[Athens]

Here read up on AZT

http://paganpressbooks.com/jpl/POISON.PDF

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Half the story is the doctor and the method in this youtube propaganda piece. The other half is the FDA and how its doing everything it can to protect its profits nowhere to be seen.

T,FTFY. Everyone should know by this point in the internet's life-cycle that information arriving by this route isn't worth the electrons it's printed on.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Ya but how often does the FDA do everything it can to block proper testing in the first place. Half the story is the doctor and the method. The other half is the FDA and how its doing everything it can to protect its profits.

How often does it deal with people who flagrantly break its rules by selling unapproved drugs and treatments?

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

How often does it deal with people who flagrantly break its rules by selling unapproved drugs and treatments?

Thats the problem, no rules have been broken. If you actually watched it you would be at aww over the FDA. But haven't and wont so I see no point in discussing a film with you with out actually have watched it.

[Athens]

Finally found something with detail of why they claim his work is not valid

A 1981 television news report ("20/20") on Burzynski's cancer treatment, followed by numerous inquiries from patients about the treatment, reportedly prompted David Walde, a physician practicing in Ontario, to visit Burzynski's facilities in April 1982. In his written report (933), which he sent unsolicited to Health and Welfare Canada and to NCI, Walde described Burzynski's clinical and research facilities and summarized the treatment regimen. He reportedly also reviewed about 60 patient records, but did not report on them in detail. He concluded that there was sufficient information about Burzynski's treatment to warrant evaluating "the nature and action of [Antineoplastons]...even if these eventually do not result in any major therapeutic advances" and recommended that Burzynski apply for investigatory new drug clearance in Canada so that Walde could coordinate clinical studies with Canadian health officials. He also suggested that outside funding sources be sought to support clinical studies, and advised against "sensationalism through the public media," to avoid disruption to ongoing and future clinical studies.

In November 1982, consultants to the Ontario (Canada) Ministry of Health visited Burzynski's clinical and research facilities in Houston for the purpose of providing information to the Ministry of Health about the treatment because some Ontario residents had sought reimbursement under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (79). After reviewing Burzynski's published papers and viewing the clinic and laboratories, the consultants, Martin Blackstein and Daniel Bergsagel, asked Burzynski to select examples of patients who he believed had had a good response to Antineoplaston treatment. They specified that each case had to satisfy the following conditions to be considered: 1) proven histologic diagnosis of cancer; 2) complete record of all cancer treatment before Antineoplastons (some of which might be responsible for a delayed response); 3) complete record of additional treatment; and 4) original X-rays, CT, or isotope scans used to document a response.

Burzynski presented them with about 12 cases at the clinic, and sent them additional cases afterward. According to the report, there were original X-rays for only one case; for two others, selected CT scans were available. The case with X-ray evidence was a patient with metastatic nodules in the lung from a colon cancer, which, from his history, appeared to be a slowly progressing disease. The consultants concluded that the X-rays showed no documentable change, though there were difficulties in interpretation because the films were reportedly taken on different machines with different magnifications. They also concluded that the two patients for whom some CT scans were available showed no definite response to Antineoplaston treatment. In those cases, they believed that the views on the scans were not the same, making direct comparison impossible.

In other cases, the consultants reported that Burzynski's patients had had effective treatment for treatable cancers before starting Antineoplaston treatment, and they described two specific examples. The first was a woman who had had radiation treatment for stage III cervical cancer, and had gone to Burzynski when there was still necrotic tumor in the cervix; a cytologist was unsure whether any viable cancer cells remained, but noted extensive radiation changes. The tumor gradually disappeared, which the consultants felt could be attributed to the prior radiation, rather than to Antineoplastons. The other patient had prostatic cancer with bone metastases who had had an orchiectomy three months before beginning Antineoplastons. His bone scans improved, which the consultants attributed to the delayed effects of the orchiectomy, which commonly takes months for full effects to become evident.

On the basis of the cases they reviewed, Blackstein and Bersagel reported that they found no examples of objective response to Antineoplastons. In addition to reviewing the cases, they asked about four patients reported by Burzynski in 1977 to have had complete remissions with treatment. According to the report, three of those patients had progressed fairly rapidly and died. The fourth patient was still alive at the time of the review (1982), but the consultants felt his disease (a solitary bladder tumor) had disappeared as a result of the biopsy. In conclusion, Blackstein and Bersagel's report recommended that the Ontario Health Insurance Plan not cover the cost of Antineoplaston treatment for Ontario residents.

Burzynski wrote a detailed rebuttal (135) to their report, charging that Blackstein and Bersagel "completely distorted the research, production, and clinical data presented to them." He disagreed with each individual assessment, concluding that:

Out of the initial nine cases presented in the clinic, six patients obtained complete remission and two remaining patients were very close to complete remission. Only one patient was treated with radiation and chemotherapy and one additional patient received a very small dose of palliative radiotherapy before coming for the treatment with antineoplastons. Two patients died from causes unrelated to cancer like multiple emboli in the lungs and perforation of the stomach ulcer (135).

Burzynski contested the report's judgments on the quality and content of the clinical data. He cited clinical records (photocopies of which he included) to show that each case was confirmed by biopsy and that "the remission of each of them was confirmed by at least one other doctor not associated with our clinic."

In 1985, in a separate and more limited effort to gather information about Burzynski's treatment, the Canadian Bureau of Prescription Drugs reportedly contacted 25 physicians with patients who had visited Burzynski's clinic in Houston for treatment with Antineoplastons. According to a memo summarizing the effort (829), information on clinical outcomes in 36 patients from five provinces reportedly consisted of tumor type and clinical status as reported by telephone from the physicians (actual records were apparently not obtained). Of the 36 patients noted by the physicians, 32 had died with "no benefit" from the treatment, one had died after having a "slight regression for two months," one died after having been stable for a year, followed by progression of disease, and two were alive at the time of the survey. Of the two who were alive, one had metastatic lung cancer and the other had cervical cancer, and both had received radiotherapy prior to Antineoplaston treatment. The memo does not indicate the existence of more detailed data on the clinical course of these patients (including time between treatment and outcome recorded) or the basis for selecting the 25 physicians for the survey. OTA's requests to the Canadian Bureau of Prescription Drugs for further information about this survey have been denied. It is not possible to draw conclusions about efficacy or safety of Antineoplaston treatment from this limited information, since it was a retrospective analysis of self-selected patients and there may have been bias toward reporting poor outcomes.

Unfortunately, despite a substantial number of preliminary clinical studies presented by Burzynski and his associates describing outcomes among the patients he treated with Antineoplastons, and an attempt at a "best case" review, there is still a lack of valid information to judge whether this treatment is likely to be beneficial to cancer patients. Thus far, prospective, controlled clinical studies of Antineoplastons, which could yield valid information on efficacy, have not been conducted.

[Eug]

One thing I always tell the conspiracy nuts who seem to want to believe that big pharma is shutting out all the too-good-to-be-true drugs out there for cancer or AIDS whatever:

The whole reason for the existence for big pharma is to make money. If they find an instant awesome cure for a disease or some type of cancer, they are totally frackin' gonna jump all over it... and SELL IT.

Just imagine:

Let's say Johnson & Johnson develops a drug for breast cancer that increases the 5-year survival from 50% to 75%.
Then let's say Pfizer develops a drug for breast cancer that increases the 5-year survival from 50% to 95%, with the same amount of side affects as Johnson & Johnson's drug.

Guess who makes more money? In that scenario, Pfizer effectively has put Johnson & Johnson out of the breast cancer treatment business. Suddenly Pfizer has ALL the customers, and can charge $10000 a month for the drug per patient. If the treatment takes 6 months, then that's $60000, for a drug that probably costs about $50 or whatever in basic manufacturing costs.

In the US and Canada, there are about 200000 new cases of breast cancer every year. That's $12 billion a year in the these two countries alone for that just that one drug, for just one type of cancer. Of course, not everyone can pay for that, but we're still talking big money from those who can pay.

So, it's the exact opposite of what the idiotic conspiracy theorists think. Big pharma WANTS to find that wonder-drug, because its gonna make them a crapload of money.

[Athens]

Unless its a drug that they cant make money off of because the patent is owned by a single person. And the FDA makes its money off the Pharma companies so it's in its best interest to ensure only the Pharma companies have sellable drugs.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Unless its a drug that they cant make money off of because the patent is owned by a single person.

That's one of the popular but equally idiotic conspiracy theory arguments. Person A is such an awesome person that s/he never will sell out to big pharma, and will give the drug to everyone out of the goodness of his/her heart, or at least at much lower cost than big pharma would.

What can I say? People are gullible.

The point here is that big pharma is not going to go all out to block the sale of the drug. No, in fact it's just the opposite. They'd be beating his door down offering him hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the patent, so they can put the drug on sale.

[el chupacabra]

Originally Posted by Eug 

So, it's the exact opposite of what the idiotic conspiracy theorists think. Big pharma WANTS to find that wonder-drug, because its gonna make them a crapload of money.

No big pharma doesn't WANT to find a cure. What they want is to put people on a subscription plan just like every other company in the world. They make way more money having people subscribe to 9 year plans; or lifetime treatment plans for cancer than if someone discovered how to cure cancer in 1-2 years. It would especially suck for them if someone found a treatment that "wasn't patentable" as they themselves have admitted. And they "wouldn't be interested in a drug if it wasn't patentable because that wouldn't be as profitable", as they have admitted...

[Eug]

Originally Posted by el chupacabra 

No big pharma doesn't WANT to find a cure. What they want is to put people on a subscription plan just like every other company in the world. They make way more money having people subscribe to 9 year plans; or lifetime treatment plans for cancer than if someone discovered how to cure cancer in 1-2 years. It would especially suck for them if someone found a treatment that "wasn't patentable" as they themselves have admitted. And they "wouldn't be interested in a drug if it wasn't patentable because that wouldn't be as profitable", as they have admitted...

Heh. Quoted for amusement.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Eug 

That's one of the popular but equally idiotic conspiracy theory arguments. Person A is such an awesome person that s/he never will sell out to big pharma, and will give the drug to everyone out of the goodness of his/her heart, or at least at much lower cost than big pharma would.

What can I say? People are gullible.

The point here is that big pharma is not going to go all out to block the sale of the drug. No, in fact it's just the opposite. They'd be beating his door down offering him hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the patent, so they can put the drug on sale.

Main guy at the FDA said it himself, they will only accept research from large companies not individuals.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Heh. Quoted for amusement.

Quoted for denialism, truth hurts.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Main guy at the FDA said it himself, they will only accept research from large companies not individuals.

The FDA and comparable organizations around the world accept stuff from anyone who can support it with good peer reviewed research. Usually that does mean companies of course, since good research costs money.

The problem with outspoken individuals like Burzynski is that they're quacks, with absolutely terrible research (if you can even call it that), with completely unpromising compounds.

Good quality research means certain standards need to be met. If the quacks aren't going to attempt to meet those standards, then people are just going to ignore them, unless they're gullible. While large companies and educated researchers will just blow off the quacks, unfortunately, many very sick and desperate people may latch onto them for a faint hope of a miracle cure... and often will drain their bank accounts doing so.

At least we know the intentions of big pharma. They want to make money to treat your sickness. The quacks? They claim to help, but they either want fame or prestige or want to drain your bank account, and usually both, under the guise of the underdog helping the sick up against the big pharma goliath, but usually with a completely ineffective and sometimes actually harmful treatment methods.

So to me, the big difference:

Big pharma takes your money to give you what may be a good drug. Or at least at drug that has passed certain levels of testing.
Quacks take your money to give you crap.

---

I think one big problem here is that people don't actually know what "cancer" is. Many think it's a single disease, or maybe a couple of variations on a general theme. Those who think this really need to educate themselves about what the word "cancer" actually means.

Hint: "Cancer" is not a disease. It is a collection of about a bazillion different diseases, all with different causes and different demographics, and of course lots and lots of different treatment methodologies because they're simply inherently different.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Main guy at the FDA said it himself, they will only accept research from large companies not individuals.

You can submit your findings to a scientific journal. After peer review and publication, there are any number of universities or corporations that will take you in on contract to head a research project.

This guy is making a claim that is potentially worth hundreds of millions, if not several billion dollars. Not just for himself, but for whatever university or corporation that gets to administer the treatment. They get exclusivity for a few years as the only company with a proven treatment for cancer. Do you have any idea how lucrative and valuable that is?

On top of that, the guy would most likely receive a Nobel Prize in medicine.


But, no. He blames all his problems on the FDA. Bunch of crap.

[Athens]

Potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars to himself. No one wants to touch something that has a patent owned on it.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars to himself. No one wants to touch something that has a patent owned on it.

Of course they do. People buy and sell patent rights all the time.

Since you're in Canada, surely you've heard the news that Nortel's IP was bought up a bunch of companies, which includes our favourite fruit company, Apple?

Of course, big pharma does this all the time. If a small company has a promising product, they might just buy up the company. Apple does that too. Guess where Siri came from?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Main guy at the FDA said it himself, they will only accept research from large companies not individuals.

I think you'll find this is more about the fact that one guy had the idea, designed and ran the tests, interpreted and presented the data. Real science has to be reproducible by other people, according the massive quote you posted on the other page Burzynski's findings were not reproducible and in fact didn't stand up to basic scientific scrutiny. For some reason you interpreted it as persecution but the reasons given for rejection all seem perfectly legitimate and quite detailed to me whereas his rebuttal was insubstantial, much like his original submitted evidence.

I doubt you care one iota about my opinion but I normally consider you to be pretty reasonable and rational. In my eyes you are letting yourself down badly in this thread. Your line about people not wanting things which are patented is surprisingly silly. Why are so you keen to jump on this guy's bandwagon?

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

I think you'll find this is more about the fact that one guy had the idea, designed and ran the tests, interpreted and presented the data. Real science has to be reproducible by other people, according the massive quote you posted on the other page Burzynski's findings were not reproducible and in fact didn't stand up to basic scientific scrutiny. For some reason you interpreted it as persecution but the reasons given for rejection all seem perfectly legitimate and quite detailed to me whereas his rebuttal was insubstantial, much like his original submitted evidence.

I doubt you care one iota about my opinion but I normally consider you to be pretty reasonable and rational. In my eyes you are letting yourself down badly in this thread. Your line about people not wanting things which are patented is surprisingly silly. Why are so you keen to jump on this guy's bandwagon?

--> http://forums.macnn.com/95/political...2/#post4122546

But there is still the question of how the FDA has been going about it as well. It does bring to light many problems with the system as a whole. Im not arguing his testing methods are flawed. Im arguing now the system is flawed. This should have been definitively put to rest many years ago through either independent testing or shutting him down. At the moment he isn't breaking any laws, and the FDA shows no interest in proving or disproving him. In stead they attack his method and ignore the drug when they should be focused on the drug and if it works or not. The funding model and ownership of big corporations do play a role in how it is approaching this entire thing.

[Waragainstsleep]

I would argue that putting these things to bed once and for all is easier said than done. Chances are he'd just set up a new clinic in Mexico and carry on as before.
These people rarely make these claims with good intentions. As long as he is making money he will carry on as he is and he will fight tooth and nail to hang on to his income. Income he could choose to spend paying independent tests at other labs. That said I was surprised he was never re-tried for the charges which were thrown out when the jury could not agree.

If he really had a cure, I'm confident the British government would be happy to help him out. If the NHS had a global patent on curing cancer it would go from money pit to money pile in no time flat. We'd be happily flying people in from all over to get treated and I could get a nice big cut in my income tax.

[Athens]

Well first it isn't a cure. Its just something which his data shows a higher % of successful treatment. Key thing his numbers. Japan had similar results in the short trial it did too, and both a Canadian doctor and Japanese doctor recommended further trials and studies. Everything I've been reading has the FDA blocking him at ever step of the way to prove it or in the case of the FDA totally proving its worthless.

[Eug]

Not really. His shoddiness at presenting the info speaks volumes.

Burzynski presented them with about 12 cases at the clinic, and sent them additional cases afterward. According to the report, there were original X-rays for only one case; for two others, selected CT scans were available. The case with X-ray evidence was a patient with metastatic nodules in the lung from a colon cancer, which, from his history, appeared to be a slowly progressing disease. The consultants concluded that the X-rays showed no documentable change, though there were difficulties in interpretation because the films were reportedly taken on different machines with different magnifications. They also concluded that the two patients for whom some CT scans were available showed no definite response to Antineoplaston treatment. In those cases, they believed that the views on the scans were not the same, making direct comparison impossible.

---

On the basis of the cases they reviewed, Blackstein and Bersagel reported that they found no examples of objective response to Antineoplastons. In addition to reviewing the cases, they asked about four patients reported by Burzynski in 1977 to have had complete remissions with treatment. According to the report, three of those patients had progressed fairly rapidly and died. The fourth patient was still alive at the time of the review (1982), but the consultants felt his disease (a solitary bladder tumor) had disappeared as a result of the biopsy. In conclusion, Blackstein and Bersagel's report recommended that the Ontario Health Insurance Plan not cover the cost of Antineoplaston treatment for Ontario residents.

I don't know of Bersagel. However, I do know of Blackstein. He's not a bureaucrat, nor is he a big pharma executive. He's a trenches oncologist who treats real patients, but who also keeps up with the latest in new drug research. Having new and effective drugs paid for by OHIP benefits his patients directly.

Judging by the report, I could just see Blackstein thinking Burzynski is at best an extremely poor doctor with shoddy medical practices, and at worst a dangerous charlatan preying on the desperate. My guess is it's somewhere in between, but both ends of that spectrum are very bad.

[Athens]

um ya I was the one that posted that... While the report was more detailed then others on the Internet you gotta take into account that it was people working for Ontario Health seeking a reason for Ontario Health to deny claims for a out of Province, out of country unapproved treatment. That said its a detailed report which is more then what I have found from other sites that bring to light some of the problems with Burzynski and his creditability which could explain why no one has interest in proving his theory and why the FDA is so opposed to him.

I keep a open mind. Im not ready to damn him or praise him. I like to see some one put a close to the matter, either it works or it does not. At the moment it has not been done. And there is enough questionable evidence from Burzynski and some less questionable evidence from Japan that keeps me in the grey area of forming a opinion each way. Thats where I stand right now.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Athens 

you gotta take into account that it was people working for Ontario Health seeking a reason for Ontario Health to deny claims for a out of Province, out of country unapproved treatment.

Originally Posted by Athens 

I keep an open mind.

Why are you assuming that Ontario Health was looking for a reason to turn him down? I'm guessing this anti-neoplaston treatment is a whole lot cheaper than chemo and radiotherapy. That is a guess of course.

[Waragainstsleep]

Dr. Burzynski is studying a heterogeneous, ill-defined patient population.

He treats patients who come through the door, and only patients who come through the door. He takes patients with bony disease, liver disease, bone marrow involvement, CNS disease. He organizes data by disease site, whatever the patients' stage, and whatever treatment they received prior to walking through the door of his clinic.

What we have here are bad trials that could never get past peer review of any clinical trials cooperative group. It's not in the public interest to conduct trials that are not going to yield clear results. If you are going to test an alternative approach, you need to test it as rigorously as you do mainstream approaches.

Dr. Burzynski's protocols are written with all the trappings of protocols. They look like protocols. They smell like protocols. But they lack the rigor of protocol design that defines the patient population, defines the endpoints, sets exclusion and inclusion criteria, and allows for statistical analysis.

The protocols are evaluating a single statistical endpoint: response. He doesn't evaluate disease-free survival, time to progression, quality of life, or overall survival. With these endpoints not prospectively defined, he has no basis for making legitimate claims regarding these parameters. This is a fundamental problem: You have to set your endpoints prospectively. It's too late to go back and do it after all the patients are treated.

Dr. Burzynski presents no baseline data. He presents no control data. He presents no description of methodology employed to measure active agents in the blood. How are these values affected by other variables, such as how recently these patients have been on other chemotherapy? How many other chemotherapy agents have they had? Is their liver and renal function normal? In the absence of controls, Dr. Burzynski is constructing his controls from memory and experience, which eliminates any possibility of determining a true response rate.

Also see here:

Questionable Cancer Therapies

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Athens 

While the report was more detailed then others on the Internet you gotta take into account that it was people working for Ontario Health seeking a reason for Ontario Health to deny claims for a out of Province, out of country unapproved treatment.

That's why I made my post. As I mentioned before, I actually know who this guy is. (He's pretty well known now in Ontario.) As a practicing academic oncologist he spends part of his time canvassing the province to get effective new drugs approved. He's not a government bureaucrat nor a drug company exec.

Originally Posted by Athens 

I keep a open mind. Im not ready to damn him or praise him.

Well, then, you've fallen into the charlatan trap.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Why are you assuming that Ontario Health was looking for a reason to turn him down? I'm guessing this anti-neoplaston treatment is a whole lot cheaper than chemo and radiotherapy. That is a guess of course.

In November 1982, consultants to the Ontario (Canada) Ministry of Health visited Burzynski's clinical and research facilities in Houston for the purpose of providing information to the Ministry of Health about the treatment because some Ontario residents had sought reimbursement under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan

And no, Chemo and Radiotherapy would be cheaper in Canada then the neoplaston treatment.

Originally Posted by Eug 

Well, then, you've fallen into the charlatan trap.

The what trap?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Athens 

And no, Chemo and Radiotherapy would be cheaper in Canada then the neoplaston treatment.

So very expensive treatments involving long courses of multiple, patented drugs supplied by big pharma and radiotherapy which requires a team of oncologists, technicians and pricey equipment is cheaper to the healthcare provider or insurance company than the unapproved, naturally occurring miracle cure?

This doesn't raise any red flags with you at all?!!!!!!

Have you seen the size of the Burzynski Clinic? No doubt paid for by idiots who died of cancer before they could sue him for fraud. Not a bad business model. If you happen to be amoral.

[Athens]

Why do you call it a miracle cure. I'm curious?

Burzynski's clinic charges about $100 000 per treatment course. Depending on the kind of cancer treatment in Ontario in 2008 was about 20k to 60k a year for most common cancers with numbers reaching as high as 150k a year for some rare ones. And in the 1980s add 20-30% on top of that for the Canadian dollar and US dollar conversion. Was def cheaper to treat at home. Canadian drug costs are 50% or more lower then in the US.

EDIT

HOLLY$#!^ he has a big ass clinic!!!! I never looked it up before.

[Athens]

You know that Phase III trials are underway at UAB http://www.uab.edu/uabra/ogca/ogcapdf/062910.pdf shows funding until 2015 for it. I've been digging into other work that Burzynski's research does including gene therapy. Im finding him more and more creditable with newer stuff then the older stuff. If anything it appears that he fails at paper work and organization which vs out right fraud.

[Waragainstsleep]

My research said he started out as a promising researcher (despite some questions asked about his university career and qualifications) but seemed to lose his way. I wonder if he got a bit obsessive with the antineoplastons and eventually got kicked out of his research team for refusing to look at other things.

I think saying he is just 'bad at paperwork' is a massive understatement. He needs independent confirmation of his results but on the several occasions others have tried to replicate his work they have consistently failed. Combine that with the holes in his own paperwork which frankly you could drive a bus through and it all adds up to very poor, biased pseudoscience.

[Athens]

Fair enough.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Athens 

You know that Phase III trials are underway at UAB http://www.uab.edu/uabra/ogca/ogcapdf/062910.pdf shows funding until 2015 for it.

It should be noted the funding agency is Burzynski Research Institute.

Let's just hope this trial has scientists that respect scientific method more than Burzynski seems to.

[CollinG3G4]

Apparently, phenylacetic acid is the main ingredient of burzynski's magic cure. I will steal 500 grams from work tomorrow and sell it to anymore here for a fraction of what he charges. Any takers? Seriously though, that's an off-the-shelf chemical. It's probably been part of BigPharma's screening libraries for decades.

[Athens]

I don't see how 4-6% cure rate is "magic" and is more then just phenylacetic acid. Contains 3-phenylacetylamino-2,6-piperidinedione, phenylacetic acid, phenylacetylglutamine, phenylacetylisoglutamine

I looked up some of the ingredients and found this

Contains 3-phenylacetylamino-2,6-piperidinedione, 3-phenylacetylamino-2,6-piperidinedion... [Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 1991] - PubMed - NCBI

phenylacetylglutamine http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22028151which and also this one Glutamine as an immunonutrient. [Yonsei Med J. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI

And from the Japan Study Inhibitory effect of antineoplaston A10 and AS2... [Kurume Med J. 1996] - PubMed - NCBI

As it stands I think Burzynski is a terrible scientist in documentation and presentation. I don't think hes a pure scam artist.

[Waragainstsleep]

Many of the people he claims to have cured turned out not to be cured. Also many of the people he has treated have been treated before and delayed positive response to conventional chemo and radiotherapy is far from unheard of. 4% could be easily wiped out to 0% when you consider those things.

[Athens]

Oh I do and he can't treat any one with out those that have "failed" conventional treatment" so we don't know how good or how useless his treatment is. His claimed success numbers are on those that are the worst cases that failed normal treatments. If there is any measurable success in those it makes you wonder what it would be on normal cases not just the worst kind.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Athens 

His claimed success numbers are on those that are the worst cases that failed normal treatments. If there is any measurable success in those it makes you wonder what it would be on normal cases not just the worst kind.

That's like saying "if chemotherapy works on cancer, just imagine what it would be on the common cold." Nearly all cancers are different from each other, and when one cancer is responsive to X and not Y another cancer can easily be responsive to Y but not X. Even if one cancer is "worse" than the other. You already know that these "worst cases" are different kinds of cancers than the "non-worst," that is how the two groups were separated in the first place. We can have no reasonable expectation that a treatment which works on one group of cancers will work "better" on another group, just because we label them "worse" or "better" cancers. They are different, that is what's important. What it means is that they won't respond to all the same treatments. Cancer is not linear, and neither is the treatment.

[Athens]

Not exactly. That's true for Chemo but his method deals with the bodies natural defenses against Cancer which "should" work against most of the common cancers. Obviously nothing will treat everything. What I mean with my previous post if the success rate is 4-6% on the ones that fail with regular treatments, and the worst kinds of Cancer it would be interesting to see how it deals with the cancers that do respond to chemo. If the success rate was exactly the same its already a better option for not being toxic.

[Eug]

Just the fact that he's botched his own "research" so badly should be pretty good evidence his clinic should be avoided, regardless of what he's hawking.

[Waragainstsleep]

Perhaps it wasn't the right 'study' but I'm pretty sure those "hard to cure" cases that he "cured" were followed up and it turned out that all but one had died and the last one had cancer again/still had cancer.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Not exactly. That's true for Chemo but his method deals with the bodies natural defenses against Cancer which "should" work against most of the common cancers. Obviously nothing will treat everything. What I mean with my previous post if the success rate is 4-6% on the ones that fail with regular treatments, and the worst kinds of Cancer it would be interesting to see how it deals with the cancers that do respond to chemo. If the success rate was exactly the same its already a better option for not being toxic.

4%-6% success on treating cancer patients who failed regular treatments? That number is SO low that, even if provable (which seems to be questionable), it seems difficult to directly attribute to Burzynski's treatment.

Of those patients who fail regular treatment, how many recover on their own without any other treatment?

[Waragainstsleep]

My understanding is that pretty much no-one recovers by themselves without treatment. These subjects have had prior conventional treatments so they don't fall into that category. Delayed response to treatment is definitely not 0%. I couldn't find any figures during a 30 second search.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Not exactly. That's true for Chemo but his method deals with the bodies natural defenses against Cancer which "should" work against most of the common cancers.

That's like saying "the chemo method deals with killing rapidly dividing cells, which bacterial infections are, so it "should" work against most of the common infections."

You're applying tragically optimistic and simplistic reasoning, assuming a linear relationship between disease severity and treatment effectiveness. This is a completely flawed and incorrect foundation for your reasoning.

[Athens]

The human immune system is a lot more complex then a Chemo drug. Assisting the immune system with one drug to get it back on track to dealing with faulty cells of a wide range is a one drug many cancer treatment because the treatment isn't dealing with the cancers itself. Its dealing with the broken system in the body that deals with the cancers.

I also wouldn't say im optimistic or pessimistic because at the moment I can't make a choice for either which way with him. I have to say I'm pretty neutral about him. I don't believe his theories or discount them. My interest is peaked and would like to see proper research done and released proving with out a doubt that it works or does not.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Athens 

The human immune system is a lot more complex then a Chemo drug. Assisting the immune system with one drug to get it back on track to dealing with faulty cells of a wide range is a one drug many cancer treatment because the treatment isn't dealing with the cancers itself. Its dealing with the broken system in the body that deals with the cancers.

You were wondering before why people accuse you of attributing this treatment to "miracles" and "magic." This is why. Offloading the "magical" component to the immune system obfuscates things just barely enough to allow someone to convince themselves it's not really "magic," if they want to be convinced.

I also wouldn't say im optimistic or pessimistic because at the moment I can't make a choice for either which way with him. I have to say I'm pretty neutral about him. I don't believe his theories or discount them.

You seem to have swallowed his whole "the government is persecuting me" theory hook line and sinker.

[Athens]

No actually the FDA did.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Athens 

No actually the FDA did.

The FDA prohibits claiming a drug or treatment cures anything unless it's been demonstrated to do so and the FDA signs off on it. However, you can get around that law: if you attribute a treatment to natural body functions, you can claim it does whatever you want. This is how the food supplement, vitamin, and homeopathy industries work. You claim that your miracle drug or treatment "supports the immune system in its fight against <insert ailment here.>" That way you don't actually make any claim that your drug or treatment does anything.

[Athens]

What about the FDA law suits and other court cases all of which have failed? That is what I was referring to. They don't even have enough evidence to prove otherwise in the court of law. They seem to be after him for reasons other then actual evidence and in this world its supposed to run on evidence being able to prove what you say. And at this moment the FDA can't prove a thing. Yet they also allow him to do trials with one hand and with the other hand try to destroy him. Explain that.

[freudling]

Man, I guess you guys have covered ground.

Cancer? It's complicated. There's 6.5 billion people in the world. Most of them don't want to die, especially by cancer. I always am skeptical when 1 guy claims to hold the secret to something really complicated. There're tons of brilliant people in medicine. There's no cure for cancer because it's incredibly complex and difficult to stop. It's because it's systemic and because it comes in so many different forms. And because people respond differently to it, at different stages. And there's multiple causes.

We're dealing with DNA, and we're not quite advanced enough to treat something as complex as cancer yet in terms of a *real* cure. I found it interesting, but not surprising, that Jobs got his DNA sequenced. And that it may have played a big part in him surviving as long as he did (apparently the doctors gave him tailored drugs to deal with the molecular maladies of his cancer).

It's the problem of mutated DNA and getting all of it out of the body. You have to figure out how to get all of it out without destroying the body in total with Chemo and drugs. The combination of computers, DNA sequencing, tailored drugs and nano-technology are going to do it.

Biochemists have known for decades that designer drugs are the best approach to cancer, yet their ambition has always exceeded available technologies. Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

Take prostate cancer that has spread, and who knows how far. An approach would be to infect the body with a dummy virus that would target the cancerous cells. The body, through a primary immune response, would then mark all those infected cells as foreign, as a virus, and attempt to eliminate them. With drugs that would target just those marked cells, those cells that are actually growing out of control, those cells that would have markers and signals the drugs would pick up on and attach themselves to... the tumors, just the tumors, could be eliminated. How would the drug make the kill? By destroying all capillaries in and around the cells in question. This would cut off the blood supply and the cells would die.

This is one of many approaches to targeted drug therapies that Biochemists have been working on for years. Being able to work at the level of DNA is vital for this stuff to work in someone's body.

We're not there yet, but we're getting there.

[Athens]

Couldn't agree more. My faith for dealing with most viruses and cancer is through the research around the immune system. It's been suspected for a long time that a failure in how the body deals with cancer cells laid with a failure with the immune response or other biochemical proccess that allows cancer to go unchecked. Why this dudes research peeks my interest because it's along those lines and his theory is sound from the data collected between cancer people and non cancer ppl. Current methods of using poison to kill cancer is a stop gap treatment that only extends life. The treatment itself kills over long usage. Fixing the actual problem is the future.