A man named Dr Burzynski believes he can treat cancer through an entirely new form of therapy.
I don’t know if this is true, but other people have been trying to find out.
Orac has previously reported on some of the reasons why most physicians doubt that Burzynski’s method is as effective as he claims. The evidence supporting his claims appears to be mostly anecdotal, and the only results he’s published are ones which nobody else has yet been able to replicate.
When someone makes a world-changing assertion like this, good scientists will want it to be checked carefully to make sure there isn’t some mistake, before they accept that it’s true. This becomes an especially acute concern when, for instance, mainstream newspapers run full-page stories about a four-year-old girl with a rare and inoperable brain cancer, for whom a multiple-celebrity-endorsed fund has been set up to get her the help she needs.
This should not be a controversial opinion: When the parents of a young girl with cancer are trying to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds to make their daughter healthy, it is the profound responsibility of everyone involved to make sure that that money’s not going to be wasted.
Sadly, Andy Lewis thinks it might be.
Even sadlier, he’s being sent obnoxious and inane libel threats as a result of his trying to help.
Someone claiming to “represent” the Burzynski Clinic (although in what capacity is unclear, as he doesn’t seem to be a lawyer) has demanded that Andy stop “defaming and libeling” his client with “factually incorrect” information. Weirdly, he doesn’t want to say what the information is.
Andy wrote back a number of times, expressing every desire to correct and amend any such errors of fact he might have made, and asking exactly what part of the blogpost in question is at issue, pointing out that anyone wishing to sue for defamation will need to express the exact wording they find objectionable. The not-lawyer responded with more threats, and a continued lack of any specifics, as well as a number of phrases like “Quackwatch, Ratbags, and the rest of you Skeptics [sic] days are numbered”, and “when I present to the juror that my client and his cancer treatment has went [sic] up against 5 Grand Juries”, which are weird and unprofessional on several levels.
This apparent representative of Burzynski appears grammatically and legally incompetent, and has received the famed “misconceived and illiberal” label from Jack of Kent. And he’s sure as hell not improving the scientific credibility of this purportedly legitimate medical facility.
Andy Lewis wrote an article, because he was concerned about the welfare of a girl, whose parents have raised considerable funds from many generous sources, and whose proposed treatment is unproved by any scientific standard and has been undergoing “trials” (in which people can be enrolled for a vast fee) since 1977 with no significant progress in publishing positive results.
The Burzynski Clinic still aren’t publishing any results for peer review in a respectable journal. But they’re making legal threats toward people who are concerned by the lack of evidence for their grandiose claims. Andy sums up the problem with this approach:
Dr Burzynski presents himself as a man of science. But, I would say to him and his associates, a man of science would welcome critical appraisal, would publish all the data he has, and allow the world to come to conclusions based on how good that evidence is. A man of science would not threaten critics and try to silence them. That is a sure and certain way that you will end up harming patients.
Such actions are typically not those of someone concerned with scientific truth but of someone concerned with protecting a multi-million pound income stream.
I’d be surprised if Burzynski takes his advice. I think we’ve already got enough representative data of how this particular clinic operates.
Also worth reading: The Twenty-First Floor, and Josephine Jones.
Edit: Something I just saw before posting this. Keir Liddle points us toward a petition for the Burzynski clinic to release their trial data. It can only help the cause of truth and public health for them to do so. It can only obfuscate the truth, and protect a profitable business that’s failing to deliver on its claims, if they keep it hidden.
[…] Evidence? Burzynski don’t need no stinkin’ evidence […]
[…] Evidence? Burzynski don’t need no stinkin’ evidence […]
[…] Evidence? Burzynski don’t need no stinkin’ evidence (cubiksrube.wordpress.com) […]
[…] Evidence? Burzynski don’t need no stinkin’ evidence (cubiksrube.wordpress.com) GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_bg", "f9f7f5"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_border", "dfdad5"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_text", "444444"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_link", "4265a7"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_url", "beaa99"); GA_googleAddAttr("LangId", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Autotag", "health"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "science"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "woo"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "antineoplaston"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "marc-stephens"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "orac"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "quackwatch"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "rhys-morgan"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "scienceblogs"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "stanislaw-burzynski"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "streisand-effect"); GA_googleFillSlot("wpcom_sharethrough"); Rate this: Share this:Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]