Categories
Bioethics Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine

More sad news about a Burzynski patient

As much as I try, even when I’m on vacation in an undisclosed warm location near a beach (actually, our hotel room has a balcony overlooking the ocean), occasionally news finds its way to me. Part of it is because I still get the odd e-mail or two, and I do check my e-mail every […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

Stanislaw Burzynski: A pioneering cancer researcher or a quack?

Note: Orac is away somewhere warm recharging his Tarial cells for further science and skepticism. In the meantime, he is rerunning some of his favorite posts. Given that the blog seems to have been infiltrated with Burzynski trolls again and Eric Merola threatens to make a sequel to the execrable movie he made about Burzynski […]

Categories
Biology Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

NIH funding: The dreaded issue of conformity rears its ugly head again

For all the worship of “translational” research that is currently in vogue, it needs to be remembered that a robust pipeline of basic science progress upon which to base translational research and clinical trials is absolutely essential if progress in medicine is to continue. Without it, progress in SBM will slow and even grind to […]

Categories
Medicine Politics

Big pharma wins a battle on off-label prescribing

There’s a phenomenon known as off-label prescribing. Basically, to prescribe something off-label is to prescribe it for an indication that is not FDA-approved but that is supported by considerable evidence. For example, it could involve using an FDA-approved drug for an indication that is not within its approval, for an unapproved age range (such as […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery

Stanislaw Burzynski: On the arrogance of ignorance about cancer and targeted therapies

Here we go again. Because he’s been in the news lately, I’ve been writing a lot about the “brave maverick doctor” known as Stanislaw Burzynski who claims to have spectacular results treating normally incurable cancers using something he calls antineoplastons. Unfortunately, the reason Burzynski has featured prominently in the skeptical blogosphere over the last two […]