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We interrupt our usually scheduled post for an important announcement. OK, we do nothing of the sort. Scott Gavura’s post will go live a little later this morning. In the meantime, here’s a public service announcement about a frequent topic of mine, Stanislaw Burzynski, that I’d like you to read.

As you recall, last week, the FDA inexplicably decided to lift the partial clinical hold on Stanislaw Burzynski’s bogus clinical trials of antineoplastons, which he’s used since the 1990s as a pretext to charge huge sums of money for “case management fees” to patients for a treatment whose efficacy he has never demonstrated. Yesterday, the Center for Inquiry laid in, and has sent a letter to legislators:

“We are frankly stunned to hear that the clinical hold against Dr. Burzynski has been lifted,” writes CFI in its letter. For decades, Dr. Burzynski and the Houston-based Burzynski Research Institute have been trafficking in unproven and scientifically baseless cancer treatments based on compounds known as antineoplastons, derived from human urine, which Burzynski claims — without evidence — can target and destroy cancer cells. He has taken advantage of desperate patients who are at their most vulnerable, and willing to pay any price.

After the death of a six-year-old patient in 2012, the FDA placed a hold on Burzynski’s trials with children, followed by a hold on trials with adults in 2013, prohibiting him from taking on new patients on whom he could experiment and from whom he could extract more money.

Over several decades, his clinic has proven it is unable to properly protect patient rights, adhere to basic ethical or scientific protocols, or even maintain correct patient records. It has also shown it is willing to exploit desperate cancer patients and their families, milking them out of enormous sums of money. But it has yet to show even a shred of evidence that its cancer treatments have any positive effect whatsoever.

“We struggle to see why the FDA continues to enable this deceptive, antiscientific, and unethical medical adventurism and profiteering, even for patients who are terminally ill,” writes CFI. “Given the behavior of Dr. Burzynski and the Burzynski Research Institute over the course of nearly three decades of failed research and trials, and in the face of a complete lack of scientific evidence demonstrating the efficacy of their expensive and dangerous antineoplaston treatment, we find the FDA’s decision perplexing and profoundly disturbing.”

The full text of the letter can be found here.

If only groups like the American Cancer Society would write similar letters. Cancer patients have been taken advantage of for nearly four decades, and Burzynski has made a mockery of the clinical trial process for nearly 20 years. It’s gone on way too long.

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Posted by David Gorski