In the News – USA Today Investigates Quack Cancer Doctor
Snippet from the article:
Clinging to hope, the Linden, N.J., couple took Josia to see Stanislaw Burzynski, a Houston doctor claiming to be able to do what no one else can: cure inoperable pediatric brainstem tumors.
Virtually any other doctor might have recited the same sad statistics: Although doctors can now cure 83% of pediatric cancers in the U.S., there is usually no hope for kids with Josia’s tumor. Perhaps 5% survive five years.
Burzynski — an internist with no board certification or formal training in oncology — has said publicly that he can cure half of the estimated 200 children a year diagnosed with brainstem tumors. The Cottos were told that treatment could cost over $100,000, mostly out of pocket, because insurance plans often refuse to cover Burzynski Clinic treatments.
Read the full story (or watch the video at this link) — Doctor accused of selling false hope to families
USA Today has an interesting exposé about an alternative medicine practitioner that is peddling his snake oils to cancer patients, even with the National Cancer Institute saying that he hasn’t cured any patients and he has nothing about his claims published in a respected, peer-reviewed medical journal.
I agree that this doctor is a disgrace and a fraud. But as a gay man I have to recall that the only way effective anti-HIV drugs came on the market were through the efforts of ACT-UP in the late 1980’s and, without their activism, the FDA would have taken 10 years longer, or more, to approve protease inhibitors (which didn’t come out until 1996) through their normal approval protocols. ACT-UP saved lives, not the FDA. So, in a sense, we need activism. But snake oil salesmen obviously not.
The difference with this particular con artist is he initiates innumerable ‘official’ studies and then fails to ever complete any. This is a particularly nasty fraud as he can then tell his patients he is part of a sanctioned trial but he never mentions the results will never be published and he takes the money and runs. (You should also be careful as he employs more lawyers than researchers and spends a fortune trying to sue anyone who calls his fraud out).