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Burzynski Clinic: the domain of scoundrels and quacks

By pharyngula on November 28, 2011.

Billie Bainbridge is four years old, and she has an inoperable brain tumor, and her prognosis is not good. Her family is desperate, and has been frantically trying to raise money from the community to cover the costs of a treatment they've been told might cure her. They need £200,000. They are asking the public to contribute.

Unfortunately, the treatment they want to give her is antineoplaston therapy: it's pure bunk. The clinic that is trying to suck large sums of money away from the family of a dying child is the Burzynski clinic. So in addition to being a quack, Burzynski is now a vampire, exploiting sick children for profit.

Andy Lewis wrote an article about the false hope of the Burzynski clinic. It's damning — the Burzynski clinic has been exploiting the sick for years with an exorbitantly priced 'therapy' that has never passed Phase III trials.

A scientific organization would respond to such an argument, you would think, with a deluge of data and explanations of the scientific basis of their treatment. Not the Burzynski clinic! Instead, they have some angry hack at their establishment who fired off a whole series of threatening letters to Lewis, claiming legal authority with no evidence that the angry clown, Marc Stephens, has any legal credentials at all. There's certainly no science behind his rants, and there doesn't seem to be any legal standing, either.

So Stephens threatens Lewis's family.

Be smart and considerate for your family and new child, and shut the article down..Immediately.

You can guess how the Internet responds to such thuggish, bullying behavior: by blowing up and pointing out even more loudly the deficiencies of the Burzynski clinic.

So Stephens has started sending these threatening letters to other people, including Rhys Morgan. "GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY," he blusters as he promises libel suits.

I think you all know what to do now. Spread the news of the Burzynski clinic's quackery far and wide; trumpet it loudly everywhere. The media has been fairly passive about this abuse of children and dying adults for some time now, so let's make it clear to the world exactly how contemptible these phonies are.

GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.

(Also on FtB)

Tags
bad science
Categories
Brain and Behavior

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