This is the story of a medical doctor and Ph.D. biochemist
who has discovered gene-targeted cancer medicines
that are known to cure most types of human cancers.
The opening 30 minutes of this film is designed to thoroughly
establish this fact - so the viewer can fully appreciate
the events that follow it.
My name is Sergeant Ric Schiff. I am an eleven-year
veteran of the San Francisco police department.
I hold the department's highest medal of honor for bravery
that used to mean a lot more to me than it does now.
What Id like to talk to
you about today is my now 7 year old daughter.
This is an identical twin, her sister is now dead.
Her sister, when she was 4 years old, Crystin developed a highly
malignant brain tumor that had spread throughout her
spine and her brain.
The doctors told us that we had really no options-
take her home and let her die,
or bring her in for massive dosages of chemo and
radiation simultaneously.
In either event she was going to die, they were
quite certain of that - and very quickly.
Believing her only chance to be the standard route,
we gave her the chemo and radiation.
It burnt her skull so bad she had second degree burns
and her hair never came back.
To change her diapers we had to wear rubber gloves
because her urine was so toxic and it burned her.
At the end of 6 months, miraculously she survived the standard
treatment, although there was a high expectation that she wouldn't.
She still had cancer. We were told "sorry...
...we've done everything we can, now she's going to die,
probably within a couple of months."
My wife and I choosing not to accept that, started reading
-the first book I picked up, the third chapter,
discussed Dr. Burzynski.
As you may guess, I have some expertise in fraud,
in fact I'm quite certain there are enough attorneys in the room
that I could be voir-dired as an expert in fraud
-and, I conducted my own investigation.
I have no doubt the man is not a fraud.
I have no doubt that he does what he does out of earnest belief
that his medicine works.
Now, you are in a position to judge for yourselves whether it
works or not
-but it's well established by the FDA, that it's non-toxic.
Eighteen months later,
we took my daughter off the Antineoplastons
-she had not died. She had no signs of tumor, she remained
free for eighteen months of cancer.
Within a month, the cancer was wide-spread in her brain.
We put her back on Burzynski's
-by the way at the objections of our doctors
who for some reason felt that it had failed her.
We put her back on [Antineoplastons]-
within nine weeks the tumor was completely gone.
She died last July, of neurological necrosis-
-her brain fell apart from the radiation.
The autopsy showed that she was completely cancer-free.
Out of fifty-two cases of that disease ever,
no one died cancer-free, just Cryssie.
So she didn't die of a terminal illness-
-she died of my inability to care for her properly
and she died from bad advice.
She died because there is a government institution,
that disseminates false information
and is not looking out for the welfare of the people.
You know, ladies and gentlemen I swore an oath eleven
years ago and I think most of us in this room swore it at
one time or another to uphold the constitution?
It says "life" right in the beginning.
I first heard of Dr. Burzynski back in the late 1980's...
when he was in a battle with the Texas Medical Board and the FDA
regarding his innovative approach to cancer.
I wasn't surprised by that-anyone who is innovative in
medicine creates waves in the medical system.
However, in his case, I was continually surprised that
they didn't put him out of business.
I kept hearing about him. So in the mid 1990's I said:
"Dr. Burzynski, I want to come down and visit your clinic
and find out what you're doing, it's very new to me."
When I arrived, he had seven
charts ready for me to review-
that had been reviewed by the National Cancer
Institute who also made a site visit the year before.
The National Cancer Institute
reported that these seven patients
were either in complete remission,
or there was substantial improvement.
I was astounded.
Dr. Burzynski had MRIs of brain tumors,
-known to be almost universally
fatal, that had simply disappeared.
It was obvious to me, that Dr. Burzynski had made the most important discovery in cancer treatment
- ever.
It's what we have been looking for.
A Polish native, named Stanislaw Burzynski, attended Lublin
Medical University where he graduated first in his class at age 24
-and then received his PhD in
biochemistry the following year.
While undergoing his research to acquire his PhD,
Dr. Burzynski made a profound discovery.
He found a strain of peptides in human blood and urine,
that had never before been recorded in biomedical research.
As his curiosity in these peptides evolved,
he made another profound observation
-people who were inflicted with cancer, seemed to lack
these newly discovered peptides in both their blood and urine
-while those who were healthy and free of cancer
appeared to have an abundance of these peptides.
Dr. Burzynski theorized that if he could somehow provide a way to
chemically extract these peptides from the blood and urine of healthy donors,
and administer these peptides to those with cancer-
perhaps it would be useful in treating the disease.
Now discovering something in the urine at that time,
that had not been discovered before
is like finding a whole bunch of islands ten miles off the coast of
Miami, it came as a big surprise.
All of the sudden he was besmirched as the urine doctor.
We forget that extracting things from
the urine is an established medical modality.
Tens of millions of women have been swallowing
extracts of horse urine, Premarin, for decades
-but all of the sudden it was abhorrent to our sensitivities.
Well, Dr. Burzynski now synthesizes all of the Antineoplastons.
Dr. Burzynski's manufacturing facility in Stafford, Texas, where
his Antineoplastons are now synthesized, is a multi-million dollar,
46,000 square-foot facility,
which staffs five engineers, four chemists, three pharmacists,
four medical doctors, and four researchers.
From where we started in the 1970's, is now forming
a completely new approach to cancer treatment-
-which is called "gene-targeted therapy". Antineoplastons are
medicines which work on the genes that are causing cancer,
and now, there is 25 medications which belong to the
family of gene-targeted therapy
which are approved by the FDA in the United States.
The problem with these medicines is that they don't
cover as many genes as Antineoplastons,
many of them simply work on single genes, and this is
not enough to have long-term responses.
A single medicine is not going to do it, it's not enough.
Antineoplastons work on close to one hundred different genes.
Our bodies contain two categories of genes that allow cancer to flourish:
oncogenes, and tumor suppressor genes.
When someone has cancer, they have a
higher level of oncogenes switched on, with a higher
level tumor suppressor genes switched off.
The goal is to tell the body to both switch back on the tumor
suppressor genes, and turn off as many oncogenes as possible.
Statistically, every day, one out of 10,000 cells in
our body may develop in the wrong way,
and some of these cells may become cancerous cells.
But why we don't develop cancer all of us,
is because we have a protective system
-we have Antineoplastons who will immediately force
these malignant cells to die, by working on the genes:
by turning on the genes which fight cancer,
and turning off the genes which promote cancer,
as long as we have proper amount of Antineoplastons
in our system we should not develop cancer,
if we are deficient then we can develop cancer.
This means I put together the theory of the second
quote/unquote immune system in our body.
Today, Dr. Burzynski is permitted by the FDA to treat cancer
patients using Antineoplastons in FDA-approved clinical trials.
Since brain cancer is one of the most difficult types of cancer to treat,
he places a heavy focus on brain cancer in his clinical trials.
On May 15th of 2000,
I was diagnosed with an inoperable, stage three,
anaplastic astrocytoma brain tumor.
Following my diagnosis I was told that l
had six to eighteen months to live.
So I met with an oncologist there in
Los Angeles and in San Francisco,
and they were telling me at that time-the oncologist told me
that the protocol for me would be to do Temodar,
which is a chemotherapy, followed by a course of radiation.
I asked them what that treatment would get me
and they said maybe five years.
Maybe five years of life?
So of course I asked what would happen after five years,
if I get to that five years
and they said "well, we'll see what's available at that time"
meaning I would perpetually be on a course of treatment.
Didn't sound good enough for me.
Also at that time I had heard about Dr. Burzynski in Houston,
and I found out about Dr. Burzynski through a friend of mine.
But I met with a prominent neurosurgeon here,
who wrote off Dr. Burzynski.
He told me point blank that "antineoplastons don't work".
But Dr. Burzynski's treatment really sounded right to me.
So I started on his treatment on June 6, of 2000.
In December of 2000, all that was left of the tumor was scar tissue
-and again, this was confirmed through an MRI.
On October of 2001 I stopped Antineoplaston therapy altogether.
I've had annual MRIs since that time, so over the
course of the last eight years,
annual MRIs have confirmed, all that's left of the tumor is scar tissue
-and I've been off the treatment for that entire time.
So, Dr. Burzynski cured me of a brain tumor.
If we review Jodi Fenton's medical records, who was
known at this time as Jodi Gold, before she was married in 2005
-it shows she underwent an MRI at St. John's medical
center in Los Angeles on May 11th of 2000,
where they found a two centimeter mass, which they
suspected was cancer.
The pathology department at
St. John's performed a biopsy four days later, and confirmed
that she did indeed have a malignant brain tumor.
Ordinarily the FDA requires that anyone who wishes to be a part of
Dr. Burzynski's trials, must first have already undergone
chemotherapy and radiation-and failed.
However, since Jodi's tumor was so aggressive and her prognosis
severely grim, she managed to get special exception status to be
placed into this trial without undergoing any other
prior treatment whatsoever.
An MRI on June 1st of 2000, revealed the size of the enhancing
portion of Jodi's tumor, which was the part of her tumor
that was the most aggressively growing.
On June 6th, she started Antineoplaston treatment, and by July 3rd,
only a month after starting treatment the enhancing
portion of her tumor was gone.
Her tumor remained non-existent up until
September of the following year, when she stopped
her antineoplaston therapy altogether.
It's one thing to be shown a single anecdotal case with this type of
brain tumor, and it's another to simply compare clinical trial data
of inoperable anaplastic astrocytoma patients
treated with toxic radiation and chemotherapy,
versus, clinical trial data using only Dr. Burzynski's
non-toxic Antineoplaston therapy.
A 2005 clinical trial report using only radiation and chemotherapy,
found that 5 of 54 patients, or 9%, were cancer-free
at the end of treatment.
While a 2008 clinical trial report using only Antineoplastons, found
that 5 of 20 patients, or 25%, were cancer-free at the end of
treatment-with no toxic side-effects. Jodi Fenton is one of them.
If Jodi Fenton had undergone the therapies
originally prescribed to her,
her life would have been very different.
Now she is alive, well, and prospering.
It's as if she had a bacterial infection, and
Dr. Burzynski treated it with antibiotics.
Four years after my diagnosis,
I had run into one of the neuro-oncologists I had met with,
And told him that I had gone to Dr. Burzynski and I was cured,
and he kind of wrote it off.
I was very excited to tell him that I was cured,
and he really burst my bubble about it.
So it was somewhat depressing for me.
Another doctor that I have, when I told him
that I had anaplastic astrocytoma,
he was very excited, he was like "bleep! bleep! bleep!
I can't believe this is you, because do you know what the
prognosis for this is?",
and I said yes. He said "l can't believe you survived this",
and he was very excited for me.
Now, if you are ever going to go into cancer treatment,
you do not want to go into childhood brain tumors.
Because childhood brain tumors by-in-large are 100% fatal.
This would be the worst class of cancers to treat,
but he began getting enormous success.
Arguably, the worst type of cancer is inoperable brainstem glioma.
It usually occurs in the brain of a child.
And, unfortunately, there is very little that can be done.
Radiation is the only "treatment" available which can
be used to slow down the progress.
So that's the type of tumor for which there is no curative treatment,
no chemotherapy which has been approved,
and numerous clinical trials
were performed but failed in the past.
So we selected this type of tumor because we would
like to prove the point beyond any doubt
that this type of cancer can
be cured by the use of Antineoplastons,
and we already have proof that it can be cured.
She was diagnosed in March of 1996, she was eleven,
and pretty much just started having really bad
double vision is how we discovered it and went to the eye doctor
and that's when they did the MRI and
discovered it was a brainstem glioma.
And they explained that hers was diffused, where it was like the
Healthy tissue and the cancerous tissue were swirled together
-so of course surgery wasn't an option.
And with the radiation they suggested, her prognosis
was probably going to be about eight to eighteen months.
The thing is, with the radiation,
what it would do to you from what I understood is,
They would shoot the beam through your ears,
and the beam would burn your healthy
and your cancerous cells outside-in.
So all your hair around your ears would be gone,
never grow back, your ears would become deformed and burnt,
you would be come deaf,
it would also destroy your pituitary gland which
is the gland that helps you grow as you hit puberty...
Yeah, she was eleven at the time and that was a real concern I had.
And it would make you stay in an eleven year-old body,
and basically you'd go into a vegetative state, where you
couldn't take care of yourself, which wasn't a very good quality of life.
My big concern was with the oncologist that we were originally
dealing with was how it was going to affect her development,
and when she started to enter the teenage years,
starting her period, and growing and developing
-and he just looked at me and said
"well, frankly Mrs. Ressel, she's not going to live that long."
What she would have to go through in those extra months-
that would be horrible.
I wouldn't want to go through it. Why do it?
You're handed a death sentence anyway,
so what was the point of the radiation?
You know, then, you have to say okay,
"modern medicine doesn't have an answer, let's find our own."
Jessica Ressel's brainstem glioma was confirmed by an MRI in
Springfield, Missouri; and the children's hospital of St. Louis Missouri.
Jessie Ressel is riding on the best news she's had since March.
She and her parents now believe they are on their way to a cure,
for what doctors had said was an incurable brain tumor.
Here at the Burzynski Clinic in Houston, Texas,
the Ressels have found an experimental drug
they could only dream of eight months ago.
That's when Jessie was still a fifth-grader,
at a catholic elementary school in Springfield.
It's when one of her eyes started crossing in,
she started seeing double,
it's when Jessie went to the doctor and learned that she
had one of the most aggressive kinds of brain cancer-
a malignant tumor doctors said would kill her within months,
and that radiation would only give her a little more time.
And I would only live for like three months,
and live in pain and that's it.
Nota fun life. Id still die.
Today the medical pictures tell a different story,
you can see the improvement immediately
just looking at Jessie's eyes now, compared to last May.
An MRI on May 7th of 1996 revealed the size
Of the enhancing portion of Jessica's tumor.
One month into starting Antineoplaston treatment,
her tumor disappeared.
However, given the aggressive nature of this type of tumor,
it quickly returned in August, and remained until November.
In which time, Dr. Burzynski doubled her Antineoplaston
dosage until her tumor went away in December.
Only to return again in January of 1997, stayed around until
April, and finally disappeared in May of 1997-
one year after starting Antineoplaston treatment.
Jessica's tumor remained non-existent, up until October 2001,
when her brainstem glioma was considered resolved.
There were very few doctors that you would tell them that you
were seeing Dr. Burzynski that would be kind of
encouraging and positive with you.
Most of them, they would hear the name Burzynski
and they wouldn't want to deal with you-because they were afraid.
I am so relieved that we found
Dr. Burzynski because literally it did save her life.
Here she is now twenty-four,
and she's got a little boy who is almost five,
and her second baby will be born in October-
we just found out she's having a little girl.
Again, it's one thing to observe a single anecdotal childhood
brainstem glioma survivor, and it's another see the results from
FDA-supervised clinical trials treating Jessica's type of cancer.
Here is a table illustrating studies published in 2006, comparing
the results of different childhood brainstem glioma treatments.
There were three groups treated with radiation and chemotherapy,
and two groups treated with Dr. Burzynski's Antineoplastons.
Out of all three groups treated with radiation and chemotherapy:
only 1 of 107 patients, or O.9% were cancer free after treatment.
However, this patient did not live beyond five years-presumably
being devastated by the amount of radiation and chemotherapy.
Out of both groups treated with Antineoplastons, 11 of the 40 patients,
or 27.5% were cancer-free after treatment. And 11 of the 40 patients,
or 27.5%, lived more than five years.
Most of these brainstem glioma survivors who were not previously
subjected to toxic chemotherapy and radiation before starting
Antineoplaston treatment have gone on to enjoy full healthy lives.
So the good news is that cancer can be cured.
The worst type of cancer can be cured. For good.
The people who are surviving, they live normal lives.
No side-effects from the treatment, no symptoms,
no sign of tumors-back to life.
We started some of them as children
and now they have their own children.
There is no impairment of fertility.
They just live normal lives.
The bad thing however is that we know that we cannot help
everybody, but some of these patients.
Well, if about 30% of patients can survive over five years,
and a number of them live over ten years without any sign
of cancer, that's a good thing.
But obviously this is just the beginning,
we need to perfect this.
We need to introduce
the newer generation of Antineoplastons-
-which we call the "second" and "third" generation of
Antineoplastons to make the treatment more effective,
to cover a broader spectrum, and to be easier to administer.
They came back, they said she has this large
baseball-sized tumor in her abdomen
and not only that, but it's in her kidney-it was
every where, it was in her kidney and her liver and her lungs.
So here we are thinking, basically, this child has
literally a few months to live, is basically what they told us.
At that point we said, "well, we think we can get
the original tumor out."
So they had this surgeon, he was able to go in,
he got the whole tumor
-she did lose her left kidney and her left adrenal gland.
And it was four drugs, and it was like eight pages of side-effects
and very little hope that it would even work.
The drugs were: Mitotane...
... Doxorubicin ...
... Etoposide ...
... and Cisplatin.
... and they told us admittedly
"this is the most toxic regimen that we have."
We have a six-month old with one kidney,
and the side effects were kidney failure, hearing failure, leukemia-
other kinds of cancers coming from this...
and I was just like "even if she's going to pass away,
I can't do this to her...
...I can't, why would I want her last
few months of life to be miserable?"
I didn't know what to do.
I just knew that I didn't want to put her
through all that intense high-dose chemo
and miss out on what might be the last bit of time
that we have with her, because I had talked to my uncle
-he's in his 60's now, but in 1969-
my cousin-his daughter was three years old
and she got cancer of some kind.
He told me about what that was like in that time.
They just kept giving her more chemo,
and more chemo, and more chemo,
and then finally we had this long
several-hour conversation one day and he told me,
I asked him because I was trying to prepare myself, I said,
"what was it like when a doctor tells you, that's it.
We can't do any more."
My uncle Ray told me that for the last few weeks
of my cousin's life, they celebrated Christmas once a week.
They had a Christmas and a birthday once a week until that was it.
I was putting myself in his shoes,
and I was just thinking,
I couldn't watch my daughter whither away,
and at least I wanted whatever time I had to be happy.
As happy as could be anyway.
And not just watch her whither away from chemo
that's not doing any good any more.
We had actually asked the endocrinologist
at M.D. Anderson about Dr. Burzynski,
he told us "he was a quack, and that
there was no evidence that it worked"
but at that point I was like
"well, yours doesn't really work either."
The other thing that I did, on the FDA's website
you can look up the day that which any drug
was granted FDA approval
and I realized that the oldest drug they wanted
to give Kelsey had come out in the early 1970's...
the newest drug they wanted to give
Kelsey came out around 1988...
and I realized, this isn't the cutting edge of technology,
they're giving us the same old stuff ...
I just thought, well, this is ridiculous.
It felt to me like they were grasping at straws.
I was doing all that research and
Sarah and Susan found the Burzynski Clinic.
Sarah said "l want to take her there."
I looked at it like, well,
if she's only got approximately 9 months to live,
and we come over here and we don't have all the side-effects...
well, in 9 month's time,
which am I going to be better off doing?
If the ending result is the same?
Upon the removal of Kelsey's left kidney and left adrenal gland,
her diagnosis was confirmed at the
University of Texas Medical Branch,
and again at M.D. Anderson cancer center.
Where, a month later, M.D. Anderson also confirmed
that Kelsey's cancer had spread to her lungs.
After desperately researching Kelsey's situation,
her family decided to decline all chemotherapy
treatments offered by M.D. Anderson,
and instead, enroll Kelsey into one of
Dr. Burzynski's clinical trials.
By this time, Kelsey's cancer had also spread into her liver.
After starting her Antineoplaston treatment,
the tumor in Kelsey's liver was gone by August of 2007.
CT scans of her chest revealed six tumors
in her lungs at the start of treatment.
One-by-one, the tumors in Kelsey's lungs began to go away
leaving one small spot four years later which
was deemed to be inactive and most likely scar tissue.
Today, Kelsey Hill is considered to have had a
complete response to her Antineoplaston treatment.
Since Dr. Burzynski began treating cancer patients
with Antineoplastons, he has successfully treated
virtually every type of cancer
relieving thousands of families from across the world
of this dread disease.
Yet, unlike other clinical trials which are supported by
billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies,
and are often assisted by large tax-funded research grants
from the National Cancer Institute,
the United States government currently prohibits any
tax-payer money to be granted to Dr. Burzynski's
FDA-approved clinical trials.
A single Phase 3 trial will cost about twenty-five million dollars.
So how many can you run?
You can run few at best.
Nobody is giving me any money for that,
we have to make money for that
-and it's twenty-five million dollars.
Some other pharmaceutical companies, who come with an idea, they
go to the National Cancer Institute and they receive a handsome grant
-fifteen million dollars, whatever, and they do clinical trials.
No one is giving me any money, okay?
I am working like in a war-time condition,
-when the bombs are falling, we still have to treat patients,
and we still have to do Phase 2 clinical trials.
Given the existence of a treatment that is curing cancer at a
rate that traditional medicine could only dream of,
and doing so without any damaging side-effects,
most would assume that every penny of our tax dollars allocated
for cancer research would be thrown in Dr. Burzynski's direction.
The problem that we face however, is that
a huge financial house has been built on the paradigm of
purging the body of cancer cells.
Burzynski's discovery, means that the foundation, the walls,
and the roof of that house, need to be replaced.
Think about it, we've got thousands of doctors in oncology,
and in oncology residency programs,
we've got the pharmaceutical industry pumping out
chemotherapeutic agents every month.
There are all kinds of machines that deliver radiation
we've got all this stuff in the war on cancer,
and it's trillions of dollars.
I find it very interesting that we have all
these walks for the cure of cancer.
We've got all the wristbands,
we've got all the donations-
"we're going to find a cure in this decade."
All this money keeps pouring in-
and it all goes to the same guys.
The pharmaceutical industry is arguably the most
profitable industry on our planet,
with it's profits being triple that of all of the Fortune 500 companies.
Rising profits result in rising stock prices, the only
way this industry can sustain this profitable momentum is by
continuing to introduce new patented drugs.
And since the pharmaceutical industry relies on the
FDA as it's gatekeeper to introduce these new drugs,
it's in their best interest to insure the
FDA remains as compliant as possible.
And since the FDA is also an office of the United States
government, it's in the government's best interest to preserve
one of its most powerful industries.
The former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine,
Dr. Marcia Angell, has been very outspoken with the idea that:
"it's time to take the Food and Drug Administration
back from the drug companies."
In 1992, Congress put the fox in the chicken coop.
It passed the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which authorizes
drug companies to pay "user fees" to the FDA for each
brand-name drug considered for approval.
The user fee act put the FDA on the
payroll of the industry it regulates...
and it has drastically changed the way it operates.
The part of the agency that reviews new drugs now gets more than
half of its money from the pharmaceutical industry.
The FDA's coziness with industry is underscored
by the composition of it's 18 advisory committees-
outside experts who help evaluate drugs.
Incredibly, many of these advisers work as
consultants for drug companies.
The FDA behaves as though the pharmaceutical
industry is its user, not the public.
In 2010, the fee revenue paid by the pharmaceutical industry to the
FDA has risen to over a half a billion dollars-annually.
PhRMA now pays over $14 million per application for most cancer
drugs submitted to the FDA-to ensure a timely approval.
It's important to understand that neither Congress or the FDA had
requested this new fee structure to occur.
Instead, PhRMA itself went to Congress and imposed these
new fees onto the FDA,
in essence purchasing the FDA's drug evaluation department
from both the government and the public.
In a 2007 health policy report, sponsored by Pfizer,
supporting the renewal of these user fees, they revealed...
... that the median review time for priority drugs-
those for serious life-threatening diseases such as cancer,
was sped up from 21 months in 1993 to 6 months in 2004.
Dozens of cancer therapies have been reviewed and
approved within 3 or 4 months.
Meanwhile, Dr. Burzynski, his patients, and other
supporting scientists have made
every conceivable effort to get the FDA, and thus the government,
to cooperate in the research, review and approval
of Antineoplastons since 1977.
We're talking with Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski who is a
medical doctor and has a PhD.
He has done some experimental work in cancer treatment,
and has been conducting some very interesting studies,
which have been backed up by 4 and a half years of research.
we have here with us two patients who appear to be in
different states of remission
We began talking about the medical community's
acceptance of what you are doing.
How is your research funded?
In the beginning, my research was funded by the National Cancer
Institute, and from Baylor College of Medicine.
After I decided to open my laboratory, the only money
available to me for my research was bank loans,
patient fees, and payments from health insurance companies.
Could you stand for just a minute
Dr. Gardner-this is Dr. Harold Gardner.
Is there anything you find controversial here?
Does his treatment have a good scientific
hypothesis, and legitimate research behind it?
As the science of investigation goes, Dr. Burzynski's
studies have been very professional.
His studies are as credible as most medical research centers
like Wayne State Medical Center and The University of Michigan
Medical Center which I have a relationship with directly.
The controversy is not in his approach
to cancer therapy. Instead, the controversy is in his
approach as a cancer treatment organization.
We have to understand that much of the medical and hospital
industry operates as a very closed industry,
and if you have ideas that might jeopardize that economic base,
you will fall into disfavor very quickly.
That is an incredible statement that you just made.
I have been involved with many patients who have chosen
options in Europe, and in Canada,
and those options are not available in this county because of economic
and organizational reasons, not because of scientific reasons.
Wow.
Before I started, I asked my lawyers for their advice:
Can I use an experimental treatment-which was the treatment of
Antineoplastons-can I use this in my private practice,
and can I be involved in cancer research,
as simple as any private company
Dr. Burzynski's attorneys investigated both state and
federal law to find out if it was legal for him to
start his own biomedical research company,
making Antineoplastons, and administering
them to his patients within his private practice.
They found that according to both the Taxes state and federal law,
the use of any drug, or new drug, can be used to meet the
immediate needs of the patients of a licensed doctor.
-particularly when there was no other available option for them.
The law stated that such activity was not governed at the time by
the Texas Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and is not otherwise
unlawful under the laws of the state of Texas.
However, Dr. Burzynski would not be legally allowed to introduce
or deliver Antineoplastons into interstate commerce.
Which means, he had to keep his activities only within the state
of Texas to avoid breaking any federal laws
As long as he did this, his actions were not within the
regulatory authority of the FDA.
However, once word began to spread that Dr. Burzynski was
successfully treating what was once considered
terminal incurable cancer patients
people began traveling from all over the county
to receive Antineoplaston treatment.
For a long time, I didn't have any contact
with the Texas Board of Medical Examiners,
until around 1984, some of my patients told me that they were
approached by the agents sent to them by the
Texas Board of Medical Examiners
who were tying to convince them to file complaints against me.
This was shocking to me.
What is surprising is that they were using the state money,
they were using taxpayers money to travel a long distance,
like from Houston to California
to convince our patients who were
in California to file complaints against me.
This was completely irrational.
But nothing else happened at the time
until I met by coincidence the Vice President of
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Hickey,
who informed me that I will have problems with
the Texas Board of Medical Examiners.
And obviously the problems began.
I was called to the Texas Board of Medical Examiners,
they began investigating me.
However, there were no complaints from the patients,
the patients were happy,
we were treating patients who were very advanced, for whom
there was no treatment available, and they were getting
good results.
So, apparently, there was no justification for such action.
This was a very unpleasant investigation,
they were tying to convince me again to stop
my research and to stop treating patients.
After about two years of going back-and-forth
and being called to the board
-finally they proposed to me that I should present to them
a number of cases of patients who benefitted from my practice.
They informed me that such medical records would be reviewed by
expert oncologists
and if they are satisfied that I am not harming patients
and the patients are benefitting from my activity
then they would leave me in peace.
I was very happy with this,
I believed that the Texas Board would do an objective
review of our results and finally they would leave me alone
-because we had amazing results in the treatment
of very difficult cancer cases.
I supplied to them twice as many medical records which
showed without any doubt great results in the cancer treatment.
Incurable forms of cancer completely disappearing, with patients
going into complete remission and patients who were
cured and living a normal life after that.
In 1986, Dr. Burzynski agreed to present to the Texas State
Board of Medical Examiners forty cases of various types of
cancer he had successfully treated using Antineoplastons.
In patients ranging from breast, bladder, lung, liver, brain,
head and neck, and lymphoma.
After submitting these cases to the medical board, he didn't
hear back from them, leaving him to assume that the
board was satisfied and would leave him in peace.
However, two years later, the board came back again, pretended
that the cases he submitted were not successful,
and claimed he was violating a law that didn't exist,
which was grounds for the board to
cancel, revoke, or suspend his license.
It was a shock to me.
I believed in justice, I believed in the high ethics of the board
but this was just a lie.
The medical board had no case against Burzynski.
Which prompted the board to file their
first amended complaint in 199O
-still the board had no case-which prompted
them to file a second amended complaint in 1992.
The medical board kept coming back each time with the same
argument, practically making Xerox copies of their prior claims,
changing the titles and simply resubmitting them.
After about five years of this, sixty of Dr. Burzynski's patients
petitioned the board to stop harassing their doctor.
The board then tried to ignore these petitions by
attempting to strike them from the record.
Finally in May of 1993, this case went to trial.
Their tumors will grow, they will lose their vision,
they will be paralyzed and they will die.
Because there is nothing else in this world that can
save these patients lives.
You intend to continue treating patients until
somebody is able to stop you is that not true?
I am going to do what the law will allow me to do.
I will do whatever is necessary to bring my medicines to
approval in the United States and everywhere in the world,
and bring you to justice
for causing the deaths of 200 patients.
And it will come back here to haunt you until you are dead.
Are you threatening me Dr. Burzynski?
I am not threatening you, I am telling you
what will happen in the future.
Well I think that is something that remains to be seen.
[JUDGE EARL CORBITT, LAW JUDGE IN THIS CASE]
I had never heard of Dr Burzynski, I did not know anything about him.
I never understood what the medical board's problem was.
The medical board did not bring any expert witnesses
to contest Dr. Burzynski.
Without an expert opinion to give an opinion in certain areas,
I can't give any credit to an opinion raised by a layman.
And Dr Burzynski brought in Dr. Nicholas Patronas.
Some of the most dramatic testimony on Dr Burzynski's
behalf came from Dr. Nicholas Patronas.
A Georgetown University expert who is the member of the
National Cancer Institute's team
that analyzed seven of Dr Burzynski's cancer cases.
The basic conclusion was: in five of the patients with brain tumors,
that were fairly large, the tumor disappeared.
It's amazing. The fact that they are living at all.
It's impressive and unbelievable.
He was a very powerful witness.
He said he had never seen results like what Dr. Burzynski
could accomplish treating brain cancer with his Antineoplastons.
There was a 12 year-old boy at this hearing, he was a tall boy.
When he was 4 years old, he started Antineoplaston treatment,
I believe his name was Paul.
Paul was given up on by his original doctor.
When Mary Michaels took the stand on behalf of her son Paul,
she pointed her eyes at the Texas prosecutor.
I have enough to worry about when I go to bed at
night thinking about my son and my family.
I do not need to worry that this therapy is going to be taken away.
What do you think might happen if...
... never mind, I don't have any more questions.
For all I know the kid might still be alive.
Paul Michaels in 2011 - 25 years old
Remains cancer-free
The judge ruled in Dr. Burzynski's favor.
Finding that the medical board did not introduce any evidence
at the hearing that Antineoplastons are not safe and effective,
nor did they introduce any competent or substantial
evidence at the hearing that
Antineoplastons are not generally recognized by experts qualified
by scientific training and experience to evaluate their
safety and effectiveness.
And, as far as the law goes, it does not apply to a licensed
physician who manufactures his own medications and solely
uses it on his own patients in the state of Texas.
Now, most would think that at this point the
Texas Medical Board would stop wasting their time,
Burzynski's time, terminal cancer patients' time, and the taxpayers
money, pursuing a case they knew they couldn't win.
Then the Medical Board told me after the hearing that they
were going to change my decision for this case,
and take other actions against Dr. Burzynski,
and I told them that doing so would be very foolish.
Well, think again.
The state of Texas wants Houston doctor Stanislaw Burzynski to
stop treating his patients with drugs that he produces at his
own pharmaceutical plant.
The drugs called Antineoplastons are non-toxic compounds of
proteins and amino acids,
often lacking in cancer patients.
Even though the state of Texas acknowledges that the drugs
may be helping some who are terminally ill,
the state says the drugs shouldn't be used.
This is the state board of medical examiners,
which licenses doctors in Texas
this is the agency challenging Dr. Burzynski in court.
One judge has already told the board members
that they don't have a case.
All of this nonsense which is going on now should disappear.
Because they should realize that I am right, okay?
They are fighting a losing battle.
I am saving human lives, and if they put me out of business,
the people will die.
This is the brain of an eight-year-old boy with a huge
tumor most thought would kill him.
He used Dr. Burzynski's drug.
Images of his skull taken six years later show the
tumor has almost disappeared.
Dr. Bruce Cohen is the director of neurologic oncology
at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic.
The only explanation is that it shrunk because of the
therapy Paul has received.
He confirmed Dr. Burzynski's results on Paul.
Seven years that we've had Paul and he's been healthy,
I owe it to this man, and there is no way Id ever be
Able to thank him enough for what he's done for us.
Today that boy Paul Michaels and his anxious family
sit in the courtroom with other patients.
Undeterred by the 1993 ruling,
the Texas Medical Board took Dr. Burzynski to a
higher, district court.
Of course this time they knew they couldn't raise any issues
about whether or not his treatment was effective:
The Texas State Board of Medical Examiners, which has
fought to suspend Dr. Burzynski's license
because his treatments have never been approved, says quote:
"The efficacy of Antineoplastons in the treatment of
human cancers is not of issue in these proceedings."
It takes a bureaucrat to come up with that idea,
because, to a layman, that would really be the question.
Well, Dr. Burzynski has won his latest round in court,
the Medical Examiners order was reversed,
but that is not expected to be the end of his trouble
with the state of Texas.
The Texas Medical Board took this imaginary
case all the way to the Texas State supreme court,
where the judge issued an erroneous probation order
against Burzynski, which Burzynski successfully served.
But, again, leaving the Texas Medical Board completely
unsuccessful in their efforts to remove his medical license.
So if efficacy was not an issue, and Dr. Burzynski wasn't
breaking any laws, then why would the Texas Medical Board
continue on with this empty pursuit?
Well, it was eventually realized - even by the mainstream press
- that the Food and Drug Administration
had been pressuring the Texas Medical Board to continue
tying to take away Dr. Burzynski's medical license.
For this story we wanted to talk to
the FDA about its policies and procedures.
The FDA did agree to talk to us on background
where it wouldn't be quoted,
but it repeatedly refused
our requests for on-camera interviews.
While they were busy pressuring the Texas State Medical Board
to try to revoke Dr. Burzynski's medical license,
they were even busier tying to revoke Dr. Burzynski
completely from society - by trying to place him in prison.
The FDA and PhRMA quickly realized that if Dr. Burzynski's
discovery would be given a fair review process,
not only would chemotherapy and radiation dwindle into obscurity,
financially crippling the industry,
but it would also mean that for the first time in history,
all of that income would funnel away from PhRMA and into the lap
of one single scientist who holds the exclusive patent rights.
Apparently, the FDA had not ruled out
the possibility of this happening one day.
On March 12th, 1976, FDA Bureau of Drugs Director Richard Crout
states in "The Cancer Letter":
"when anyone other than large institutions ask permission
to conduct clinical trials, you want harsh regulations"
"sometimes we say it is proper to hinder research"
"and once these guidelines were adopted,
the FDA would consider itself 'bound' by them."
In 1982, Crout states again:
"I never have and never will approve a new drug to an individual,
but only to a large pharmaceutical firm with unlimited finances."
And so, the fiercest fight in FDA history began.
Dr. Burzynski's dealings with the FDA commenced in 1983.
At that point the FDA commenced a civil action to try to close the
clinic and stop all patients from receiving the medicine.
Before the judge in this case had announced her ruling,
the FDA sent her a letter, warning her in advance,
"if this court declines to grant the injunction sought be the government"
"thus permitting continued manufacture
and distribution of antineoplastons"
"the government would then be obliged
to pursue other less efficient remedies"
"such as actions for seizure"
(also known as raiding his clinic and home)
"and condemnation of the drugs"
(also known as a propaganda campaign)
"or criminal prosecution of individuals"
(also known as throwing Dr. Burzynski in prison)
Regardless of these threats from the FDA:
... the judge in the case basically said
he can treat anybody he wants in Texas,
but he can't ship his medicine in interstate commerce.
The FDA viewed that as a failure and told
Dr. Burzynski's attorneys at the time that
they "have other ways to get him".
Let's talk about the other ways.
In 1985, the FDA convened a grand jury to hear
evidence to try to indict Dr. Burzynski.
In connection with that they had a raid of his clinic
where they seized 200,000 pieces of paper including
all of his medical records of all patients.
It's a little difficult to practice medicine when
you don't have medical records.
Obviously they came armed,
and they confiscated all of our medical records.
It took us about 12 to 14 years to recover these medical records.
In the meantime we were permitted to make
copies of these medical records in their office.
But it was also a neglect of human well-being,
we were treating very sick people
and they took their medical records,
we needed these medical records to
fight for the lives of these patients.
But they took this away, they didn't care for these patients,
the patients could die. They were not important.
They presented the evidence to the grand jury, no indictment.
In 1986 they come back and seize another
100,000 documents, no indictment.
I just have a lot of trouble in knowing how much pain-
and what people go through that have cancer,
and since 1967 you've been saying "I can help these patients", and
people are saying to you "forget it", "you aren't allowed to help them",
and you have gone outside of the county
and they accept what you are doing,
and here we say "no"? Are we that backwards doctor?
Yes.
What do you mean yes?
Are we that backward?
Yes.
It's very unfortunate that there is a big gap between people's pain
and suffering, and what the powers that be are willing to accept, or
how they allow cancer patients to be treated.
It's difficult for doctors to deny 10 or 12 years of their medical
training, and suddenly believe that some guy from Houston
has invented an effective therapy by himself.
Isn't it part of your problem that the treatment of cancer is a very
profitable industry for a lot of companies and that your treatment
will threaten those companies profits?
Bingo!
I would think that the people who administer chemotherapy,
and the drug companies, would have a very good reason for
not supporting you.
I would disagree with that.
As Dr. Burzynski has pointed out himself, the patients he's treating are
patients who are not currently eligible for chemotherapy or radiation.
If we were to find a new drug that had a high cure rate of cancer, it
would give us the opportunity to treat many patients for whom we
do not currently have effective therapies now.
In 1990, another grand jury, either the second or the third,
they present more documents,
Dr. Burzynski testifies extensively before the grand jury,
no indictment.
In 1991 to 1993, the FDA investigates Dr. Burzynski,
we don't know if evidence was presented to another grand jury.
In 1994, another grand jury, no indictment.
1995, another grand jury,
this grand jury started in March of this year, on March 25th
it was Dr. Burzynski along with a few of his patients
appeared on CBS Show This Morning...
Let me play devil's advocate,
you all were very desperate folk,
you had undergone some cancer treatment correct?
None at all for you?
No, I had no treatment
you had undergone some treatment,
could it not have been that the treatment that you
received prior to Dr. Burzynski's treatment was what
in fact really cured you?
I'll jump on that, no way,
because the recurrence I had was in a brand new spot
that had not been involved before
so if all the punishment that I went through for the year went out of
my system, and after it went out of my system all of the sudden a
new tumor comes in
how could that first treatment have helped the subsequent tumor?
Later that day the FDA came-another raid.
More patients documents, more subpoenas...
We were flooded with calls last Friday
with people wanting to know how to get a hold of you,
they are going to see this story this morning,
see that you've been raided by the FDA,
and they are going to want to know if you are for real,
or if the concerns of the FDA may have something to do
with your treatments and the viability of your treatments.
Let me jump in here, I don't think there's really an issue
as I mentioned regarding the safety of the drug,
and the FDA isn't contending at this point that the drug doesn't work,
the only issue is that according to the FDA it has
not been proven by controlled clinical trials,
so at least in terms of safety the FDA isn't saying that it's not
safe and the FDA isn't even saying that it doesn't work, alright,
right now they're just contesting, or apparently they're contesting
whether Dr. Burzynski himself has
been shipping the medicine out of state,
which in some respects is quite ridiculous
since he has approval to ship the medicine out of state
to various cancer institutions around the county,
he ships it out of the county to various countries,
because it's being used in other places and he ships it to individuals
who have been granted permission by the FDA to receive
the medicine under what is called "compassionate use INDs
(investigational new drug)".
May, June, and July more witnesses testify before the grand jury,
more documents.
So we've had now-four, five, or six grand juries.
Let me talk about the subpoena practices:
most recently,
the FDA has now subpoenaed the medical records of every patient
who has gone on TV and told their story about Dr. Burzynski.
We'll let the committee judge what they think of that.
Let's talk about dissemination of false information by the FDA:
in 1985 the FDA tells anyone who calls inquiring about Dr. Burzynski
that he's being criminally investigated.
When the judge in the case found out about that,
he issued a cease and desist and a strong reprimand against that.
The FDA now has refined this tactic,
instead of waiting for people to call up the FDA,
what they'd done is subpoena all the records from
Dr. Burzynski about his business associates and all the
researchers around the world,
and there are many of them who are researching antineoplastons-
his therapy.
Now what they are doing is systematically contacting everyone,
who does business with him, or who may do business with him,
and telling about the grand jury investigations
and subpoenaing documents
I believe that they are doing this in order to
make it more difficult for him to do business.
I'd like the following questions to be asked to the FDA:
how much money have they spent in the last
ten years to try to put Dr. Burzynski out of business?
How many documents can they subpoena?
And how many more grand juries does he have to go to?
And why can't patients, who have advanced cancer,
seek the medical treatment of their choice?
Upon the commencement of the FDA's
1995 grand jury against Dr. Burzynski,
an oversight and investigations subcommittee was organized by
Congressman Joe Barton in an attempt to intervene in the FDA's
relentless harassment of Dr. Burzynski and his patients.
In my opinion, you have every right to use the investigative authority
and the judicial resources of the federal government
to the justice department to convene a grand jury,
that's very appropriate, the first time, perhaps even the second time,
it becomes questionable the third time, the fourth time,
and the fifth time,
it is not I think an illogical conclusion to think that the
FDA has a vendetta against Dr. Burzynski,
or wants to retaliate for some reason-now, that's my opinion.
How many grand jury investigations have to occur,
that result in no finding of fault
before you as commissioner of the FDA would encourage
those within your organization to cease and desist?
Mr. Chairman, how do you know that there were no findings
of fault that were returned from that grand jury?
There have been no indictments returned.
Mr. Chairman, I'll ask counsel to comment,
but I don't think those are the same-
-as a matter of law those are the same things.
I'm baffled by the splitting of hairs here but-
I am just trying to understand the exchange
between the witness and the chairman.
What I understood the chairman to say is that there
have been four grand juries convened?
At least four.
I am left then with rather strong inference
that if you convene four separate grand juries
and there is no indictment returned,
notwithstanding that prosecutors tell us always
that it's possible to indict a ham sandwich-
-that probably there's not much there.
Dozens of Dr. Burzynski's patients who had traveled to
Washington D.C. from all corners of the United States
stood up and expressed their outrage
with the FDA and Commissioner David Kessler.
The FDA has made a list,
and decided who can live and who will die,
I guess I didn't make that list.
I've had no chemotherapy, I've had no radiation,
I choose Dr. Burzynski instead after a lot of
research and a lot of searching.
I've been in remission since 1989.
Dr. Kessler: I'm not a statistic.
We're frustrated, there are rights, our constitutional rights
have been violated, this has got to end,
my children are asking me "daddy what does the future hold",
my one daughter wrote a letter to the president of this county
and said "please don't pull the plug on my daddy".
And that just broke my heart and broke my wife's heart.
My husband is a walking miracle,
sixteen months ago our doctors told us
there is nothing else they can do,
and they told us to enjoy what little life he has left.
Look at him,
he biked 32 miles after being on Dr. Burzynski's
treatment for two months
and they're saying we can't have it?
I have a report from my family physician which
tells how well I am doing,
my tumors are leaving my body,
and my condition is improving every day
Now the FDA is saying to me:
"no, your doctor is a criminal,
he should be put in jail, and he needs to be shut down"
... this is criminal!
I want the FDA to get out of our lives and
stay out of our doctor-patient relationship.
What the classical conventional medicine
had to do for me was there-nothing.
For me, the next thing was the minister.
I did not want to undergo chemotherapy, which I had
a new name for, "kill 'em therapy". Or any type of radiation,
I was extremely lucky that I found Dr. Burzynski.
And I don't want the FDA to take this right from me.
I came eighteen years ago from Communist Romania,
and the tyrant dictator Ceausescu,
never stopped a doctor from treating anybody.
How can we have something like this in the United States?
Barely a week after these hearings,
on November 20th, 1995, Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski was indicted.
Burzynski was charged with 75 counts
of violating federal law, and fraud.
If convicted,
Burzynski would face a maximum of 290 years
in federal prison, and $18,500,000 in fines.
Not to mention what would happen to his patients.
He is their last chance for life
but now the federal government is issuing a death sentence
for the patients of this cancer doctor.
On February 9th, Houston federal court judge Sim Lake ruled
Dr. Burzynski's treatments have been quote:
"illegal under Texas and Federal Law since 1984"
and he ordered them stopped on all but a handful of patients.
Then, he put a stay on his own order, a stay of execution.
I believe that most of these 300 people will die within
a short period of time if the treatment is stopped.
In 1996, not only did scores of Dr. Burzynski's patients
return to Washington DC to protest his indictment,
but many of them testified again before another
congressional hearing headed by congressman Joe Barton.
Our first witness is Mariann Kunnari, is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
From Aurora, Minnesota.
This is Dustin Kunnari and he is on
Dr. Burzynski's antineoplaston treatment.
And this is my husband, Jack Kunnari.
Now, in February of 1994 our lives were drastically changed.
My son Dustin was only two and a half years old at the time.
He was diagnosed with a brain tumor the size of a golf ball.
The surgeon removed 75% of his tumor,
and the remaining 25% was diagnosed from
a biopsy as a malignant,
very aggressive medulloblastoma brain tumor-
one of the most deadly forms of brain cancer.
The doctors told us Dustin had only a few months to live.
The first treatment offered us was radiation.
But the radiation doctor told us that at his young age,
Dustin would become a vegetable,
and it would only extend his life for maybe a few months.
The next doctor wanted us to enroll Dustin into
an experimental chemotherapy,
which was highly toxic.
The side effects would include hearing loss,
kidney and liver damage, bladder,
stunted growth and a possible leukemia.
One question I'd like to ask is: would you do that to your child?
We weighed the harm these experimental drugs would
cause against the fact that they would not cure Dustin,
and decided not to subject him to these drastic measures.
But our oncologists told us that their opinion
took precedence over us as parents.
This put added stress to
the already stressful situation we were in.
In April of 1994, we visited Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski in Houston.
Dr. Burzynski made us no promises, but said, that
he "often had good results with brain tumors,
at worst it would not hurt Dustin"
and it offered the best hope in a longer quality of life.
An MRI six weeks after we started Dr. Burzynski's
treatment revealed no tumor.
We were very overjoyed.
Dustin continued Antineoplaston therapy,
and one year later a tumor one-inch by
one-inch in size was found on the MRI,
that would be in April of 1995.
Dr. Burzynski immediately raised Dustin's dose of Antineoplastons.
There were still no harsh side-effects at all.
The next MRI in September of 1995 revealed
that the tumor had almost disappeared again.
To this day, it has not reappeared.
If you look at Dustin right now,
he's a happy, healthy four-year-old,
who has out-lived his prognosis.
There is not traditional treatment that would have kept him alive,
with such good quality of life.
FDA Commissioner David Kessler loves to grab headlines
as a man who loves children so much
he wants to protect them from the ravages of smoking.
If Dr. Kessler loves children so much,
why have he and his agency been trying so hard to cut off
my son's last hope for life?
Without this treatment, my son will die.
This is a photo of Dustin Kunnari at four years old in 1996.
This is a photo of Dustin Kunnari at eighteen years old in 2009.
His brain cancer never returned.
Next, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, David Kessler.
David Kessler talk about new guidelines released today by the FDA,
that could quicken the time cancer drugs spend being tested,
and the amount of time it takes the FDA to approve them.
American cancer patients from now on, will have faster
and easier access to more promising cancer therapies.
Here is the essence of the importance of each
of the President and the FDA's four proposals:
First: for patients with refractory, hard to treat cancer, instead
of requiring evidence of clinical benefit, such as survival-
the FDA will rely on objective evidence of partial response
such as tumor shrinkage as an initial basis for approval.
This will allow us to rely on smaller, shorter studies
for the initial approval of cancer drugs.
The second proposal: we will expedite the availability of promising
medications that have been approved in certain other countries.
Third: We will include representatives of cancer patients in
FDA's "Cancer Advisory Committees"
and thereby make sure that their views are heard-
when it comes to recommending
approval or non-approval of cancer drugs.
and fourth: we will eliminate unnecessary paperwork
that used to delay or discourage cancer research
by non-commercial clinical investigators.
I'd be happy to take a few questions.
Will the FDA's initiatives that you announced today
expedite the current review of Antineoplaston treatment?
The FDA's initiatives will allow the agency to
rely on smaller trials with fewer patients.
If there is evidence of partial response in clinical trials-
I do not want to get into any particular type of treatment.
Let me point out that the research needs to be part of clinical trials.
We will accept less information up front. We are going to
require further study after approval because the science has matured.
The important point is that information needs to be gathered
through scientific means-through clinical trials.
That's a very important point.
You can't just use an agent here or there,
you have to use it as part of a clinical trial-
so we can get information as to whether the drug works.
Will patients who have taken other forms of cancer treatments,
like chemotherapy or radiation treatments, be allowed to
participate in clinical trials for Antineoplastons?
The FDA has many approved clinical
trials for patients with Antineoplastons.
What are Antineoplastons for the layman here?
Again, I really do not want to focus on any single cancer treatment.
They relate to compounds that are being used
and promoted by a doctor in Texas.
We are committed to providing expanded access and availability to
American patients for any drug there is reason to believe may work.
In 1996, because of pressure from the politicians
and American opinion,
the FDA agreed to accept all of the patients for whom
we had at the time into a program of Phase 2 clinical trials.
Basically we filed and received permission from the FDA
to proceed with 72 different Phase 2 clinical trials
which covered practically any type of cancer.
This was such tremendous work,
that basically it was necessary for me to work almost
around-the-clock, with six secretaries who were typing
different protocols,
and later I learned that
the FDA had to create a special
task force to be able to review these protocols.
For soft tissue sarcoma, there is a special protocol for that.
For breast cancer-a special protocol.
For lung cancer, a few different protocols.
For brain tumors, about over twenty different protocols
for different types of brain tumors.
So, just a year before his trial facing life in prison,
the Food and Drug Administration had finally authorized the
very thing that Dr. Burzynski and his patients had ever wanted.
Even still, the FDA would not back down in
making sure Burzynski's trial moved forward.
"Federal prosecutors concede that a cancer doctor they
will put on trial here in January for using an innovative but unapproved
drug has been "saving lives."
"The prosecution marks the first time the FDA has tried to
jail a scientist for using a drug on which he is conducting
FDA-authorized clinical trials."
"In a pre-trial motion, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Clark
objected to a defense request for the jury to visit the chemical plant
where Dr. Burzynski manufactures antineoplaston."
"The jury visit request "is a thinly veiled effort to expose
the jury to the specter of Dr. Burzynski in his act of saving lives."
"Whether antineoplaston does or does not work is not an issue,
and the jury should not be asked to decide the question."
"He added that is the issue comes up at trial, it would be an
irrelevant, emotional, prejudicial and misleading concern."
The issue of whether Antineoplastons work may not
even come up during the trial.
The judge says "that's not relevant."
But the defense contends that's exactly the point.
And what was done in developing the drug and administering it,
was done to save lives.
This trial cost the American taxpayer 60 million dollars
while costing Dr. Burzynski over 2.2 million.
700,000 dollars of Burzynski's legal defense was raised primarily
by Dr. Julian Whitaker through his newsletter
"Health and Healing".
After Dr. Whitaker wrote of the plight and injustice being done to
Dr. Burzynski, his readers sent in close to 18,000 checks in
small donations for Burzynski's legal defense.
The trial is expected to last about two months,
the jury will then decide whether Burzynski is a fraud,
or a medical pioneer.
On March 4th, 1997, due to a deadlocked jury,
the judge declared a mistrial.
And, after saying the government had not presented sufficient
evidence, he ordered that Dr. Burzynski be acquitted of
nearly half of the 75 counts.
You voted to acquit?
To acquit, absolutely.
Not guilty. Not guilty
I voted for acquittal.
I voted my mind, and my heart...
I do not believe that Dr. Burzynski is a criminal.
...and I had voted to acquit...
But the FDA was still not backing down.
They took Dr. Burzynski to trial, again
Though, after apparently accepting the absurdity of their case,
on May 19th the FDA suddenly dropped 40 of the
41 remaining charges.
The FDA's facade in trying to convince the world that
Burzynski was a criminal was completely unraveling.
Even the jurors who voted not guilty in the first case,
took time off of work to join the patients' protest in front of the
court house during the second case.
I am appalled at the
Food and Drug Administration and their actions.
We're here today,
basically, to protest the witch hunt that's going on by the FDA.
We have to stick together and really support these
patients that are suffering not only health-wise
but having to come down here to make a stand against the FDA.
Please don't waste my money abusing the system
to make sure that you maintain your power.
The jury spent about three hours deliberating this house of cards,
leaving Burzynski acquitted of the final charge.
Every one of Dr. Burzynski's patients now,
every future Burzynski patient is and will be on a clinical trial.
There were many patients who
would have liked to testify on our behalf
and convince the jury and the judge that
without the treatment they would die.
But the judge did not admit any statements
which could show that the treatment is effective.
The judge did not allow the jury to visit our facility where
we produce the medicine.
They were tying to keep it away from the jury.
If this information would have been presented to the jurors,
then this trial would have been finished very quickly.
And that's what the jurors told us because after the trial
we talked to the jurors, and they were shocked
that such information about the treatment which was saving
the lives of patients was not presented to them.
And I was sick listening to the lies of prosecutors
from the U.S. Attorneys.
It was not necessary for them to do it, they could tell the truth,
they represented the biggest power,
but they still were doing this all the time.
So they were tying to do it in a sneaky way,
and that's what is horrible,
that's what should be exposed
because I think the United States deserves better.
While all of this was taking place, Burzynski knew that the easiest
way to keep the government from putting him out of business or in
prison, was to partner with an established pharmaceutical company.
An interest was shown from Japanese pharmaceutical company
"Chugai", and the Italian pharmaceutical company "Sigma-Tau",
but both deals eventually evaporated likely due to the "rapport"
developed so far between Antineoplastons and the FDA.
Being an "issue, indeed", and were unable to verify the likelihood
that they could openly and effectively work with the FDA.
Then, by 1990, it seemed that Burzynski's luck had finally changed.
Burzynski has apparently treated the sister-in-law of the
Chairman and CEO of Elan Pharmaceuticals.
Elan enthusiastically drafted a letter of intent,
stating they would aggressively
pursue the filing of the necessary protocols with the Food and Drug
Administration for approval and marketing of Antineoplastons
as quickly as possible.
They soon negotiated financing, licensing agreements, and royalties.
In the midst of closing this deal with Elan,
more good news emerged.
Dr. Dvorit Samid: a scientist and medical professor
from Maryland who Burzynski had hired to further study
Antineoplastons,
managed to present her work at an oncology symposium
in Switzerland, which landed her and Antineoplastons a cover
story in a 1990 issue of "Oncology News".
In 1989, we retained Dr. Dvorit Samid as our consultant.
Dr. Samid at that time worked at the Uniformed
Services Medical School in Baltimore,
and later she moved to the National Cancer Institute.
She did a lot of work with Antineoplaston's ingredients.
Unfortunately when the
pharmaceutical company entered the picture
-Elan Pharmaceutical, our consultant Dr. Samid became too close.
She really became a consultant for Elan Pharmaceutical
and she was working with Elan from this time.
And suddenly, Elan Pharmaceuticals terminated their
licensing agreement, stating...
Elan has significant doubt as to whether the active substances
comprising of Antineoplastons have patent protection,
thereby rendering an agreement meaningless.
Antineoplastons are not just one chemical.
We have different ingredients in Antineoplastons.
One of these ingredients was known before.
We discovered that this was the metabolite of Antineoplastons,
and it was known and it was available before.
So when we patented our invention, our lawyers told us
"look, you can't patent this particular ingredient
because it was known before
let's list it in your patents, but don't patent this
because you will never get a patent for that."
But this is the least important ingredient of Antineoplastons.
While this was an odd turn of events
more good news continued to pour in!.
It was in October 1991 when Dr. Nicholas Patronas
led the National Cancer Institute on their site visit,
the very same site visit Dr. Patronas would later base
his testimony when defending Burzynski against
the Texas Medical Board.
This site visit not only confirmed that Antineoplastons
were curing what was previously considered incurable brain cancer,
but, it garnered their interest in conducting a confirmatory trial under
Division of Cancer Treatment sponsorship
at the National Cancer Institute.
These trials involved most of their top experts,
including, Dr. Michael Friedman:
the Associate Director of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program.
In a memo addressed to his director, Dr. Friedman wrote:
"l thought you would be interested in this."
"Antineoplastons deserve a closer look."
"It turns out that the agents are well-defined, pure chemical entities.
The human brain tumor responses are real."
The National Cancer Institute's "Decision Network" then convened,
and gave the green light to conduct government-sponsored
clinical trials of Antineoplastons.
Initially everybody was very excited about it,
everybody wanted to proceed, the people who reviewed our results
-the experts from the NCI, they did a very good job.
They were critical of course, but they were also highly complimentary
for the way we treated patients and the results we got.
It looked like everything should open and move forward.
Suddenly everything came to a stop.
And then we found that a few months later Elan received
permission to do clinical trials with this particular ingredient.
Ours was pushed back for about four years,
and Elan was allowed to proceed with theirs suddenly.
When Elan terminated their business deal with Burzynski,
they went behind his back, recruited Dr. Dvorit Samid,
and partnered with the National Cancer Institute,
where Dr. Samid soon became a section chief.
Elan then co-sponsored laboratory research and clinical
trials testing only this single ingredient, called: "Phenylacetate"
-the same chemical that Burzynski was advised he couldn't patent,
and had already proven to be quite limited against cancer
as a single substance as far back as 1980.
After the treatment in a small number of patients
we found that the activity was quite limited.
That's why I decided to abandon phenylacetate,
and we use the other Antineoplastons.
One of them contains phenylacetate as the second ingredient.
In 1994, I started working for Dvorit Samid.
She didn't let me know that those compounds were from Dr. Burzynski.
She just said "phenylacetate",
and she showed me all of the published papers about phenylacetate,
and its analogs and their anti-cancer activity.
It was quite amazing in the lab,
because if you find a compound that has anti-cancer activity,
and then you find a bunch of analogs,
it's like stumbling upon a pile of gold.
So people would think and they'd say:
"patents" "patents" "patents"
you know that sort of thing.
With Dvorit, under her leadership,
we found a lot of biological activities in these compounds,
that have anti-cancer activity.
The scientists at Johns Hopkins tried to patent these compounds,
but of course Dvorit was working with
Elan Pharmaceutical company at that time,
so those guys at Johns Hopkins didn't have any chance of
patenting these compounds.
It's interesting that she would complain in the lab,
saying that "these guys tried to go behind her back
and patent these compounds".
While Burzynski was facing continuous harassment from state and
federal agencies, the earliest phenylacetate studies were published
in April of 1992,
authored by Dvorit Samid, hosted by the National Cancer Institute.
Burzynski sat in awe as he witnessed the National Cancer Institute
recruit one of his researchers, push his research aside,
and begin to test phenylacetate without him, reporting:
...phenylacetate is both effective in inducing tumor cell maturation
and free of cytotoxic and carcinogenic effects, a combination that
warrants attention to its potential use in cancer intervention.
In 1995, in the lab, I was still with Dvorit,
but I smelled [something] fishy.
something was not right
The first paper Dvorit published about phenylacetate,
if you look at the "methodology" section,
there's a "BRI" abbreviation.
She got materials from the Burzynski Research Institute - Huston, TX.
but it didn't say "Burzynski Research Institute".
For us as scientists,
It's a "funny practice".
Burzynski's name failed to appear in the acknowledgments,
or any of the references listed in this report.
Burzynski knew these tests would fail since he had already
proven this in his own laboratory twelve years before.
Abandoned by the National Cancer Institute, he sat powerless on
the sidelines as the attempted high-jacking of his discovery
unfolded before his eyes, ending in the hideous train wreck
he warned them it would.
The National Cancer Institute, Elan, and Dr. Samid spent over
four years and tens of millions of dollars testing phenylacetate.
Phenylacetate by itself has very little clinical effect.
and the NCI or Elan could not use the other
ingredients of Antineoplastons
because they were covered by the patents owned by me.
They were tying to commercialize this, but without
the other ingredients they couldn't do much with this.
This needed to be given in conjunction with the others.
While coming to terms with this reality,
the National Cancer Institute decided to honor
the government sponsored clinical trials of Antineoplastons
they had initially promised Burzynski in 1991.
From the moment this dialogue was re-opened, the National Cancer
Institute proposed altering the treatment protocols that Burzynski
had spent 20 years perfecting.
Burzynski told them, that until they agree to a protocol that he has
confidence in, he was not going to provide the National Cancer
Institute with any Antineoplastons.
Dr. Michael Friedman told Burzynski:
"in response to your correspondence, one last time, we will revise
the protocol with regard to dose and schedule in compliance,"
"however, if you are unable or unwilling to provide the Antineoplastons
in the near future, we will pursue alternative sources to procure the
drug, or its active components, and will proceed.
Burzynski responded:
"l appreciate very much that you have finally decided to follow
my recommendation regarding dosage."
"But your final statements that you are ready to proceed with the
treatment with Antineoplastons without our participation
caught me by surprise."
"It is hard to imagine that a federal employee
would consider patent infringement."
Placing these ominous threats from Michael Friedman aside,
they finally managed to agree on a protocol.
The protocol was simple. Patients with tumors larger than
5 centimeters, more than one tumor, or with metastasis are excluded.
After everything was approved
and Burzynski released his medicine, a full year passes,
in which time over 15,000 Americans had been diagnosed
with the types of brain cancer this trial was focusing on.
Yet, America's National Cancer Institute was somehow having
difficulties in accruing patients.
So they used this as an excuse to go behind Burzynski's back, again,
and take it upon themselves to drastically alter the protocols.
"Dr. Friedman, it has been brought to my attention that the
protocol has been amended to accept patients with tumors
measuring over 5 centimeters, multiple tumors, or with metastasis."
I am outraged that without my knowledge Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center with NCI's permission
changed the protocol."
"Treatment of patients with these conditions will require
a different protocol, with a different schedule and different dosages."
"I hereby request that the amendments be cancelled
immediately and the original protocol be used as promised."
The National Cancer Institute responds:
"sorry, but the amendments have been approved."
Burzynski fires back:
"Let me make perfectly clear that as the discoverer
and developer of Antineoplastons, and the individual with
nearly 20 years clinical experience using them,"
"it is my professional opinion that the drugs will not
produce substantial benefit in such advanced patients."
"As I have repeatedly informed you, the protocol that we are
currently using for such advanced tumors, requires
doses three times greater than that currently being used."
These trials have been
conducted at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota,
and the Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York.
Currently there are only eight patients enrolled.
I'm very dissatisfied with that
because our desire is achieve the proper enrollment in as
quickly a manner as we can in order to really test this hypothesis.
Friedman blamed Burzynski
for this slow motion,
saying Burzynski restricted admissions to the trials too stringently
To speed things up admission standards
for the trials have been lowered,
to bring in patients in worse physical condition,
this over Dr. Burzynski's strenuous objections.
We get the idea that the main interest
is to let these patients die rapidly,
and make sure that the treatment will never work.
Dr. Burzynski has threatened legal action
to halt these new admissions,
and the NCI has suspended recruiting,
leaving the trials with just those
scientifically unsatisfactory eight patients.
Meanwhile both the FDA and the
Texas Medical Board are still tying to stop Burzynski.
On May 8th of 1995, less than two weeks before this broadcast,
the National Cancer Institute issued an internal memo to all of
those involved in the Antineoplaston trials.
"For the record. The clinical trials monitoring service
has been instructed not to send any Antineoplastons..."
..."clinical trial data to Dr. Burzynski, the Burzynski Research Institute,
or anyone inquiring about the Antineoplastons clinical trials."
"Any inquiries that may be related to the trials or
Dr. Burzynski are to be referred to the associate director:
Dr. Michael Friedman."
Friedman then taunts Burzynski:
"l must convey my deep pessimism.
We are in no way obligated to obtain your consent."
"Your insistence on dictating the manner in which
we conduct or review these clinical trials is both
presumptuous and inappropriate."
"The future of these trials rests entirely with the NCI,"
"since our primary obligation is to the American public."
Burzynski responds:
"Your letter of June 6th conveys pessimism.
My letter conveys outrage."
"Patients were admitted against admission criteria,
their treatment was discontinued, and their lives were
jeopardized for frivolous reasons."
"In spite of your promise we never received any
detailed data on these patients."
"There must be a reason why you are afraid to
provide us with complete copies of medical records."
Well, there was a very good reason why Dr. Michael Friedman
was afraid to provide Burzynski with complete copies of these
patients' medical records.
It took us at least half-a-year
before we forced the NCI
to release some of this information to us.
And then we found that they severely violated the protocol.
They did not comply at all with the protocol.
On top of that,
patients were forced to stop the treatment of Antineoplastons
because of massive fluid retention.
This is something in which we don't see with Antineoplastons,
the typical side-effect of Antineoplastons is dehydration,
which means elimination of the fluids, the patients are
losing a lot of fluid to the point where they have to drink
a lot of extra fluid.
We don't see increased fluid retention.
I was curious how this could happen.
I knew that the patients were receiving a lot of intravenous fluid,
but then we learned that perhaps the fluids which they
were receiving were not Antineoplastons.
In October of 1995, the National Cancer Institute's
"Cancer Information Service" issued a public statement for anyone
inquiring about their clinical trials of Antineoplastons. In it they stated,
"because these studies were closed prior to completion,
no conclusions can be made about the effectiveness or toxicity
of Antineoplastons."
To their credit, and according to the scientific standards
set by the National Cancer Institute, this was indeed the truth.
However, four years after these trials were closed, and two
years after Burzynski defeated the FDA and won his freedom,
the National Cancer Institute just couldn't leave well enough
alone, and decided to vindictively publish these scientifically
invalid Antineoplastons trials in the peer-reviewed medical literature.
In it, they described how nine patients were treated,
and no patient demonstrated tumor regression.
However, whoever was responsible for publishing this report
was apparently careless enough
to also include the Antineoplaston concentrations
detected in the blood of the nine patients during treatment.
We compared this to the data which we have in our studies.
We found that they were severely diluting the medicine,
and this is why the patients had fluid overload.
Antineoplaston AS2-1 consists of two ingredients:
called Phenylacetate, and Phenylacehlglutamine.
And about 2.7 times lower level of Phenylacetate was
found in the patient's blood compared to
what we see in our patients' who receive successful treatment.
Phenylacehlglutamine,
there was about a 36 times lower level in patient's blood
compared to what we see in our patients who
receive the right dosage of Antineoplastons.
And the concentrations of Phenylacehlisoglutamine,
one of the main ingredients of Antineoplaston A10,
were close to one hundred and seventy times lower
than what we see in the treatment of patients with Antineoplastons.
And that's what we found out from the patients'
husbands or the patients themselves.
That's what they were doing.
So this was horrible. This was a criminal act.
They should be prosecuted for that.
Because obviously, they knew what they were doing,
and they knew that these patients had really no
chance to respond to any treatment, they were going to die.
And that's what happened. After we realized what they
were doing, we decided to force them to stop the clinical trials.
And since then obviously,
The National Cancer Institute hates us
they do whatever they can but they do not cooperate
with us anymore.
In the past,
when the NCI (National Cancer Institute) or
its assigned entity is conducting an alternative cancer therapy
[clinical trial],
they always alter the protocols and let it fail-
to discredit the therapy.
But this time the pharmacokinetic data shows that they didn't do it right.
And most scientists will not look at it carefully.
Because "papa is telling you something, and you don't question him."
Most of us would assume,
that with any story such as this, surely there's another side to it.
Our story is no exception.
After the National Cancer Institute intentionally violated all protocols
of their own Antineoplaston trials,
and after all state and federal agencies had failed
in their 14-year campaign to remove Burzynski
from society, after all of the dust settled,
a profound truth began to emerge.
It was October 4th, 1991, that America's National Cancer Institute
hosted their site visit to Burzynski's clinic,
and verified for themselves that "anti-tumor activity was
documented by the use of Antineoplastons."
Seventeen days later, on October 21st, 1991,
The United States of America as represented by the
Department of Health and Human Services,
and Dr. Dvorit Samid filed a patent for Antineoplastons AS2-1 .
They even had the audacity to include Burzynski as a reference.
"The invention described herein may be manufactured,
used and licensed by or for the government, for purposes..."
At the time, Burzynski had no idea this had happened,
but did have his suspicions when they began to openly test
Phenylacetate without him, and the National Cancer
Institute knew it.
In an April 1993 NCI memo,
distributed to those involved with Burzynski,
they state their concerns:
"Political issues are a real concern.
Congressman Bedell is concerned we are taking the Antineoplastons
away from Burzynski. Burzynski has patents on Antineoplastons."
"Since phenylacetic acid, or Phenylacetate,
may be the active component of Antineoplastons,
our involvement has become an issue."
Five months later, the United States of America and Dr. Dvorit Samid
file their second extended patent on Antineoplastons.
And, guess who else was in it?
In March of the following year,
America files it's most extensive updated Antineoplaston
patent to date, spanning one hundred and eleven pages.
Seven months later, they file a fourth one. June 6, 1995,
the United States government has a field day filing their fifth,
sixth, seventh, and eighth extended patent on Antineoplastons.
The following day, America files it's ninth, tenth,
and eleventh extended Antineoplaston patent.
And, a couple of months after the eleventh patent was filed,
Dr. Michael Friedman leaves hid position at the National Cancer
Institute, and becomes Deputy Commissioner of Operations
for the Food and Drug Administration,
working directly under Dr. David Kessler.
And by November of that year, after a decade of failed grand juries,
the United States of America's Food and Drug Administration
finally manages to indict Dr. Burzynski.
One month into America's criminal trial against Burzynski,
America's first patent on Antineoplaston AS2-1 is approved.
A month after America fails in their second trial against Burzynski,
their second and third Antineoplaston patents are approved.
Over the course of the next three years,
the United States patent office approves all
eleven copy-cat patents on Antineoplastons AS2-1 .
And as we know, all of this was being done based on the fact that
the United States, which is the National Institutes of Health,
together with a pharmaceutical company,
which is Elan Pharmaceuticals
was tying simply to steal my invention.
That's what they wanted.
It's not that we had successful visit from
the National Cancer Institute in which
they determined that "this treatment works great"
and they decided that we should go into Phase 2 clinical trials
which would be sponsored by them.
No.
This gave the idea of some high-ups at the FDA to
conspire with the pharmaceutical company
so that they could steal the invention from me and get it,
because it was good.
That's the whole story.
They knew that If I'd be still free, they won't be able to do it.
Because they knew that if I would sue them
they wouldn't have a chance in court
because we have had our patents before them.
So that's why they attempted to wipe me out financially,
to put me in prison,
to attack me from every possible angle:
FDA, which is the federal government, state government...
to be able to steal my invention.
That's the real thing from the National Cancer Institute
and Elan Pharmaceuticals.
They failed.
We survived, and we continue to move forward.
These patents are full of useful information.
Aside from noticing their blatant infringement,
"Compositions and Methods for Treating and Preventing Cancer",
using the distribution of Antineoplastons AS2-1's ingredients.
They enthusiastically state:
"The neoplastic conditions treatable by this method include:
neuroblastoma, leukemia, myelodisplasia, acute glioma,
prostate cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, lung cancer,
medulloblastoma, and lymphoma" to name a few.
They also point out how Antineoplastons
can also be used as a cancer preventative.
However, the most revealing piece of
information found in these patents is where they state:
"Current approaches to combat cancer rely primarily
on the use of chemicals and radiation
which are themselves carcinogenic and may promote
recurrences and the development of metastatic disease."
Let's read that one again, shall we?
"Current approaches to combat cancer rely primarily on the use of
chemicals and radiation, which are themselves carcinogenic and may
promote recurrences and the development of metastatic disease."
Now how could the U.S. Patent Office be corrupted to the point that
they issue patents on medical therapies that have
already been patented,
and issue them to someone who had nothing
to do with their discovery or use?
How could that happen?
And how could the patent
office then assign these fraudulent patents
to some of the most powerful
institutions in American government?
And imagine,
all of this was being done while
these same government agencies
were spending millions of taxpayers' dollars
trying to put Dr. Burzynski in jail
so he could not fight the criminal theft of his discovery.
They sometimes have a creed-
it's to "separate the medicine from the medicine man".
Of course these "higher-ups" at the NCI (National Cancer Institute)
or whatever, they think "Hey guys, we've been doing this for years."
"We know what's going on."
So they think, "Well, we know what's going on with
phenylacetate, phenylacetylglutamine..."
If you can outsmart the medicine man,
you can cut a piece of the pie for yourself.
That's the name of the game.
If you cannot be the first one,
If you can be the second one,
and be bigger than the first one-
Steal. Why not?
That's the mentality.
Under the capitalist sun, there is nothing sacred.
Money talks.
The smear campaign against us continues,
from good doctors, from the American Medical Association,
from the American Cancer Society.
Despite of the fact that it
should have stopped a long time ago.
What do you mean by this "plaston study", what is that?
Antineoplastons are peptides which I discovered, which can
stimulate genes which fight cancer, and that can decrease
the activity of the genes that cause cancer.
They are molecular switches.
Did you publish that?
Yes, I published about 300 articles.
That seems revolutionary, do you discount that?
I have known of what he's been doing and I think
that there is no scientific evidence that his treatment
provides any benefit for cancer patients.
Your discounting all the work he's been doing?
Yes.
He also claims that there are no complications in his
treatment, and I have actually had on patient that
went to him and had the treatment, and almost died.
Let's meet a cancer patient that
Dr. Keith Black had previously consulted:
Four years after my diagnosis, I had run into one of
the neuro-oncologists that I had met with.
I told him that I had gone to Dr. Burzynski and I was cured.
He kind of wrote it off. I was very excited to tell him
that I was cured, and he really burst my bubble about it.
It was depressing for me.
I don't know why Dr. Black will not tell the truth.
We conducted 12 Phase 2 clinical trials under
strict FDA supervision.
In every one of these trials, we have proven that this
treatment works. This treatment can cure incurable brain cancer.
These patients have lived not just 5 years free of cancer,
but over 10 years free of cancer-with the types of cancers
that chemotherapy can do absolutely nothing.
This is well documented. It was reviewed by the top oncologists
in the United States, but it was never reviewed by Dr. Black.
He didn't review a single patient treated by us.
Why are you not open to this?
Actually, I am open to anything that would benefit my patients.
The doctors I know and the clinicians I know-these people
are evangelical. They are hugely vested and invested in
doing what they believe is very important work.
It helps them get up in the morning to go to work.
So, people who are invested in that kind of zealous way,
are going to look at anything that isn't within their vision-
they are going to look askance at it-calling it weird,
or calling the doctor a charlatan.
If they had not looked so askance at it, and they had allowed
him the opportunity to put this through the testing 20 years ago-
think about how much farther ahead he'd be.
I think what is amazing, is that Dr. Burzynski has had
a vision, a passion, and a zeal for 40 or more years-
he's tolerated being called everything short of
and probably including a witch doctor,
because of his firm belief that he can save people's lives.
And what that says about his character, and the fiber
of his backbone, to be willing to take that on,
and to be alive and recognized when it happens. There are many
times in history where the inventor has basically died or was
impoverished before they had a chance
to see the fruition of that great invention,
and he has a chance of doing that.
Since 1995, all cancer patients who received
Antineoplaston treatment in the USA, did so under
the approval and supervision of the Food and Drug Administration.
These patients where treated within "Phase 2 FDA clinical Trials",
without the aid of The National Cancer Institute,
or any other cancer research entity.
Antineoplastons are responsible for the first recorded
cures in medical history within any FDA-approved clinical trial
for inoperable brainstem gliomas in children - with a 30%-50% cure rate.
A "cure" is defined as a 5-year survival.
Since 2009, permission for the final phase of FDA clinical testing
to allow Antineoplastons to be "FDA-approved" has been granted.
The only obstacles now are the $300 million dollars
needed to pay for this final phase of clinical testing-
-and the FDA requiring children with inoperable brainstem glioma
to also undergo radiation treatment in these Phase 3 trials,
claiming it would be "unethical" not to do so.
The fact that we are permitted to
enter Phase 3 trials means
that the treatment already shows
safety and efficacy in Phase 2 trials.
This means that at this moment
we should receive overwhelming support,
instead of being harassed as we are so far.
When you look at what is going on
and how Dr. Burzynski is being handled,
it is clearly a result of big business, big government,
big labor, big PhRMA, big cancer industry, whatever-
they become so wrapped up in protecting the institution,
whatever it is, that they forget what their fundamental job is.
What is happening with big PhRMA and big cancer
is that they have forgotten to be curious about new
opportunities and options out there,
instead they are focused on protecting their turf.
This film is dedicated to everyone who has
been affected by cancer.