to get them to uh block my comment [74]
So, you know, I’m Skeptical of The Skeptics and their uh and what they would do [75]
——————————————————————
1:36:01
—————————————————————— Um, you don’t see that there would be anything to gain from, from going on-record ?
——————————————————————
Not really [76]
I like my anonymity just like Josephine Jones likes hers [77]
I mean, I will read her stuff and reply to it and treat it seriously jus, just like any other blogger [78]
—————————————————————— Um I I haven’t, I’ve never, honestly, I’ve never seen a Skeptic actually go after a person individually
Um, you know, uh, you, unless they were doing colossal harm to people
Um, to to focus on an, uh, let’s say, call someone’s work for um, yeah
Cite one example, of a Skeptic making shit for a Burzynski shill or anyone else in real life
That’s a quote
That’s, that’s something coming in from, from Guy
——————————————————————
1:36:00
——————————————————————
Well the thing is, some of these Skeptics use names, and they’re not necessarily their real names
So, you know, I’ve seen
—————————————————————— Like had anyone ever contacted Sheila Herron, or has anyone to to um, go after her job, or go after um, you know, my brother has gotten stuff from people
He didn’t tell me because he didn’t want to upset me, but my brother gets things from Burzynski supporters that are violent and threatening
I get letters telling me that I suck cancer’s dick
Um, I I’ve all sorts of things um, and I just, I’ve never seen that, that intrusion into real life on the part of uh, um, uh, Skeptics
I’ve never seen them doing that type of of of stuff
I’ve never seen them threatening bogus lawsuits
Um, and I I I wonder there, if there is some sort of, what do you think accounts for that, that difference?
——————————————————————
Well I think that some people just have bad manners
—————————————————————— Mhmm
——————————————————————
I mean see, I’ve seen Skeptics on Twitter basically harass someone pro-Burzynski and keep sending them tweets, and that person specifically send them a tweet saying please keep, stop sending me tweets
You know, they didn’t go in and ask Twitter to block the, that particular person
That person just kept sending them tweets
—————————————————————— Mhmm
——————————————————————
So, you know, I’ve seen that stuff before
—————————————————————— I’ve I’ve I’ve shown up on, you know, as you, as you might, I imagine you moni, you monitor the Hashtag, right ?
——————————————————————
Yeah, I’ll look at it, and if you notice, I don’t uh, I usually don’t reply to Skeptics individually because I pretty much figure that y’all are gonna try and get my next account blocked whenever I do that kind of junk, so, well, you know, I just post what I want to post, under the Hashtag
——————————————————————
1:38:01
—————————————————————— Okay
Um, which is, which is your right
Um, uh, but every so often I jump in and say, you know, this movie has some flaws in it
You know, that’s something I say rather frequently
Um, and I invite people, if they’re interested, to take a look at a couple of links
I don’t, I, you’ll notice that I no longer force people to like, “Well how do you explain this ?,” because that doesn’t seem to be very persuasive, or work at all
Ah, only people who are open minded to having their mind changed, those are the only ones I want to talk to
So I give them a choice
Kind of like Morpheus in The Matrix really
Um, b, that was a joke for me
Um (laugh), um anyway
Um, but, it it I, honestly, I would encourage you to go on-record, um, but I have, less than nothing invested in that, so, um
—————————————————————— (Why would I want to reveal my identity, when David H. Gorski, M.D., Ph.D., FACS, a/k/a “Orac” claimed that he was pretty certain he knew who I was ?
Just Bring it, Gorski)
——————————————————————
1:39:00
—————————————————————— Uh, what’s next for you
——————————————————————
Well I’ll just keep reviewing the, any inaccurate statements I see posted
You know, it depends on if it’s Gorski, you know
Gorski’s gone on there and posted inaccurate stuff, and I call him out, you know he’s basically said on his blog, you know, if I do something inaccurate, you know, I’ll ‘fess up to it
Well, I’ve pointed out where he’s done that and said “Hey, you said you were gonna ‘fess up to it”
If I said on my blog that I was going to ‘fess up to doing something wrong, and you caught me, well, then I should, come out and say, “Okay, you got me”
But Gorski won’t even do that, you know, he just continues to go on down the road, as if
—————————————————————— Well what happens
Well what happens if he doesn’t understand what you’re saying ?
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— I mean one of the
——————————————————————
excuse
—————————————————————— I mean seriously
Well, one of the problems I think that a lot of Skeptics have had, in in back channel discussions about this is that we don’t understand exactly what you’re saying
——————————————————————
1:40:01
—————————————————————— We certainly don’t understand why you’re so attached to him if you’ve never had any uh, you know, close dealing with uh, uh, with Burzynski
We don’t really understand that
——————————————————————
I find, I find
—————————————————————— Actually, especially when you consider, that all the information that we’ve put forward, that we’ve backed up with statements from uh, you know, uh, it, it, the statements that we have from from patients saying that you know, we’ve we’ve, we were told that, no that’s not exactly, they put it usually that but that that we believe that getting worse is getting better
Like how could someone continue to defend someone, when we pile up all of these different, you know, sources, saying the same thing ?
It it is, it is beyond us and we wonder if there’s absolutely anything that we could say that would convince you otherwise
——————————————————————
You know, I’m just going to let the FDA do their job, and let y’all speculate all y’all want
Uh, I mean (laugh)
—————————————————————— But, I mean, but that means
——————————————————————
1:41:00
——————————————————————
See, I’m here for full discussion
And y’all don’t seem to want to discuss, after y’all just go out there and spam the Internet with garbage, that you don’t back-up with citations and references and links
—————————————————————— Everything on The Other Other Burzynski Patient Group is referenced
It goes
——————————————————————
But some of your other stuff that you tweeted that you haven’t backed up with links, and some of the stuff on thehoustoncancerquack isn’t backed-up with links, and Gorski’s stuff
—————————————————————— There’s very little on thehoustoncancerquack
There’s very little on thehoustoncancerquack in the 1st place
——————————————————————
Well, that and the anp4all one
isn’t backed up
—————————————————————— Eh, right
The they both go to the same place
Uh un but, you know, we, the thing that that totally befuddles us, and is just endlessly frustrating, is like how many more examples, of patients believing that getting worse is getting better, and it’s not us saying it, it’s the patients saying it
——————————————————————
1:42:00
—————————————————————— And how many more of those patients do we need to to give you before you will like reconsider that perhaps you might be wrong ?
——————————————————————
When the FDA says he’s wrong
I mean, I’m not, I’m not just gonna accept your story
—————————————————————— I don’t, the thing is though that, that that’s a inver, shifting the burden of proof off of Burzynski
Burzynski has to prove them wrong, has to prove him right
The FDA is not there to say this doesn’t work
——————————————————————
Burzynski provides the FDA with the evidence, and the FDA makes the
—————————————————————— The evidence would be
——————————————————————
the FDA doesn’t approve a drug
—————————————————————— The evidence
——————————————————————
if something’s not proved
—————————————————————— The evidence would be phase 2 trials
And ev the evidence would be a completed and published phase 3 trial
That’s not forthcoming
The phase 3
——————————————————————
Well you know that he’s trying
I mean, y’all can sit there and jump up and down all you want
—————————————————————— You don’t know that he’s trying
He’d start completing these trials
And he would, he would be soliciting um, uh, lots of um, uh, you know, you know he’d be putting out papers constantly um and if the the British Medical Journal example’s anything uh representative of how Burzynski works, he’d immediately tell everyone that his he’s being . . blackballed by the, by the journal, even when it’s just a courtesy that he gets a a rejection
——————————————————————
1:43:30
—————————————————————— So, I mean, honestly, um, saying “Well, when the F, FDA tells you that it doesn’t work, the FDA’s never gonna say that because that’s not their job
So, given that what would, how many more patients do we have to show you before you consider that you may be wrong ?
——————————————————————
1:44:00
——————————————————————
Well, I’m gonna go with what the FDA is gonna do still because they’re running the show
—————————————————————— That’s not an option, because they’re never gonna do it
They relinquish, a lot of authority, over to Burzynski, and his Institutional Review Board, which, I would mention, has failed 3 reviews in a row
Right ?
It is Burzynski’s job to be convincing
It is not our uh, uh, it it it he hasn’t produced in decades
In decades
In hundreds and hundreds of patients, who’ve payed to be on this
——————————————————————
What I find funny is that y’all complain, “Well, he hasn’t published, uh a final report”
Well his 1st final, was completed in 2009, and like I said, the M.D. Anderson 2006 study wasn’t published until 2, 2013
I mean, so y’all can jump up and down all you want
Y’all want a final report
Well, the final report will be done when the clinical trial is over
—————————————————————— Hell, we’d we’d we’d like a prelim, well when you’re talking about something that is so difficult as brainstem glioma, that type of thing gets, really does in the publishing stream get fast-tracked there
——————————————————————
Well, unless you’re The Lancet, I guess
—————————————————————— they test it
Yeah, and they they they want uh, that was evidence of fast-tracking is what, that rejection was uh e was very quickly
Um, so, uh, uh again, the FDA is not the arbiter of this
It’s ultimately Burzynski
So, how long will it be before Burzynski doesn’t publish, that you decide that uh perhaps he’s he’s, doesn’t have the goods ?
——————————————————————
Well, I’m not gonna get into speculation, I’m just going to wait and see
—————————————————————— You’ve been speculating about what the FDA’s motivation are like crazy
Why not speculate about Burzynski a little bit
——————————————————————
Well, how have I been speculating ?
——————————————————————
1:46:00
—————————————————————— Well actually I’m not even asking you to speculate about Burzynski, I’m only asking you to tell me, how long would it take, uh how, for him to go unpublished like this, um, for this long, before you would doubt it ?
——————————————————————
what the journals keep saying, in response
—————————————————————— What ?
——————————————————————
You know, are they going to give The Lancet response, like they did in 2 hours and such, saying, “Well, we think your message would be best heard elsewhere,” or they gonna gonna give The Lancet response of, “Well, we don’t have room in our publication this time, well, because we’re full up, so, try and pick another place
But these but but but that doesn’t have any bearing on
That doesn’t
Oh I’m not asking you how long, how long, would it take you for you to start doubting whether or not he has the goods ?
How long would it take ?
It’s a it’s a it’s a question that should be answered by a number uh uh months ?
Years ?
How long ?
It’s been 15 years already
——————————————————————
Well, you like to jump up and down with the 15 year quote, but then again I always get back to, Hey, it’s when, when the report, when the clinical trial is done
——————————————————————
1:47:06
——————————————————————
Not that he’s been practicing medicine medicine for 36 years, or whatever, it’s when the clin, clinical trial was done
—————————————————————— I could push it back to 36 years
He hasn’t shown that it works for 36 years
I can do that
I was being nice
——————————————————————
The FDA A believes there is evidence of efficacy
—————————————————————— Perhaps based on bad phase 2
——————————————————————
Well, we don’t know that
We don’t have the Freedom of Information Act information
—————————————————————— He withdrew
He withdrew the the phase 3 clinical trial
I that before recruiting,
although I’ve seen lots of people say they were on a phase 3 clinical trial
I wonder how that happened
——————————————————————
Well, we know what happened in the movie because Eric particularly covered that when they tried to get what, what, was it 200 or 300 something institutions to take on a phase 3, and they refused
——————————————————————
1:48:01
—————————————————————— Uh did do do you think that if they thought that he was a real doctor that they all would have refused like that ?
——————————————————————
Well, Eric gave the reasons that they said they would not take a particular uh phase 3
And so using that excuse that you you just gave there, I’m not even gonna buy that one, because that’s not one of the reasons
—————————————————————— He’s changed things
——————————————————————
Eric said they gave
—————————————————————— That The Lancet is a top-tier journal like New England Journal of Medicine
It’s basically be, besieged by uh 100’s of people submitting their, their, their reports
Um, it’s just, you know, let’s say he, someone has such a thin publishing record as Burzynski does, do you think that it’s likely that he will ever get in a top-tier journal ?
What about the the Public Library of Science ?
It’s not the only journal there
What about BMC Cancer ?
There’s lots of places that he can go
——————————————————————
We’ll I’m
—————————————————————— Um, and he doesn’t seem to to have evailed himself of that, as far as I can tell
And I would know because he’d get rejected, or he’d be crowing, you know
——————————————————————
1:49:02
—————————————————————— Either way, he’s gonna tell us what happens
He told us what happened with The Lancet, you know
I don’t have any evidence that suggests to me that he’s even trying
——————————————————————
Well, I’m, I’m sure that they’re going to keep you appraised just like they have in the past, just like Eric has done in the past
So
I mean, we’ll see what happens with the Japanese study
—————————————————————— So let’s go back to this
How long will it take ?
How long will it take before you, the Japanese study’s interesting too because we should be able to find that in the Japanese science databases, and we can find, we can’t find it at all
We can’t find it anywhere
And, and those are in English, so it’s not a language problem
We can’t find that anywhere
We’ve asked
We asked Rick Schiff, for, for that study
And, and it hasn’t come to us
He is now I believe on the Board of Directors, over there
——————————————————————
1:50:00
—————————————————————— He should have access to this
We can’t get it
How how long will it take before you recognize that, nothing is forthcoming ?
How long would that take ?
——————————————————————
Well that’s like me asking “How long is it going to take for y’all’s, y’all’s Skeptics to respond to my questions ?”
Because y’all haven’t been forthcoming
—————————————————————— Well, I mean, were talking about a blog here
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— We’re talking about life
No, we’re talking about a blogger’s feelings in that case
In in this case we’re talking about, 1,000’s of patients, over the course of of of generations, you know
This is important stuff
This is not eh eh equating what’s happening to to patients with what’s happening to you is is completely off-kilter as far as I can tell
It’s nothing
It’s nothing like you not getting to say something on my web-site
You know
This is they they have thrown in with Burzynski, and they’ve trusted him, and he’s produced nothing
Nothing of substance
——————————————————————
1:51:00
—————————————————————— Nothing thas that has made all of that um, uh, n nothing th th th that uh his peers would take seriously
The other thing that that that strikes me now is that, you know, you you you you keep saying that, well Eric is going to to share things with you
Does it ever concern you eh uh eh occur to you that Eric might not be reliable ?
——————————————————————
Well, he gave you The Lancet information and he posted the e-mail in the movie, and Josephine Jones posted a copy of it
—————————————————————— He then, and then he
And then he he, you know, the the the the dialogue that sprung up around that was, well see, he’s never going to get to get published
Well you’re just setting yourself up for wish fulfillment
You want him to be, persecuted, so you are ecstatic when he doesn’t get to publish, which is unfortunate for all the cancer patients, who really thought that one day, all the studies were going to be published
——————————————————————
1:52:00
——————————————————————
Well, y’all are free to, you know, claim that all you want, because I don’t always agree with Eric, and uh, he’s free to express his opinion
—————————————————————— Where has Eric been wrong ?
——————————————————————
Well I don’t necessarily believe, what Eric would say about, you know, The Lancet that refused to publish the 2nd one, for the reasons he stated, and which y’all have commented on, including Gorski
You know, I don’t necessarily agree with that
I am more agreeable to y’all, saying that, you know, they’re busy, they’ve got other things to do, but I’m kind of still laughing at their 1st response which he showed in the movie about how they felt about, you know his results would be better in some other publication
I thought that was kind of a ridiculous response to give someone
—————————————————————— It’s it’s it’s it’s a form letter
You know
They’re just saying, “No thanks”
“Thanks, but no thanks” is what they were saying, in the most generic way possible
Like I said, they’re besieged by researchers trying to publish
——————————————————————
1:53:05
——————————————————————
Well you would think that if its a form letter they would use the same form that they used the 2nd time
You know, they didn’t use the same wording that they used the 1st time
I would have think that, you know, their 2nd comment
—————————————————————— So, so, possibly
So possibly what you are saying is that they in fact have read it, and after having read it they’ve rejected it
Is that what you’re saying ?
Because that’s what peer-review is
——————————————————————
Nah, I’m not saying that they did that all
I’m just sayin’, you know, that they gave, 2 different responses, and I would think that the 2nd one they gave
—————————————————————— Do you know it was the same editor, that it came from the same desk ?
You can’t make that assumption that that the form letter will be the same form letter every time
I mean you just can’t
I mean in in some ways we have a lot of non-information that you’re filling in, with what you expect, as as opposed to what’s actually really there, and I I I just think you’re putting too much uh stock in one uh, uh, in in in in this uh the publication kerfuffle
——————————————————————
1:54:16
—————————————————————— Um
——————————————————————
Well I find it funny, something along the lines of, you know, “We believe your message would be received better elsewhere, you know
I don’t see that as a normal response, a scientific publication would send to someone trying to publish something
I mean, to me that sounds, like, if you’re doing that, and you’re The Lancet Oncology, maybe you need to set some different procedures in place, ‘cuz you would think that with such a great scientific peer-reviewed magazine, that they would have structured things in as far as how they do their operations
—————————————————————— Well, not necessarily
I’ve been in any # of professional groups where the organization is just not optimal, and publications certainly th there are all sorts of pressures from all sorts of different places
——————————————————————
1:55:08
—————————————————————— I I have no problems whatsoever with seeing that this might not be completely uh um uh streamlining uniform processes as possible
The fact that it’s not uniform, doesn’t have anything to do with Burzynski not publishing, not producing good data
Not just going to a, you know, god, even if, even if, let’s put it this way, even if he went to a pay to play type publication where you have to pay in order to get your manuscript accepted; and he has the money to do this, it wouldn’t take that much, and he were to put out a good protocol, and he were to show us his data, and he would make his, his his stuff accessible to us, then we could validate it, then we could look at it and say, “Yeah, this is good,” or “No, this is the problem, you have to go back and you have to fix this”
Right ?
So we really, every time we talk about the letter that he got, yeah that doesn’t have much to do with anything, really
——————————————————————
1:56:02
—————————————————————— We wanna see the frickin’ data
And if he had a cure for some cancers that otherwise don’t have reliable treatments, he has an obligation to get that out there anyway he can
And if if peer-review doesn’t, you know, play a, if peer-review can’t do it, you know, isn’t fast enough for him, then he should take it to the web, and he should send copies out to every pediatric, uh, you know, oncologist that there is
That’s the way to do it
——————————————————————
Well, I’m sure, I’m sure Gorski would have a comment about that, as he’s commented previously about how he thinks uh Burzynski should publish
—————————————————————— Oh I, I I I certainly don’t think that he would put a lot of stock in it, but I, I, I know Dave Gorski enough, he wants this to work
He has patients who are dying, you know
And if if if let’s say that that Burzynski could get ah his gene-targeted therapy to work on breast cancer patients in in a reliable way, that would be, such a help to these people, that that Gorski’s trying to help
——————————————————————
1:57:10
—————————————————————— And, it it it doesn’t make sense, I mean, there, some of the best um, one of the the most important developments in medical history, was the development of of just washing your hands uh uh before uh uh going in and delivering a baby
Right ?
The guy who did it, was a colossal jerk, but it still worked and it’s the standard now
Right ?
Um, yea, it doesn’t matter now whether or not Burz, whether or not Gorski agrees with how Burzynski publishes
It’s the, it’s the data itself
If if Burzynski is is, is confident in his data, he will put it out there
Right ?
One way or the other
——————————————————————
Like I said before
Like I said before on my blog, you know, even if Burzynski publishes his phase 2 information, Gorski can just jump up and down and say, “Well, that just shows evidence of efficacy, you know, it’s not phase 3, so it doesn’t really prove it”
——————————————————————
1:58:04
——————————————————————
So then he can go on, you know, for however many years he wants to
—————————————————————— But he is a, the thing is, the thing is, you thing you have to understand is Gorski, Gorski is a genuine expert, in matters re re regarding on oncology studies
I mean, he has a
——————————————————————
Well,
—————————————————————— He, He’s able to convince people, he’s able to convince people, on the strength of his record, to give him money to carry out research
People who know what they’re talking about
To give him money to carry out his research
Right ?
——————————————————————
This is, this is a guy who must phone it in because, he went in there and posted the old Josephine Jones response that, you know, no drugs had been approved by the FDA without their final phase 2 publication 1st being published, which was not a factual statement, and you’ve made the same statement
So I, I’m thinking that Gorski just bought her statement and took it and ran with it, and before he fact-checked it, and what, what happened, it was wrong
——————————————————————
1:59:00
——————————————————————
I mean, Gorski needs to stop phoning stuff in, and check his sources before he posts stuff, because I’ve found many cases where, he hasn’t seemed to do that, and that’s why I question him
—————————————————————— Well what about all the other physicians, um, going back long before the Burzynski thing broke on-line
Of all these patients, with whom they have long-established relationships, and then doctors essentially after years, of treating these patients, basically saying, “I can’t work with you anymore if you go to Burzynski”
What about that ?
Di, are all of these doctors just as biased ?
——————————————————————
Well, I found it interesting that uh the one on the, Burzynski 2, you know he gave his ex excuses for not, working with uh, that patient, and, but yet, he was the same doctor that treated a another Burzynski patient, according to the movie
——————————————————————
2:00:00
——————————————————————
I mean, so what does he do ?
Pick and choose ?
Or do doctors pick and choose over there in Britain ?
—————————————————————— Did he get burned at some point ?
——————————————————————
Well, the movie didn’t say anything
—————————————————————— We don’t know
Yeah, well, you wouldn’t expect Eric Merola to say that he got, that a doctor got burned
Would you ?
——————————————————————
Well, I fail to see these doctors on there, providing any factual information, anywhere on the Internet about, uh their disagreements, in a serious way, instead of just making these over-broad statements, you know, “He hasn’t published anything in the blah blah blah,” and
—————————————————————— But he, he doesn’t have, he hasn’t given us his data
——————————————————————
Well, he’s provided some data, and specifically 4 publications
—————————————————————— He’s given, he’s given, he’s given case studies
——————————————————————
He’s given more than the case studies
—————————————————————— He’s done
Okay
——————————————————————
He’s done more than the case studies
He’s specifically given uh, almost all the information om an oncologist would want
And Gorski, and Gorski
—————————————————————— Except for a ph, completed phase 3 clinical trial
——————————————————————
(laughing)
I mean, I love Gorski, but he comes up with these stupid excuses like, “Well, Burzynski is not an oncologist”
——————————————————————
2:01:00
——————————————————————
Well, Gorski doesn’t go go in there and look at his other, his phase 2 clinical trial publications, as far as the preliminary reports, and look at the co-authors, and see if any of those guys are oncologists, and that they’re working with Gorski, I mean they’re working with Burzynski
I find that ridiculous
—————————————————————— Yeah
One of the things, one of the things that I’ve noticed going through these um, well, well there there is that
Uh, Guy Chapman, “It’s a blog, not a peer-reviewed publication” [79]
Um, almost no treatment goes out without trials
Massive amounts of data are required
Um, so, it it is kind of, slightly disingenuous to hold uh Gorski to the same . . standard that you would, it on his blog
I think that professionally he would make, he he he would follow-up on these things, but u what I’ve noticed when you you mention these other people who are working with with Burzynski as co-investigators, the co- investigators don’t seem to have access to these, to these records
——————————————————————
2:02:00
—————————————————————— Um, you know, when they have to, when a patient has to, and often you have someone like a pediatrician, uh, signing on um uh to eh eh to work with with, uh and arrange care for patients when they’re out of state, away from Burzynski
Um, it’s it’s it’s often not an oncologist
It’s accurate to say that B Burzynski is not a board s uh certified oncologist
It’s accurate to say that no trial has been completed and fully published
Um, yeah it’s um, it it it if, all of the arguing on behalf of Burzynski doesn’t give him a single phase 3
It doesn’t give him um a uh uh of of a completed and and published phase 2
Uh, in in in that sense, you know, uh all the the the, you know, kind of back-peddling and and and trying to defend him is is going to, not going to help his case at all
——————————————————————
2:03:03
—————————————————————— You are, honestly as far as I can tell you are doing the um, you know, you’re you’re ah throwing up uh, uh, uh, you’re giving me another uh invisible dragon in the garage, um
——————————————————————
Well y’all, y’all can call things what y’all want
I mean, y’all can give these, fallacy arguments and all that garbage that y’all like, because that’s what y’all like to talk about instead of dealing with the issues
I mean, Gorski doesn’t want to deal with the issues
—————————————————————— What is the issue were not talking about
——————————————————————
Hey, I’ve said it to Gorski
He liked to back his stuff up on the Mayo study, yet he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t uh debate about the Mayo study
He likes to say, “Well, Burzynski is not an oncologist,” but he won’t, say Hey, look at the publications, are any of the guys on the publications oncologists ?
We know that Gorski, we know that Burzynski works with oncologists in his practice
So, just because Burzynski himself is not an an oncologist, does not necessarily mean anything
Do we need to go out, onto PubMed, and, and review every particular person that’s published something about cancer and see if they’re all oncologists ?
Seriously
——————————————————————
2:04:11
——————————————————————
I mean, Gorski will just
—————————————————————— Yeah, but they
——————————————————————
post a lot of stuff without backing it up
—————————————————————— But they have track records that support the idea that you should trust them
——————————————————————
Well, (laughing), I, you know, that’s up to someone’s opinion, considering some of the information that’s that the FDA has accepted, as far as giving these guys approval
—————————————————————— Okay, so
What you’re telling me is that you trust the FDA to to be able to tell you when he’s not doing, good science, but also that you don’t trust the FDA
Do you see an inherent conflict there ?
——————————————————————
How did I say I, I didn’t trust them ?
—————————————————————— Well, when I, whenever I would ask about, like, why would these trials aren’t happening uh and, you know, you say well the the FDA’s arranged it
The FDA’s in control
They sign off on these things
But they’re they’re they’re they’re at the same that they’re, they’re trustworthy they’re also not trustworthy depending on what you need for the particular argument at the time
——————————————————————
2:05:12
——————————————————————
Well, I didn’t say that they weren’t trustworthy, I just raised questions that no one wants to answer about ’em
—————————————————————— You’re suggesting that they’re untrustworthy
——————————————————————
No, I’m just sayin’ that I’ve raised questions and none of The Skeptics wanna to uh talk about ’em
—————————————————————— I I would say that the the FDA has given Burzynski every opportunity for decades
Every opportunity
When he didn’t have r r really, he got special treatment as far as I can tell
Uh, the, I’m rather stunned every morning I wake up and don’t see in the paper, that that place has has been closed down
I, I really am
Uh, so, you know,that one doesn’t really fly with me either
Um
——————————————————————
2:06:00
——————————————————————
Well, to me the FDA owes Burzynski for a lot of the garbage they pulled off against him (laugh), not to say, you know, they owe him in that way, but they owed him
—————————————————————— Do you know that the FDA pulled out of the prosecution ?
Did you know that the FDA pulled out of the prosecution um of his criminal case, because they were backing a researcher ?
——————————————————————
Well, we know a lot stuff they did, but that still doesn’t impress me that they pulled out of the prosecution
I mean
—————————————————————— Yeah, the the the it wasn’t the FDA who was pressing charges, it was a Federal prosecutor
——————————————————————
Right
—————————————————————— Right
And and, they declined to provide information that the prosecution needed
That’s important
That that that’s really important
That he has been given the benefit of the doubt, and he has come up wanting, for decades now
——————————————————————
Well I find it interesting a lot of this uh, a lot of these letters that were provided between, you know, the government and Burzynski, when the uh phase 2 study was going on, at the behest of the NCI
You know, anybody who reads that stuff knows, that when just ignore the person that’s been doing, do treating their patients for 20 something years, or close to 20 years, and you change the protocol without his approval, and you don’t use the drugs in the manner that he knows works
—————————————————————— The, no, claims works
He claims works
——————————————————————
Well, he says they work together and they’re not going to work if you don’t use them that way
—————————————————————— One of the things I think
One of the things that I think is happening here
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— One of the things I think is happening here, is that lots of people have worked with Burzynski and then have stopped working with B Burzynski
Uh, you know, uh lots of uh uh uh these partnerships do not seem to work out in the end
I often wonder, if the uh, the way that these things are, are are playing out, because it’s s so reliable that they’re, that these partnerships are going to fail, I I wonder if th they are designed in such a way, that for instance, um a, uh, a a partner would be uncomfortable working with him
——————————————————————
2:08:18
—————————————————————— Or um or that the specifications for what it takes to enter one of these trials is so high, that nobody will ever enter the trials
I mean, I wonder if they are, what, especially, like why hasn’t Burzynski left the country ?
That’s what I want to know
——————————————————————
Why would he leave the country ?
—————————————————————— Exactly
——————————————————————
I think he’s made it clear
—————————————————————— If he was so, if he was s so persecuted and really cares about getting his treatment out to the world, why wouldn’t he ?
——————————————————————
2:09:00
—————————————————————— They’re, they’re lots of things going on here
David James has pointed this out, that a lot of questions I’m asking are not going answered
“I still don’t know how long it would take before you would have any doubts about Burzynski”
“I still have no idea, how often we can see patients reporting that signs of getting worse are getting better, before you would change your mind”
I’ve made it very clear that he just needs to have a completed study published and replicated before I support his right to go out and charge people what he’s charging for these, for these drugs, and I’m I’m just not seeing that here with you, and I I wonder what could come from, and don’t worry I will go to your site and I will comment on on on what you’ve run
Um, but, you know, I I I I it’s hard for Skeptics to imagine, what could be gained from engaging with you, if there seems to be no conceivable way, that we can, one, get a straight answer for, how many patients will have to report that getting worse is getting better before you starting doubting your opinion, or, uh, how many uh, uh, how many years does this have to go on before you decide that, “No, we probably just can’t produce the goods”
——————————————————————
2:10:15
—————————————————————— One of the interesting things about Doubting Thomas that I think you should definitely consider for yourself, is that at some point, when faced with the real opportunity to prove or disprove his assertions, he doubted himself
And that’s important
And that’s where you’re falling short in the analogy
——————————————————————
Well, I think The Skeptics, Skeptics are falling short because, you know, they don’t own up to
—————————————————————— I’ve laid out exactly what it would take for me to turn on a fucking dime
I have, I have made it abundantly clear what I need
Gorski has made it abundantly clear
Everybody else, Guy, and David, and Josephine Jones, uh, the Morgans, all of them have made it abundantly clear, what it would take to change our minds, and you’ve never done that
——————————————————————
2:11:02
—————————————————————— And even in this, this was an opportunity to do that
To come up with a basis for understanding, where it’s like, you know what, If we can show this, you know, if we can show a this guy, that, that, there, that his standards are not being met, then, you know, we could possibly have some sort of ongoing dialogue after this
——————————————————————
So I can say that since the Mayo Clinic finished their study in 2006, and it took them until 2013, to actually publish it, then I can say, well, Burzynski finished his in 2009, which was 3 years later, which would give Burzynski until 2016
—————————————————————— Correction: M.D. Anderson
—————————————————————— Why wasn’t that study
——————————————————————
for me to make up my mind (laughing)
—————————————————————— Why wasn’t that , that that that, still . . again, it it doesn’t seem really to to approach the the the, main question here
You know, um . . what are the standards that you have that it isn’t, what are your standards to show that it isn’t efficacious ?
——————————————————————
2:12:05
——————————————————————
Well I can say, well I’m going to have to wait, the same amount of time I had to wait for Mayo to publish their study; which was from 2006 to 2013
—————————————————————— Clarification: M.D. Anderson
—————————————————————— Why was the Mayo
Why was the Mayo study delayed ?
——————————————————————
How do you know it was delayed ?
—————————————————————— Well you said you had so many years before you finish it and go in
——————————————————————
I mean, has anybody
—————————————————————— Why, why did it take so long ?
——————————————————————
done a review of when a clinical trial is studied, and completed, and how long it took the people to publish it ?
You know
If they could point to me a study that’s done that, and say, well here’s the high end, here’s the low end of the spectrum, here’s the middle
—————————————————————— I have something for you, okay ?
Send me that
Could you send me that study the way that it was published because um, just just send me the final study, um, to my e-mail address
——————————————————————
Sure
—————————————————————— Um, because, I can ask that question of those researchers, why was this study in this time, and what happened in-between
——————————————————————
2:13:03
—————————————————————— Why did it take so long for it, for it to come out
——————————————————————
Sure, but that’s not gonna, you know like, answer an overall question of, you know, somebody did a comparative study of all clinical trials, and, when they were finished, and at, and when the study was actually published afterwards
You know, that’s only gonna be one, particular clinical study
—————————————————————— Right
Um, but it it would, perhaps, answer the question; because you’re using it as an example on the basis of which to dismiss criticism, whether or not, uh, it is the standard, and therefor you’re allowed to accept that Burzynski hasn’t published until 2016, or, um, it’s an anomaly, which is also a possibility, that most stuff comes out more quickly
——————————————————————
Well, we know that the Declaration of Helsinki doesn’t even give a standard saying, “You must publish within x amount of years,” you know ?
So, I’ve yet to find a Skeptic who posted something that said, “Here are the standards, published here”
——————————————————————
2:14:07
—————————————————————— I I, yeah, the other thing that David James points out is, you know, why 2016 when he’s had 36 years already ?
——————————————————————
Again, we get back to, when the clinical trial is finished, not when Burzynski started
—————————————————————— Treating people
——————————————————————
I mean, you would expect to find a results to be published after, the final results are in
—————————————————————— You would expect the Burzynski Patient Group to be a lot bigger after 36 years, and in fact is
——————————————————————
You would expect some people would want to have confidentiality, and maybe not want to be included
—————————————————————— So, if you’re unsure about this stuff, if you’re unsure about the the time to publication, why are you defending it so hard, other than saying, “I don’t know, I really need to”
——————————————————————
Why am I unsure ?
—————————————————————— Uh about the
——————————————————————
(laughing) I just gave you an example
—————————————————————— The reasons, the reasons for which that he’s, no, why are you defending him so hard, when you’re unsure ?
——————————————————————
2:15:02
——————————————————————
Oh, who said I was unsure ?
I just gave you an example
I mean, I’m just, I believe in free and open debate
I mean, I believe, if y’all are gonna spam the Internet, the Internet with garbage that y’all do not back-up, with specific
—————————————————————— I’ve backed-up everything that
——————————————————————
references
—————————————————————— Every time that I’ve tried
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— and then other people
——————————————————————
Like your tweet that said uh, “antineoplastons is uron, is Unicorn pee,” right ?
—————————————————————— Way back
It is about
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— It is about as efficacious
We have the same
——————————————————————
“Burzynski is a vampire”
Good one (laughing)
—————————————————————— Yeah, I’ve, and and I based that on a a a that type of thing
——————————————————————
He sucks their blood out of ’em right ?
Yeah (laughing)
Humor
Okay, I understand humor
—————————————————————— You, you, you can read that how you want, right ?
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— There
He does have the accent though
Right ?
No (laugh)
——————————————————————
Well, that’s because he’s Polish
—————————————————————— (laughing)
Alright ?
No, but listen, like, it it it’s not, it, we we don’t understand why you defend himself so hard, when there is such a paucity of of of information out there
Um
——————————————————————
2:16:09
——————————————————————
What I defend, is that, y’all post stuff, a lot of Skeptics post stuff, including Gorski, and they do not back it up, with references, citations, or links
Gorski will just post stuff, like he did about saying, you know, the FDA would not approve, uh, accelerated approval, without a final phase 2 clinical trial being published, which was an incorrect statement, he did not provide any link
—————————————————————— Even if it’s true or false you, honestly though
——————————————————————
We know it’s false
—————————————————————— Even if it’s true or false, in in that particular instance, you know, eh let’s just say that you’re right
Gorski gets that point completely wrong
It has no bearing on whether or not, ANP works
——————————————————————
Well, I’m just
—————————————————————— That’s a Red Herring
——————————————————————
I’m just
—————————————————————— You’re just focusing on this, on this little niggly stuff, where the real question, is does it work ?
——————————————————————
Not
—————————————————————— Are patients getting better at a better rate then not
——————————————————————
2:17:01
——————————————————————
That’s
—————————————————————— or otherwise ?
——————————————————————
Well, that is just lame
——————————————————————
Y’all, Skeptics, like to sh spam Twitter, and social media, with all this negative stuff about Burzynski, but then when I ask you to back it up, you can’t back it up, and then, and then on this conversation you want to come down and pinhole it, to a specific subject, you know, the nitty-gritty
Well, if y’all were only debating the nitty-gritty, we would only be d debating the nitty-gritty, but that’s not what y’all do
—————————————————————— We’re were talking about whether or not there’s evidence to suggest it works
——————————————————————
Well, we know the FDA’s said there is
—————————————————————— The FDA, see that’s the thing
You, the FDA are are, you know, you invest them with, we’re just, we’re just circling around again
——————————————————————
(laughing)
—————————————————————— Uh um, alright
Well, this has gone on for rather a, longer than I thought it would
——————————————————————
2:18:00
—————————————————————— Um, I, uh, wanna thank you for coming on here
I wasn’t sure that you would actually do it
Um, I’m glad that you did
I’m glad that we talked
Um, I will look at your web-site, and we will, uh, we, uh, you, oh make sure that I I go to your blog and and I talk there
Um
——————————————————————
And I’ll give you those links that I told you I would give you
—————————————————————— Please do
And I will look at those
Maybe not in the next few days; I’ve got a lot going on but
——————————————————————
Yeah, that’s fine
—————————————————————— Alright
Um
——————————————————————
Well, I thought it was productive too
You know, I don’t see why Gorski is afraid of debating issues
—————————————————————— I don’t think he is
——————————————————————
on the Internet, on his blog
—————————————————————— I don’t think he’s afraid
I just think he’s got a lot going on
He is act, a full-time surgical oncologist and researcher
He does have insane am, he has to pick and choose his battles
And if, if if he saw that we were going to ultimately be circling around our same arguments again and again; kind of like we’ve done here, um, he uh, you, he doesn’t have time for that, I don’t think
——————————————————————
2:19:00
—————————————————————— I mean
——————————————————————
Hey, he has time to post about, “Hey, uh, Burzynski got a Catholic award from somebody,” which, has nothing to do with antineoplastons, whatsoever
So, you know, he’s not focusing just in on, “Do antineoplastons work, yes or no?,” “When will Burzynski publish ?,” yes or no ?
You know, he’s putting all this ridiculous side junk, you know
So, I am not going to take that seriously
—————————————————————— Alright
I I would ask that you to to go back over The The Other Burzynski Patient Group and take their stories seriously, because they deserve at least the same amount of consideration that the survivors do
That’s my
——————————————————————
Exactly
—————————————————————— That’s my kids, okay
Well, Thanks for much for talking
I greatly appreciate it
——————————————————————
You bet
Thank you
—————————————————————— Alright
Take it easy
——————————————————————
You too
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I thought that this was very productive, because it proved that Randy Hinton was correct when he commented on #Forbes:
