Burzynski - Not so sure about this.

[cbayer]

I would really like to hear the other side of this story. While well done, this really feels like one sided propaganda and I walked away feeling like there was a whole other story not being told.



Burzynski
2010 NR 107 minutes
This true story follows a biochemist who challenged the Food and Drug Administration for his right to begin clinical trials on a new cancer treatment. In addition to recounting Burzynski's astonishing legal victories in the face of skepticism, this documentary also examines several of his patients and their success in fighting terminal cancer.

Cast:Joe Barton, Stanislaw Burzynski, David Kessler, Arize Onuekwusi Director:Eric Merola Genres:Documentaries, Biographical Documentaries, Political Documentaries, Social & Cultural Documentaries This movie is:Cerebral, EmotionalAvailability:Streaming

[supernova]

1. I'm watching it now

The FDA's treatment of this man is horrendous, no question.

His treatments seem viable and safe.

It does make me wonder who he pissed off. It seems more than just big pharma wanting not to stop the revenue gravy train with heavy chemo and radiation. This seems quite personal. There are plenty of MDs around the country experimenting with different compounds, some nutty, some not. What makes Dr Bursynski special here?

[cbayer]

2. After doing my own research on this, I am convinced that he is a total quack.

The uneasy feeling I had during the movie was probably my increasing awareness that he was exploiting desperate, terminal cancer patients for enormous financial gains.

I am always very skeptical, but I did go into this movie with an open mind and was initially swayed. No more - this is nothing more than an infomercial for snake oil, imo.

but that is just my take.

[supernova]

3. I'm not convinced he's a quack

If he's a quack why did the federal gov't together with elan pharmaceuticals apply for 11 different patents on his research? That seems an odd thing to do if they think he's a quack?


Having seen the whole thing now, I don't know what the deal is with his rapport with the FDA and the NCI. For his part, he seems to have pissed them off in the early years. For their part, it is odd they did not want to follow the solution concentrations he was recommending. Every time he submitted a protocol, the NCI wanted to weaken dosages?


This seems like something that is destined for a major court case.

[supernova]

4. On the Devil's Advocate side

I did find it incredibly odd that the FDA, in all their many lawsuits against this man, chose to pursue a line of logic where they did not head-on criticize the basic science. Their rhetoric was bascially "We agree that it works, but..."

:wtf:


The documentary only presents patients for whom the treatments apparently worked. They went into documented remission. Tumors decreased in size appreciably.

Whom you don't hear from, and this may be the squirm factor here, are the patients for whom it did not work. Patients who died (might have died anyway, even with conventional therapies.) Patients who didn't follow the protocol, patients who experienced no change in their status at all despite following it to the letter.

What we don't know from the doc is what percentage of his patients experienced improvement vs no improvement? What is the mortality rate in relation to this therapy?