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Thank you for your detailed “rebuttal” to the film. It always helps to hear both sides of an issue.

When trying to evaluate a technical issue like this, we laymen need to fall back on the style of the arguments being made as much as the technical details that we have a limited capability to understand.

Why attack Dr. Burzynski instead of his research? If he was indeed fleecing his patients, or lacked proper credentials to practice medicine, he would have been striped of his license long ago, given the harassment he has received from the FDA and the Texas medical Board. Why on earth does it matter if a doctor practices out of a strip mall instead of a posh building subsidized by the taxpayer? Bringing up these things dilutes your message.

What I find most compelling about the film is that the FDA agreed to go ahead with trials only after the U.S. Government had obtained patents on the treatment. It certainly smells of a conflict of interest.

Best wishes to your Mom. I hope her treatment is successful.

First, Thank you for the kind words about my mom and her treatment.

Why attack Dr. Burzynski instead of his research?

You have a point here. I probably take this a little too personally as I have enough personal experience with terminal cancer to know that people are willing to try anything and hate to think that people would take advantage of that. But at the same time he doesn't put forward enough of his research to evaluate it fully.

If you look at the linked article below maybe you can see what I mean. He shows great results from one case involving a 7 year old girl, and promises that complete results from the study will be published before the end of 2007 [1]. To my knowledge these have never been published. He seems to publish *plenty* of cherry picked cases like the one in that article, with no follow through on promises for full results.

It only matters that he operates out of a strip mall because it means he can't provide the same level of care as some of the big players. Very large hospitals from all over the country send their patients to the big cancer research centers (Duke, MD Anderson, UCLA) because the level of care and the capabilities they bring to bear on the problem is remarkable. A good example is the BrainSUITE at MD Anderson. They simply can perform surgeries and remove tumors that are impossible except there and maybe a half dozen other centers in the world. Good doctors tell you when you need to go somewhere else. Of course, where you can to go depends on the specific cancer.

As for the other "personal" attack, I think the PhD issue is very pertinent. He makes a big deal about being an MD / PhD, and yet his degree seems suspect.

[1] Recent clinical trials in diffuse intrinsic brainstem glioma, Stanislaw R. Burzynski, Burzynski Clinic, Houston U.S.A. http://www.cancer-therapy.org/CT/v5/B/PDF/42._Burzynski,_379-390.pdf