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Is this the biggest medical cover up/scandal in 30 years? (Page 4)
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Athens
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Nov 6, 2011, 10:23 PM
 
what do you mean?
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Waragainstsleep
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Nov 6, 2011, 10:37 PM
 
He is running the same trial dozens of times with one trial for each different type of cancer. This gets the total number of trials up which makes him look more credible to people who either won't find, won't read or won't understand anything he eventually publishes for each trial.

He is only allowed to sell his treatments by running patient funded FDA approved trials. This way he has no need to ever get them approved, he can continue to sell them as long as he can keep the trials running.

Some more info on his legal adventures:
Burzynski was also found guilty of fraud in 1994, as he claimed reimbursement from a health insurer for an illegally administered cancer treatment.
The trial of Stanislaw Burzynski for cancer fraud ended in a hung jury (6-6) on March 4. CBS's 48 Hours' interviews of jurors told the tale as to why they couldn't agree. Clearly, the jurors agreed that Burzynski was guilty as charged of violating court orders not to distribute his unapproved "Antineoplastons" in interstate commerce, but the fact that some desperate cancer patients believed Burzynski's remedy was keeping them alive (or, at least. was keeping their hope for recovery alive) made the case too emotional a matter for them to convict him of his crimes. One juror who was interviewed admitted that she had disregarded the judge's instructions to ignore such issues. …
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Athens
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Nov 7, 2011, 05:10 AM
 
Interesting...

ftp://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/pub/93/93-02071.CV0.wpd.pdf

Thats the court case, so basically a man from a different state went for treatment then continued the treatment in his home state and the insurance company looking for any excuse not to pay which is of course what they do sued in on fraud charges because the drug was not supposed to be used out side of Texas.
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Waragainstsleep
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Nov 7, 2011, 06:01 AM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
Interesting...

ftp://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/pub/93/93-02071.CV0.wpd.pdf

Thats the court case, so basically a man from a different state went for treatment then continued the treatment in his home state and the insurance company looking for any excuse not to pay which is of course what they do sued in on fraud charges because the drug was not supposed to be used out side of Texas.
You keep saying you are undecided but the way you put things like that makes it seem like you are biased towards Dr. Burzynski. We all hate insurance companies but if you read the document you just posted it is clear that he absolutely was guilty of defrauding them and of breaking the previous injunction against him.

Do you really think an insurance company should be forced to pay for any old quackery their customer asks for? They were clearly happy to pay for chemotherapy which Dr. B tried to claim should includ his treatments. (This is especially funny given all the idiots who support this guy and the way they rally against chemotherapy as being so evil. Chemo as in chemical. How can any treatment not be considered chemotherapy? Those pesky chemicals are everywhere!)

This would be a great way to drive up the costs of medical insurance. Soon to be followed by: "My doctor says I'm stressed and I need a holiday, therefore I expect my insurer to buy me a two week Caribbean cruise."
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Athens
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Nov 7, 2011, 12:26 PM
 
I dont see treating a person and billing the company for the treatment fraud. The insurance company failed to screen its policies on payment before they sent in payment then wanted the money back after discovering its policy had a claws about approved treatments. Yes he did break the injunction but Texas law has 2 conflicting rules which if you read the entire document it goes through and it came down to 2 different views of the 2 laws.
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Nov 7, 2011, 01:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
Interesting...

ftp://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/pub/93/93-02071.CV0.wpd.pdf

Thats the court case, so basically a man from a different state went for treatment then continued the treatment in his home state and the insurance company looking for any excuse not to pay which is of course what they do sued in on fraud charges because the drug was not supposed to be used out side of Texas.
Interesting...

So basically Athens will assume that anything said by Burzy or his proponents is true, and anything said by everyone else is an intentional lie. And he will call this behavior "open-mindedness." When painted into a corner, he can escape by saying "I don't know what you're talking about." Fascinating.
     
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Nov 7, 2011, 01:40 PM
 
Maybe the insurance company paid the bill given to them by a registered MD with a large clinic, both of whom superficially look entirely legit, then they realised that the treatment administered was illegal. Frankly I'm surprised they didn't sue their customer, but credit to them, it seems people are unwilling to go after Burzynski if only because anything requiring a jury will fall victim to his propaganda like the FDA case(s) did.

As coincidence would have it, Burzynski appeared on the radar of well-known (and respected) UK skeptic Simon Singh over the weekend. He wasn't sure what to make of him. I await his conclusions with great interest. I am also hoping he will get Ben Goldacre involved given his medical background.

This link was posted on Singh's comments page:

Burzynski in Ireland; arguing with believers | And another thing...

It shows up the sort of people who continue to support this guy even after he defrauds people into parting with their cash so they can watch their children die.
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Athens
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Nov 7, 2011, 09:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Interesting...

So basically Athens will assume that anything said by Burzy or his proponents is true, and anything said by everyone else is an intentional lie. And he will call this behavior "open-mindedness." When painted into a corner, he can escape by saying "I don't know what you're talking about." Fascinating.
Your so full of shit. I haven't said anything about anything being true or false. Does a court case over a billing error really count as a capital crime? All I see is people grasping at straws to discredit and disprove him because they don't like him for some reason and at the same time nothing that proves if or if it does not work....

And because I don't jump on the Automatic hate him for no good reason band wagon you start to hate me to because I'm not a follower of ignorance... Classy. Show me something that proves hes a fraud so we can then debate how ineffective the FDA is at stopping fraud. Its sad the best any one can do is post articles that are 15-30 years old.
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Nov 8, 2011, 02:24 PM
 
Oh, did you take my post as biased against you? All I did was parrot the exact same language you used against the FDA and insurance companies. Hopefully this illustrates why everyone is interpreting your attitude as biased.
     
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Nov 10, 2011, 06:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
All I see is people grasping at straws to discredit and disprove him because they don't like him for some reason and at the same time nothing that proves if or if it does not work....
People don't like him because he is selling false hope to dying people who in turn are unwittingly conning other people out of their hard-earned money to hand over to a frankly obvious charlatan.

If you make a claim, the onus is on you to prove your claim. This is how science works, its how the law works too most of the time. The fact that no-one has disproved Burzynski is no more relevant than the fact that no-one has disproved that listening to Britney Spears first album on repeat for an entire week while standing on your head and having midgets pelt you with a mixture of brie and gum that has been partially chewed by a Yak with french owner can cure baldness.

If this guy has found a loophole in the FDA system that he can abuse to line his pockets at the expense of the desperate and the dying (seriously, do you not find that morally reprehensible?) then the FDA needs to push legislation that can close it, and better yet punish him for it.
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Athens
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Nov 10, 2011, 08:55 AM
 
Well by your definition of a con job, every single drug on the market at some point was a con job during its clinical trial stages since at that point it was NOT yet a accepted or proven treatment. So why is he special case with the exception of not being a massive large drug company with a ton of resources to do the research quickly?

The fact that he has not been disproved is important because it leaves the debate open, is he on to something or not. Considering how many years this has been going on now you would figure some one else would have tried it to market it. Oh but he owns the patents so it wouldn't be sellable even another company invested time and money to research it.

So its ignored by drug companies because of the patent and he lacks the resources to do what a billion dollar corporation can do in a 10 year period.

You can class most cancer treatments as the same "selling false hope to dying people who in turn are unwittingly conning other people out of their hard-earned money to hand over to..." because most treatments only extend life by 3 months to 2 years. And its now being debated that the treatments themselves are killing people sooner then not treating them at all as most cancer treatments obliterate the body in a vain attempt to kill the cancer.

The one thing that has changed over the last 40 years is screening for cancer thus higher rates of cancer discovered and more cancer treatment and more cancer deaths. Looking back at causes of deaths for people before screening it has been discovered that deaths from those with cancer, it was not the cancer that killed them. Had those same people been living in modern times those cancers would have been discovered in screening and treatment applied. The question is would they had the cancer cured or would the treatment killed them before they died of what ever killed them in the first place like a heart attack.

The entire Cancer industry is a sham right now.

The only major difference between the treatment Burzynski is attempting to prove and current methods is how toxic it is to the body. If the treatment can show real changes on a persons cancer with out the toxic side effects of Chemo then its a better treatment already. Thats a big IF of course.

And to address the FDA question, considering its been over 30 years now, you figure the loop hole you claim would be closed by now if there was not some substance to his clinical trials. Or they would have just terminated all trials.

All drug trials are shams until proving to disproved. At this point neither has been done, and I think there was enough evidence to warrant continued research though the evidence itself is suspect due to the lack of interest of any one else spending money and resources on something they can't profit on.

Legislation to "punish" him is a dangerous idea because it could prevent any one else from doing research that could be classed as "morally reprehensible" just because its not a popular idea or is to radical to be accepted. I wonder how many drugs and treatments we wouldn't have today if it was possible to punish research before it has had a chance to be proven or disproved.
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Nov 10, 2011, 09:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
So its ignored by drug companies because of the patent and he lacks the resources to do what a billion dollar corporation can do in a 10 year period.
Then, his only choices are to license the patent, sell the patent, acquire the resources to do what the FDA requires or do nothing. Loosening the requirements to approve drugs or medical procedures will only result in people getting hurt by side effects or consequences that proper research would have identified.
     
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Nov 10, 2011, 03:06 PM
 
Thats not his only choice. That is a choice. He is doing what the FDA requires, from what I can tell for the last decade which is why you don't see anything newer then 15 years ago in law suites and so forth.

Who said anything about loosening the requirements for drug approval?
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Nov 10, 2011, 04:24 PM
 
So basically if you have a complaint that it's taking too long to prove or disprove, that complaint should be leveled at Burzynski for refusing to partner with a company that can get the trials completed in a timely manner.
     
Athens
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Nov 10, 2011, 05:16 PM
 
My complaint is at people who automatically judge something a fraud when there is little evidence that it is. I have seen nothing that says his research is not valid research. And thats what it is research. The only difference between his research and a large company is a large company has a PR budget that can make anything sound good.
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Nov 10, 2011, 08:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
My complaint is at people who automatically judge something a fraud when there is little evidence that it is. I have seen nothing that says his research is not valid research. And thats what it is research. The only difference between his research and a large company is a large company has a PR budget that can make anything sound good.
There is a difference between "little evidence" and "not enough evidence to convict".

You have seen plenty that should ring massive alarm bells about his research but have chosen to ignore it all. It isn't really research any more. He never moved past Phase II trials and the reason is because it allows him to charge vast sums of money for unapproved drugs.
Do we really need to keep going round in circles and repeating ourselves for you to get this?

Everything he has done that you consider convincing, is done precisely because it looks convincing to people who don't know any better. For some unfathomable reason, you don't find that convincing.

Every time others have tried to replicate his supposed results, they have failed and he has been generally uncooperative and/or inefficient with their studies and reviews of his own studies;
His publishing is been somewhere between sketchy and non-existent;
What results he has published seems to vary wildly whenever anyone reports or republishes it;
His published work has deeply flawed methodology throughout;
He is running huge numbers of identical trials varying only by the location of the cancer. This serves no scientific purpose, it just widens his customer base;
His advertising is based on guilt and trying to portray himself as an oppressed underdog fighting against the system for the good of everyone (while at best denying the world his treatment because he won't share his patents with anyone else);
He was convicted of fraud and only escaped other convictions because of a hung jury (of idiots);
He made a feature length advert;
Hippies love him;
Just wise up FFS;
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Waragainstsleep
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Nov 10, 2011, 09:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
Well by your definition of a con job, every single drug on the market at some point was a con job during its clinical trial stages since at that point it was NOT yet a accepted or proven treatment. So why is he special case with the exception of not being a massive large drug company with a ton of resources to do the research quickly?
Because he has no interest in getting the drug approved, he is already coining it in.

Originally Posted by Athens View Post
The fact that he has not been disproved is important because it leaves the debate open, is he on to something or not. Considering how many years this has been going on now you would figure some one else would have tried it to market it. Oh but he owns the patents so it wouldn't be sellable even another company invested time and money to research it.
People would be better off praying to the flying spaghetti monster. He is just as unproven. This patent angle you keep harping on about is a non-argument. Patents mean absolutely nothing in pharmaceuticals. Add an atom here, a (non-)functional group there, you have a different drug with the same properties and benefits. No breach of patent. How many viagra clones can you name for example?

Originally Posted by Athens View Post
So its ignored by drug companies because of the patent and he lacks the resources to do what a billion dollar corporation can do in a 10 year period.
They don't want it. Because it doesn't work. If it did, they would have stolen it by now.

Originally Posted by Athens View Post
You can class most cancer treatments as the same "selling false hope to dying people who in turn are unwittingly conning other people out of their hard-earned money to hand over to..." because most treatments only extend life by 3 months to 2 years. And its now being debated that the treatments themselves are killing people sooner then not treating them at all as most cancer treatments obliterate the body in a vain attempt to kill the cancer.
No, no, no, no, no, no. No. The hope is not false since chemo and radiotherapy has a measurable and undeniable cure rate. Therefore the attempts are not in vain.

Originally Posted by Athens View Post
The one thing that has changed over the last 40 years is screening for cancer thus higher rates of cancer discovered and more cancer treatment and more cancer deaths. Looking back at causes of deaths for people before screening it has been discovered that deaths from those with cancer, it was not the cancer that killed them. Had those same people been living in modern times those cancers would have been discovered in screening and treatment applied. The question is would they had the cancer cured or would the treatment killed them before they died of what ever killed them in the first place like a heart attack.
Stop pasting stupid hippy claptrap from homeopathy websites. Do you think autopsy methodology hasn't improved along with cancer screening technology? It has. There are many factors which cause cancers to develop but they all stem from damaged DNA. DNA gets damaged by many things and while there are probably more carcinogens around than there were 40 years ago, we know to avoid a lot more of them than we did back then as well.
Here is the simple truth about this line of idiocy: If you live long enough, you will get cancer. Life expectancy has gone up, therefore cancer rates go up. Detection rates go up, cancer rate goes up. Simple.

Chemo and radio therapies will not cure or prevent heart attacks, stab wounds, falling off large buildings etc etc. Unless the heart attack was caused by a cancer, the person doing the stabbing was unstable and violent due to a brain tumour, and you fell off a building because you had ear cancer that affected your balance. In those cases, it might prevent those things.

Originally Posted by Athens View Post
The entire Cancer industry is a sham right now.
Homeopathy is a scam. Gerson therapy is a scam. Antineoplastons are a scam.

Originally Posted by Athens View Post
The only major difference between the treatment Burzynski is attempting to prove and current methods is how toxic it is to the body. If the treatment can show real changes on a persons cancer with out the toxic side effects of Chemo then its a better treatment already. Thats a big IF of course.
No, the major difference is that one very definitely stands a chance of working and the other almost certainly does nothing at all. Burzynski's treatments do not show any such success in vivo in properly conducted trials or studies.

Originally Posted by Athens View Post
And to address the FDA question, considering its been over 30 years now, you figure the loop hole you claim would be closed by now if there was not some substance to his clinical trials. Or they would have just terminated all trials.
I'm sure the FDA is charging him some kind of fees and since he isn't killing anyone who wasn't dying anyway, I guess its not a priority.

Originally Posted by Athens View Post
All drug trials are shams until proving to disproved. At this point neither has been done, and I think there was enough evidence to warrant continued research though the evidence itself is suspect due to the lack of interest of any one else spending money and resources on something they can't profit on.
Other drugs are trialled, approved and put to use. Or disproved and abandoned. Or found to be dangerous and abandoned. In less than 30 years. You really think none of big pharma has tested antineoplastons out in secret? I bet they have. They clearly found nothing to warrant further interest.

Originally Posted by Athens View Post
Legislation to "punish" him is a dangerous idea because it could prevent any one else from doing research that could be classed as "morally reprehensible" just because its not a popular idea or is to radical to be accepted. I wonder how many drugs and treatments we wouldn't have today if it was possible to punish research before it has had a chance to be proven or disproved.
Its not morally reprehensible because its an 'unpopular radical idea'. Its morally reprehensible because it is markets to the desperate and the vulnerable and fleeces them of their money and I'm sure in some cases their homes or inheritances in exchange for nothing whatsoever. People who do this repeatedly and unashamedly deserve to be punished. Or at least stopped.

Just put your foil hat back on and go eat strawberries until they make you immortal.
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Athens
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Nov 11, 2011, 02:21 AM
 
Sad... I just can't imagine what it is like to have such a closed and narrow mind. I really can't imagine it.
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Nov 11, 2011, 09:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
Sad... I just can't imagine what it is like to have such a closed and narrow mind. I really can't imagine it.
Being gullible is not the same as having an open mind.

Open minds are minds that change. When the treatment is proven, my mind will change.
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Nov 12, 2011, 01:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
Sad... I just can't imagine what it is like to have such a closed and narrow mind. I really can't imagine it.
Not an appropriate comment to another member.
     
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Nov 12, 2011, 02:45 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Being gullible is not the same as having an open mind.

Open minds are minds that change. When the treatment is proven, my mind will change.
Well said
     
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Nov 12, 2011, 03:18 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cold Warrior View Post
Not an appropriate comment to another member.
and being called Being gullible is ok? or how about the other dozen or so personal attacks I receive on a daily basis. Thats ok?
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Nov 12, 2011, 07:39 PM
 
Don't be such a victim. You started it and 'gullible' is hardly going to collapse a psyche.

If you see personal attacks, report them.
     
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Nov 12, 2011, 11:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cold Warrior View Post
Don't be such a victim. You started it and 'gullible' is hardly going to collapse a psyche.
Neither is 'narrow-minded' but its nice to feel looked after, thanks. Unless you just think I'm fragile.
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Nov 14, 2011, 11:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
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.
Right, so you obviously don't understand how things work around here then.
If the NHS had a global patent on curing cancer you'd be paying your tax to fly patients in who'd be treated for free out of the goodness of the government's hearts then you'd be paying an additional tax to cover all the carbon the planes used to fly everyone in were emitting and possibly some more tax to help sort out the global population explosion.

Haven't you been taking any notice of how things work?
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Nov 14, 2011, 11:49 AM
 

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Nov 16, 2011, 11:45 AM
 
Athens, take a look at this:

Penn and Teller - Vaccinations (Full Episode) - YouTube

It has a lot of the same arguments involved that apply to this thread.
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Nov 16, 2011, 12:13 PM
 
Appeal to Penn and Teller as authority? Isn't that even more questionable than appealing to the self described persecuted misunderstood genius?
     
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Nov 16, 2011, 01:15 PM
 
They aren't an authority so much as a voice of reason.
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Nov 16, 2011, 03:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Athens, take a look at this:

Penn and Teller - Vaccinations (Full Episode) - YouTube

It has a lot of the same arguments involved that apply to this thread.
Perhaps my absolute favorite episode from P&T.
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you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
Athens
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Nov 16, 2011, 03:57 PM
 
I love P&T, Bullshit! is one of the best shows ever to come out. I would have to say the bottled water one is my fav.
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Nov 16, 2011, 04:08 PM
 
I know people who happen to like P&T often refer to these episodes as some sort of revelatory epiphany, but I have to object. They're completely biased, unprofessional, and inflammatory. It would be like referring to a south park episode and saying "see? SEE?" expecting it to actually convince someone on a serious issue. These shows are entertainment, and the particular style of entertainment is to be as confrontational and insulting as humanly possible. That's what garners them an audience in the first place. These are fine methods for manufacturing entertainment, but neither of them is compatible with actually being convincing. These shows are strictly preaching to the choir. Just go try to watch one of them, any one, and pretend that you actually have sympathy for Penn's victim organization (ie pretend you are not the choir). He's a total bully, and I think you'll notice that there are gaping holes in his logic that aren't even given the opportunity for someone to address them. I get the exact same rolleyes feeling from watching him that I get from reading the unfocused whiny equivocations defending Burzynski et al (which I guess is actually one reason why your gambit might work against people who we already know can be swayed by that sort of mumbo jumbo; but do you really want to validate the "mumbo jumbo" debating style? I don't).
     
Athens
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Nov 16, 2011, 04:18 PM
 
So you see no truth in P&T in the stuff they present. All things are biased so I won't argue what they do shows on are not biased towards their opinion on the subject. But I can't find fault in most of the stuff they present. And as unprofessional and inflammatory as it is. Often its dead on. If there is any one I can relate most to when it comes to my thinking process and style it would be P&T.

For the record Im not defending Burzynski any more. I still think the problem is at the FDA not him though.
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Waragainstsleep
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Nov 16, 2011, 04:56 PM
 
Did you catch the line about the miracle cure industry?

Blaming "the FDA, not him" still sounds a bit defensive of him. What are you blaming the FDA for? Failing to lock him up/shut him down?
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
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Nov 16, 2011, 05:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
So you see no truth in P&T in the stuff they present. All things are biased so I won't argue what they do shows on are not biased towards their opinion on the subject. But I can't find fault in most of the stuff they present. And as unprofessional and inflammatory as it is. Often its dead on. If there is any one I can relate most to when it comes to my thinking process and style it would be P&T.
It's not convincing. Did they change your mind about anything, or do they just start with the same beliefs you already had and make you feel good about still believing them?

It's the same thing the Burzynski cheerleading squad is doing, taking something you already want to believe and giving you an excuse to think it's the only reasonable thing to believe, or attributing nefarious cartoonishly evil and simplistic motives to the opposition.
     
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Nov 16, 2011, 06:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
It's not convincing. Did they change your mind about anything, or do they just start with the same beliefs you already had and make you feel good about still believing them?

It's the same thing the Burzynski cheerleading squad is doing, taking something you already want to believe and giving you an excuse to think it's the only reasonable thing to believe, or attributing nefarious cartoonishly evil and simplistic motives to the opposition.
Yes and no. They aren't likely to change many minds with their approach, that I agree with. Where they differ from their specific opponents on the vaccination debate for example is that their logic stands up much better to any scrutiny. They give rational explanations why the anti-vaccine arguments are wrong. Arguably you will never convince anyone of anything if they are driven by the potent combination of fear and ignorance.
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Nov 16, 2011, 06:52 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Did you catch the line about the miracle cure industry?

Blaming "the FDA, not him" still sounds a bit defensive of him. What are you blaming the FDA for? Failing to lock him up/shut him down?
Well he stays in business because the FDA approves his study. Does this not strike you as a problem. You have a few issues with the FDA. First the complex process for new drugs makes it mostly a large corporation venture. And the FDA also makes money through large companies and is geared towards that. This is a problem for any one that wants to research something with out involving signing a deal with the devil.

Problem two is the FDA allows in some fashion crack pots to abuse people in the name of research. Not yet ready to say Burzynski is a crack pot, but at the same time the FDA enables him to continue. They could easily require XYZ from him with a dead line and either he justifies continued research with something substantial or is shut down.
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Nov 16, 2011, 07:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
It's not convincing. Did they change your mind about anything, or do they just start with the same beliefs you already had and make you feel good about still believing them?
A few things from the show I had already known, a few things they changed my mind on and a couple things they didn't convince me.
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Nov 16, 2011, 07:18 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
Well he stays in business because the FDA approves his study. Does this not strike you as a problem. You have a few issues with the FDA. First the complex process for new drugs makes it mostly a large corporation venture. And the FDA also makes money through large companies and is geared towards that. This is a problem for any one that wants to research something with out involving signing a deal with the devil.
That's a feature, not a bug. I don't want any drug on the market that was cooked up and tested entirely in some hobbyist's garage. That's a recipe for abusing and fleecing the sick, who can least afford it and in many cases are not in command of their full senses.

Problem two is the FDA allows in some fashion crack pots to abuse people in the name of research. Not yet ready to say Burzynski is a crack pot, but at the same time the FDA enables him to continue. They could easily require XYZ from him with a dead line and either he justifies continued research with something substantial or is shut down.
You claim to be unbiased and undecided, but you swing wildly from "he's definitely right" to "he's definitely wrong." A true undecided would tend to say "he might be right or he might be wrong, and at this point there is no way to know which." In that case, you don't blame Burzy or the FDA because there is nothing to blame on anyone, things are working as they should. He is allowed to "continue" as long as he makes it clear that his treatment is experimental and unapproved, and administers it as such. And when he oversteps this boundary, like by selling the drug across state lines under the fraudulent pretext that it is more than an experimental drug, he gets reprimanded for it. What exactly is wrong with this picture?
     
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Nov 16, 2011, 09:01 PM
 
I started watching his 'movie/feature-length infomercial'. It seems pretty obvious that some/all of the testimonies on offer are scripted. Also it outright claims he can cure cancer. If the FDA could connect Burzynski to this film, wouldn't that constitute fraud?
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Nov 16, 2011, 09:11 PM
 
My problem with the movie is this review

I watched the movie too, and I am not impressed. The evidence he presents consists of three cases.

The first one is a woman diagnosed with a grade III astrocytoma. At the time of diagnosis the lesion measures 2,2 cm. After the biopsy and before starting the antineoplaston therapy, the "tumor" only measures 0,5 cm. What we are not told is, that normally the purpose of a biopsy is decide if further tumor tissue should be surgically removed or if other treatment should be used. If it was a lymhoma the patient would be given chemotherapy instead of further resection. The diagnosis was anaplastic astrocytoma, and the correct treatment would be to proceed with removal of as much tumor tissue as possible. An inflammatory reaction is a normal part of the healing process following surgery. It would accordingly be expected to find an inflammatory reaction at the site of surgery, and this will be seen as enhancement on a scan - just as what was seen.
So there are two possibilities here:
1) A 2 cm anaplastic astrocytoma was biopsied. Without further intervention it shrunk to 0,5 cm. Antineoplastons made the rest go away – This is in fact what the movie claims.
2) A 2 cm anaplastic astrocytoma was biopsied and then surgically removed. The subsequent inflammation resolved on its own - This is consistent with reality.

The second example is a brainstem glioma diagnosed through MRI only. One should remember that MRI is not a foolproof method of making such a diagnosis. See for instance this study: Serial stereotactic biopsy of brainstem lesions in adults improves diagnostic accuracy compared with MRI only -- Rachinger et al. 80 (10): 1134 -- Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry where they looked at the histology of 46 lesions diagnosed as gliomas on MRI. Only in 28 of the cases were the glioma diagnosis correct. In 6 of the cases the lesions were benign.

The third one is even poorer documented. If you compare what the parents explain with what the narrator says and the documents shown, you will find important discrepancies: The cancer wasn’t in the kidney and the changes in the liver weren’t apparent from the beginning.
The radiology report we are shown a bit of is a preliminary report (go check for yourself if you don't believe me). We have no way of knowing if the conclusion in the final report is different. It rasies a red flag that we are shown a preliminary report and not the final report. In the pathology report we can see it says "consistent with adrenal carcinoma". This means that it could be something else (for instance an adrenal adenoma, which is a benign tumor). So this case might be a non cancerous tumour which was completely removed by surgery, and lung and liver lesions of unknown cause which decreased in size over time.
Clear, precise reasons for doubt. Further investigations on Yahoo Answers many questions asked about him result in 8+ positive replies and all new sign ups of that particular day which makes me think of a Pro PR group responding to questions about him. So it all comes back down to the FDA, what the hell is it doing...
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Nov 16, 2011, 09:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
That's a feature, not a bug. I don't want any drug on the market that was cooked up and tested entirely in some hobbyist's garage. That's a recipe for abusing and fleecing the sick, who can least afford it and in many cases are not in command of their full senses.
So you don't like penicillin?

You claim to be unbiased and undecided, but you swing wildly from "he's definitely right" to "he's definitely wrong." A true undecided would tend to say "he might be right or he might be wrong, and at this point there is no way to know which." In that case, you don't blame Burzy or the FDA because there is nothing to blame on anyone, things are working as they should. He is allowed to "continue" as long as he makes it clear that his treatment is experimental and unapproved, and administers it as such. And when he oversteps this boundary, like by selling the drug across state lines under the fraudulent pretext that it is more than an experimental drug, he gets reprimanded for it. What exactly is wrong with this picture?
Stop lying so much. I never said he was definitely right or wrong. You're such a liar. And whats wrong with this picture is if the treatment is 100% useless the FDA is allowing people to be suckered out of money and die. At the end of the day the boundary the FDA setup is "treatment is experimental and unapproved" and after 30 years it should be either proved or disproved but no longer allowed if neither has been done.
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Nov 16, 2011, 09:48 PM
 
Another reason for "same day sign up" posts is when someone who is well versed in a field feels he cannot leave innuendo and suggestion to masquerade as fact to the lay public. The review quoted is a well stated set of educated explanations for the evidence presented in the film that are not just contradictory to what the film suggests, but are also excellent explanations of what is typically seen in astrocytomas and gliomas (which are neoplasms of the astrocyte-type and generic glial-type cells in the central nervous system), and describes in detail the kinds of diagnostic decision making questions a physician would ask when presented with inconsistent and preliminary data. In fact in my own practice, (I am an occupational therapist), I see radiologists use the term "consistent with" in this way only when the evidence they are interpreting is not compelling in any one direction.

The suggestion that a well worded and technically phrased critique of a technical issue is suspect merely because the writer and/or those who post to support that critique recently registered on the forum in question is fallacious. These are not people signing up to call names or to spam something, but rather to provide backing for a voice that contradicts what the original author saw as what I would call "snake oil" in a supposedly scientifically related presentation. Feel that the good doctor is being targeted, fairly or un, as you wish, but don't use the timing of someone's joining of a forum as evidence against their qualifications. Would you want someone to weigh in and post that the new vacuum cleaner you were researching was in fact not at all what the salesman was promoting it to be? I would, because I do not like to be tricked or cheated. From all the evidence I have seen so far, the data point strongly to Burzynsky being significantly less of an innovator than he wants you to believe he is, and perhaps significantly more of a charlatan that you'd like to believe.

The funny thing about actual knowledge in a particular field is that, even when it seems to be something other than what you'd want it to be, it is still truth. The critique posted is a great example of someone pointing out logical flaws in the way the film portrays Burzynsky's work, and the way his detractors have behaved. I also suggests simple and technically accurate and relevant ways that both Burzynsky and the film makers could have made their arguments much more compelling, suggesting that there might be a reason they chose not to do so - and not a particularly honest reason at that.

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Nov 16, 2011, 10:13 PM
 
Hold the presses!!! What I quoted is not what is suspect. What was suspect was the people praising Burzynski. You totally misread what I posted.


Clear, precise reasons for doubt. (To doubt Burzynski)<- Response to the quote. Quote being a response to the movie. I don't doubt the quote. The quote is exactly the kind of reply that I was looking for in why I should doubt Burzynski....


Further investigations on Yahoo Answers many questions asked about him result in 8+ positive replies and all new sign ups of that particular day which makes me think of a Pro PR group responding to questions about him. <- Different issue, that any one who askes about Burzynski gets a lot of replies about how great he is and how his treatment works.... I just noticed way more positive replies that look more like the work of a PR group then real individuals.
( Last edited by Athens; Nov 16, 2011 at 10:19 PM. )
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Nov 16, 2011, 10:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
So you don't like penicillin?
Let's take a look at wikipedia...
Originally Posted by wikipedia
Unethical experimentation
In a 1946 to 1948 study in Guatemala, U.S. researchers used prostitutes to infect prison inmates, insane asylum patients, and Guatemalan soldiers with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases, in order to test the effectiveness of penicillin in treating sexually transmitted diseases. They later tried infecting people with "direct inoculations made from syphilis bacteria poured into the men's penises and on forearms and faces that were slightly abraded . . . or in a few cases through spinal punctures".[32] Approximately 1300 people were infected as part of the study (including orphan children). The study was sponsored by the Public Health Service, the National Institutes of Health and the Pan American Health Sanitary Bureau (now the World Health Organization's Pan American Health Organization) and the Guatemalan government. The team was led by John Charles Cutler, who later participated in the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. Cutler chose to do the study in Guatemala because he would not have been permitted to do it in the United States.
Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable with the fact that drugs in the US have to be tested and approved by established methods, instead of just letting the drugmaker do whatever the F he wants. Unless you're trying to claim that penicillin wouldn't have been able to find a corporate backer?


Stop lying so much. I never said he was definitely right or wrong. You're such a liar.
Grow up.

And whats wrong with this picture is if the treatment is 100% useless the FDA is allowing people to be suckered out of money and die. At the end of the day the boundary the FDA setup is "treatment is experimental and unapproved" and after 30 years it should be either proved or disproved but no longer allowed if neither has been done.
You're doing it right now! What makes you say "100%"? That's exactly what I'm talking about. "100%" of anything implies that we know. We don't know. "At the end of the day" also implies that we know. We're not "at the end of the day" until we know whether he's "definitely right" or "definitely wrong."
     
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Nov 16, 2011, 10:24 PM
 
Penicillin was first discovered in the 1800s but was not accepted for what it was. This is why I pointed out Penicillin.

And you grow up first, what you said was totally false.

And now you sound like your supporting him by defending the fact that we don't know. I know you don't but you sure come across as supporting him with that last statement. How the tables have turned...
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Nov 16, 2011, 11:58 PM
 
It wasn't false then and you continue to do it

Edit: (it's your "with him" or "against him" mentality, with no room in between for "indeterminate" or "undecided," that I'm talking about)
( Last edited by Uncle Skeleton; Nov 17, 2011 at 11:40 AM. )
     
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Nov 17, 2011, 07:36 AM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
Hold the presses!!! What I quoted is not what is suspect. What was suspect was the people praising Burzynski. You totally misread what I posted.
My apologies! I really did misread what you posted about it.

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Nov 17, 2011, 08:24 AM
 
Just noticed the 'related content' on youtube for the Burzynski movie. 2012, UFOs and clips from Fox News. Says a lot.

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Nov 17, 2011, 01:23 PM
 
haha didn't notice that
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