Giving False Hope To Cancer Patients
Over the past week, sceptical bloggers have been abuzz with news that some sceptical U.K. bloggers have been bullied, threatened and intimidated by the Burzynski Clinic in Houston, for criticising the clinic’s questionable and unproven form of cancer treatment. Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski claims that he can treat cancer using a treatment called antineoplaston therapy, which has no good clinical evidence to suggest that it has any worthwhile affect on cancer.
How it started
I follow Le Canard Noir (blogger Andy Lewis ) on Twitter and saw a blog post by him mentioning that he and his family had been threatened by a representative of the Burzynski Clinic for a post he written on his Quackometer website about a fund raiser for a little girl with cancer. Andy voiced is concerns about the controversial, and very expensive treatment offered by the clinic. He also questioned their lack of supporting evidence for the treatment. According to Andy, within 24 hours of his post, he received an email from a Marc Stephens who threatened legal action if the post was not removed immediately.
You can read the entire email exchange here.
Bullying a school boy
It was as a result of Andy’s post that sceptical bloggers learned that Rhys Morgan, a 17yr old who gained notoriety for exposing Miracle Mineral Solution as a dangerous scam, had also been threatened by Marc Stephens. This moron also took his threat a step further by including a Google image of Rhys’ home. Rhys did take down his post in good faith to try and “correct” the allegedly defamatory statements that Mr. Stephens objected to, but reposted it – along with all the threatening emails – after receiving advice from fellow bloggers like Simon Singh.
Read Rhys’ post here.
Since these two posts, sceptical bloggers around the world have been writing and tweeting about the Burzynski Clinic and their bullying tactics when it comes to criticism about their very, very expensive and unproven cancer treatments. Their heavy handed tactics backfired spectacularly and eventually resulted in a press release.
For a list of blogs dealing with the Burzynski Clinic, please do yourself a favour and look at Josephine Jones’ Master list.
The Burzynski Clinic issued a press statement which apologised for Mr. Stephens’ rants, however they still intend pursuing some kind of action against many of the bloggers who dared to criticise them. They also added a list of citations for all that scientific research as evidence to back up the Burzynski Clinics claims. However, it has all been picked apart by Blag Hag – Jen McCreight.
For a more scientific and evidence based criticism of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski and his clinic , go to Dr. Davis Gorski’s post here on the Science Based Medicine website.
Before anyone accuses me of being cold hearted, I lost someone very, very dear to me six months ago to cancer. I understand what it’s like to want to grasp at anything that offers some kind of hope for just a little more time with a loved one. I also know that anyone who promises a miracle cure for profit to someone who is at their most vulnerable is a lying, cheating scumbag who should be rotting in a prison cell.
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