Fact or Fake?

[Jeff Matthews]

Anyone familiar with Dr. Burzynski and his cancer treatments?

 

 

[JL Sargent]

After radiation, chemotherapy, radioactive isotopes, and Vidaza, I wish we had tried something like this FIRST for my mom's Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I'll always believe the 7 year battle took my mothers life sooner than later. The cancer was very slow growing in her case, but an aggressive minded oncologist went right to work with chemo.  

[oldtimer]

We are all going to die.  Promises sell.  Facts will tell.   

[Deang]

https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/12/12/what-dr-stanislaw-burzynski-doesnt-want

[Jeff Matthews]

1 hour ago, Deang said:

https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/12/12/what-dr-stanislaw-burzynski-doesnt-want

Your link claims the treatment has been tried many times and shown not to work.  This seems blatantly contrary to what is shown in the video by witness testimony, including the many patients who claim being cured after being told to go home and die in 2 - 6 months.  There was also coverage of other doctors and the formal positions taken by the authorities (the FDA and TBME) that the issues did not involve the question of whether or not the treatment is effective.

 

Most interesting, too, was the statement by the former National Institute of Cancer doctor who said they unfairly attempted to bury Burzynski's success by undermining it with a study which varied from the prescribed treatment and then, claimed it was ineffective.

 

I am not some new fan of this guy, but if that video is full of fake material, they did a really good job.

[Bosco-d-gama]

Too good to be true? If there was a panacea for any type of cancer it would be heralded and applied. And there have been some. Medicine has made great strides in cancer treatments and these are well documented. This does not mean that oncologists are all similarly competent. Unsure about this man personally. I do know there’s no silver bullet for cancer yet.

[Jeff Matthews]

5 hours ago, Bosco-d-gama said:

Too good to be true? If there was a panacea for any type of cancer it would be heralded and applied. And there have been some. Medicine has made great strides in cancer treatments and these are well documented. This does not mean that oncologists are all similarly competent. Unsure about this man personally. I do know there’s no silver bullet for cancer yet.

It is conceded that many of his patients died, too.  

 

What is intriguing to me is how the whole saga turned into a $hit$how.  Synopsis:

 

Brilliant Doc with great cancer treatment refuses to jump on the regulatory bandwagon for fear the "process" will rob him of the value of his breakthrough.  Caesar takes offense at Doc.  Paints him to be a quack so they can take away his license and put him in jail.  Doc's patients  show up in big numbers to recount how Doc miraculously saved them from the grips of death.  The stories are pretty incredible.  They ring hollow to Caesar's ears.  No man is above the process.  Who's behind the process?

[Bosco-d-gama]

Historically we watched ‘approved’ drugs turn out to have very serious problems. The ‘process’ is set up to validate drugs and treatments and regimens. The cancer ‘process’ now has a fast track whereby more promising treatments can get to sicker pts faster. I have witnessed charlatans dupe desperate patients and their families. That is truly horrific. We see tons of miraculous claims in our holistic markets. Essentially if it sounds spectacular then it had better be spectacular - consistently. Think of the initial cure for tuberculosis. Does western medicine have all the answers - nope. But compared to a century ago we fair pretty nicely.

[Jeff Matthews]

4 minutes ago, Bosco-d-gama said:

Historically we watched ‘approved’ drugs turn out to have very serious problems. The ‘process’ is set up to validate drugs and treatments and regimens. The cancer ‘process’ now has a fast track whereby more promising treatments can get to sicker pts faster. I have witnessed charlatans dupe desperate patients and their families. That is truly horrific. We see tons of miraculous claims in our holistic markets. Essentially if it sounds spectacular then it had better be spectacular - consistently. Think of the initial cure for tuberculosis. Does western medicine have all the answers - nope. But compared to a century ago we fair pretty nicely.

Yep, but does any of that describe Burzynski's treatment?  Or is this just a general feeling?

[JJkizak]

When they finally decipher the human DNA genome in it's entirety they will discover it is a 3D holographic chemical computer program  controlled by the one time RNA auxiliary bootup similar to Windows with a whole bunch of one million year upgrades. Just think what they will be able to do for sexual performance.

JJK

[Bosco-d-gama]

Research protocols require experimental designs able to be demonstrative of an outcome. The more a researcher can isolate ‘cause and effect’ the more valid the work and this will be shown in the statistics. Burzynski has failed on all accounts from what I read to validate his drugs or his applications of the drugs. None of his works passes peer review. He seems to be one of the oddballs, at best......... or a complete fraud at worst.

[Jeff Matthews]

30 minutes ago, Bosco-d-gama said:

Research protocols require experimental designs able to be demonstrative of an outcome. The more a researcher can isolate ‘cause and effect’ the more valid the work and this will be shown in the statistics. Burzynski has failed on all accounts from what I read to validate his drugs or his applications of the drugs. None of his works passes peer review. He seems to be one of the oddballs, at best......... or a complete fraud at worst.

The video showed that the FDA finally entered into an agreement with B to commence clinical trials.  However, B claims the FDA took control of the trials out of his hands by forcing the sickest patients into the trials.  I can understand this point, but it makes me wonder about all the patients in the video who claim to have been miraculously saved by his treatment.  There was nothing to dispute these outcomes in real patients.  No matter how many different places you want to look to debunk him, the elephant in the room is all those patients, who are still alive and well.

 

Subsequently, it says the FDA conducted trials without him, using a similar treatment, but not the same.  B says the FDA omitted an important ingredient and also reduced the dosages so low as to insure failure.  The implication is that Big Pharma wants trials that fail since they can't patent B's stuff and that Big Pharma is behind the FDA.

 

 I can see how a fraudster quack would make these kinds of claims, but still, what about the elephant in the room?  Maybe those patients' stories are not real, but the movie shows actual testimony of these people before authorities, etc.  

[Bosco-d-gama]

Statistics demonstrate results, not testimonials. Real break through treatments consistently improve outcomes. This guy seems to want to dispute rather than prove. Do ALL or MOST of his own patients survive? 

[Jeff Matthews]

4 minutes ago, Bosco-d-gama said:

Statistics demonstrate results, not testimonials. Real break through treatments consistently improve outcomes. This guy seems to want to dispute rather than prove. Do ALL or MOST of his own patients survive? 

My point wasn't that B's treatment is superior.  It was that it seems to have saved the lives of a fair number of people who were sent home to die, having been told by their docs they have 2 - 6 months left.  Anecdotal?  Yes.  But this doesn't invalidate their results.  How do you tell those survivors it's bad stuff and quackery?

[Jeff Matthews]

9 minutes ago, Bosco-d-gama said:

Do ALL or MOST of his own patients survive?

I think it's not even most.  I think it more like "some."

[Bosco-d-gama]

Unless he can demonstrate how he saved anyone - outcomes are meaningless (to medicine) is my point. Without that knowledge we can’t repeat or predict similar outcomes. If we did know more clearly what worked we may be able to hone the drugs or the therapy approach and gain as much as possible. It sounds like they did attempt to study the stuff w/o adequate results.....and he did not like that.

[oldtimer]

5 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

My point wasn't that B's treatment is superior.  It was that it seems to have saved the lives of a fair number of people who were sent home to die, having been told by their docs they have 2 - 6 months left.  Anecdotal?  Yes.  But this doesn't invalidate their results.  How do you tell those survivors it's bad stuff and quackery?

You don't.  Except some people are able to fight it off.  The 95year old lady rescued from the big fire in California says she has beaten cancer 3 times.  Then of course there are always false positives.  

[T2K]

1 hour ago, oldtimer said:

she has beaten cancer 3 times

 

It's hard to kill all the cancer cells in a body. They don't always show up on scans.

 

Keith

[oldtimer]

55 minutes ago, T2K said:

 

It's hard to kill all the cancer cells in a body. They don't always show up on scans.

 

Keith

True.  But she is 95 years old.  I doubt I will live that long.

[garyrc]

At this point, I'm neither a believer nor a disbeliver, but I have questions.

 

Did B have a control group (no treatment or placebo or waiting list or rival treatment control)?  

 

Did he publish a p value or values (probability of a Type 1 error)?

 

How about some kind of estimated treatment effect (e.g.  r squared or Omega squared, or what-have-you)?

 

Does he describe in detail his experimental design?