I have been hinting that Burzynski has been threatening other prominent UK bloggers. Well, that blogger has now gone public.
Rhys Morgan
Rhys Morgan is a 17 year old schoolboy from Wales. He has a keen interest in quack remedies, having been exposed to many through his own health problems with Crohn’s Disease. He hit the headlines on the BBC last year for exposing the bizarre world of a quack cure called Miracle Mineral Solution, that had been touted to fellow Crohn’s sufferers.
Rhys not only blogged about this dangerous form of quackery, but lobbied Cardiff City Council to persuade them to get the Trading Standards Authority involved. For his efforts, the James Randi Educational Foundation awarded him him the Grassroots Skepticism prize at the London Hilton Metropole. The BBC reported that Rhys would go onto tackle more ‘miracle cure’ web sites.
The Blog Post
So, Rhys wrote about (see here) the Texas based clinic of Stanislaw R. Burzynski, M.D., Ph.D who offers a urine based therapy as a cure for cancer. In his article, Rhys discussed Stan Burzynski’s “antineoplaston therapy”. He highlighted the recent examples in the press of where a teenager in Ireland with a brain tumour was having €120,000 raised for him to be sent to the Burzynski clinic, and also the case of a young mother in the UK whose family was trying to raise £95,000 to be sent to America “as the NHS does not fund this treatment.”
The problem is, as Rhys noted, is that antineoplaston therapy is considered an unproven treatment based on a hunch. Burzynski has been conducting continuous clinical trials on his therapy. Indeed, it would appear that the only way to get treatment is to enrol in a trial – and then pay for the trial yourself. The results of these trials have not convinced other researchers. The American Cancer Society states that “Most cancer specialists believe there is insufficient evidence to recommend use of antineoplastons.” They note that even alternative medicine enthusiasts are wary of this treatment with Dr Andrew Weil saying, “I see no reason for any cancer patient to take this route.”
Rhys’s article is thoughtful but direct. Of the patients he mentioned, he says, “I hate the idea of taking away someone’s last hope. Even though this is false hope, I still hate taking it away.” But he fears that misleading desperately ill patients is even worse. I too share a contempt for those who seek to take huge sums of money off the dying by offering vain hopes through unproven cures. I get family members writing to me on this web site after loved ones have been dragged into quack cures during their last months, wasting money that surviving families really need and wasting time that could have been better used being close to those you love.
It is therefore no surprise that Rhys noted Burzynski conviction for fraudulently claiming money from an insurance company and hence saying “I take no issue with calling Stanislaw Burzynski a quack and a fraud.”.
The Threat from Burzynski
A few weeks ago, Rhys received an email from a Marc Stephens who stated that his post and tweets were “in violation of several state and federal laws.” and that he “immediately cease and desist in your actions defaming and libeling my clients.”
The letter gave Rhys a bit of a lecture of US law on libel seemingly unaware that they were talking to a 16 year old school boy who was not resident in the United States. The letter ended with the threat, “ I suggest you remove ALL references about my client on the internet in its entirety, and any other defamatory statement about my client immediately, or I will file suit against you.”
“GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.”
You might have seen similar threats elsewhere.
Rhys is a bit of a smart chap. But receiving this is not pleasant. It could have threatened his entire wealth of a few hundred pounds in a savings account. Furthermore, it offended his sense of justice and ethics to take down an article that he felt was entirely justified on the basis of a broad threat that failed to identify anything that was factually incorrect. Instead, Rhys noted the rather odd statement in the letter that “Every comment you made in your article is highly incorrect.” He knew this was not true.
A quick bit of Googling by Rhys revealed that Marc Stephens did not appear to be a lawyer but was employed by the Burzynski Clinic for the purposes of Marketing and Sponsorship.
Rhys responded saying that he had to finish school that day before he could do anything. Stephens responded asking Rhys to “Please forward the notice to your parents if you are actually in High School. This is a very serious matter. “ and then demanded that Rhys “provide a public apology to Dr. Burzynski and his patients and post it on your websites, and social media sites.”
All very odd behaviour.
So what to do?
Rhys has many good friends. He contacted myself for help. He spoke to Simon Singh who had been through a two year ordeal when the now totally discredited British Chiropractic Association tried and failed to sue him for defamation. He got some good advice.
Taking down his blog posts appeared to be a sensible thing to do in order to show good will whilst the problem was explored. That goodwill has not been extended back. So, Rhys has now republished and added a commentary. You had best read it.
My take
Rhys is a bit of an hero. With his campaigns to close down the dreadful Miracle Mineral Cure, he has undoubtedly helped many very poorly people from being duped into taking dangerous quack medicines.
You know what? It is just likely that at 17 years of age, Rhys Morgan has already saved more lives by simply speaking out than Burzynski has in three decades with his fixation on his “antineoplastons.”
Has the time come to publish contact details for Marc Stephens? I suspect that there are quite a few people who like to offer him some advice.
this is all about supession of a cure, because cancer institutes rake in billions each year and if theres a cure then that money dissapears from there pockets and big pharma can’t make money from the chemo treatments if theres a cure,and they get reduced population like the establishment want’s …
Good luck with sustaining that opinion should you actually get cancer one day.
I assume the bizarre grammar was deliberate and intended satirically. Well played, sir.
Exactly!
I have to take my hat off to this young man. He is clearly taking on the big quacks, and needs as much support as possible.
Much respect.
JD.
Hero!
Bullied by quacks. Ought be law against THAT!
While I’d certainly recommend everyone goes and reads the whole story on Rhys’ own blog, I just thought it worth reiterating that this Marc guy apparently _mailed Rhys a Google-map image of his (Rhys’) own house_. In other words: “We know where you live”.
I haven’t the words to adequately describe just how disgusting such behaviour is; I’d also love to know whether it could be considered criminal.
Why haven’t I seen this in the news?? Taking money from the parents of sick children in the name of unproven-science is evil. Everyone ought to be warned of this clinic.
Well done Rhys, consider it re-tweeted.
Interesting new development revealed in Rhys’s blog.
http://rhysmorgan.co/2011/11/threats-from-the-burzynski-clinic/#comment-3339
Any cover under which the Burzynski Clinic could claim that Marc Stephens is nothing to do with them looks pretty blown to me.
Hats off to Rhys for exposing this sickening charade.
I have retweeted it.
Shouldn’t the title have “..and loses” added to it?
I noticed you [REDACTED] his name on your other blog? any particular reason for this? I thought yeah 17 year old don’t want to post his name online if it isn’t needed – but then you have this whole article about him.
Try reading the second sentence of the article.
I do love how the Burzynski Clinic and Stephens are poised to be getting a quick lesson on how it’s no longer 1994. Social media, some days it’s a wonderful thing.
Bay! Where’s my letter? Burzynski is behaving like a quack!
When I was in medical school in the ’70s the latest thing then was the Issels treatment. At that time as I recall oxygen injections were given (the details are somewhat hazy in my mind, although odd things like that stick in your memory) and the word ‘immunotherapy’ was used. This was presented to us medical students as an interesting topic for discussion – the idea of using immunotherapy was interesting theoretically, but that Issels was using it in a clinic was considered dubious in that there were at that time only (glowing) anecdotal reports. Some said that the benefit the patients got from it was the upbeat presence of Dr Issels himself.
Out of curiosity I googled ‘Issels’ expecting to find that yet another doubtful remedy had come and gone, as they have before and since. Although Issels himself is now dead, the first three hits are for Issels official web site, still apparently going strong. Supportive peer review research is cited, although a very different picture is painted by the Wikipedia article.
It seems there is no end to doubtful remedies, like the heads of the Lernaean Hydra. Picking them off one-by-one may not work.
My suggestion would be to lobby for legislation outlawing charging patients for new therapies that have not been subjected to double blind prospective controlled clinical trials and published in peer review journals. This would allow genuine trials to go ahead, but funding would have to come from bodies like the Medical Research Council or private finance.
From my perspective this all started with comedian Peter Kay supporting charity fund raising for the Clinic. (Vicariously, using an ill child as a vehicle for the funds.)
Is it known whether Kay has been reading any of the blog postings on the issue, and whether the Observer has interviewed him further about it. And if not, why not?
Peter Kay has certainly had Tweets directed at him. “Blue Wode” has done so, I think. I’m mobile at the moment so can’t readily search the Tweetsphere, but I’m sure I’m right.
So, is Kay checking his Tweets? So his “people” check his Tweets for him?
Mr. Stephens has been sacked:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/11/the_burzynski_clinic_disavows_marc_stephens.php
Though I suspect he is still around as a very stinky sock puppet.
look at hope for laura fund and the results, what do you all think of that, ?
This silly 17 year old should find out the facts before publishing his libellous garbage. Burzynsky is saving lives and you fools who automatically assume Burzynsky is a quack without knowing the facts should all get brain cancer and see how you feel.
Tom – do you normally hope people get brain cancer, or is it only 17 year old bloggers who dare say the emperor has no clothes?
Poor lad clearly didn’t get his chicken nuggets that day. I feel it’s important to research before making false statements.
Dr Burzynski is a pioneer of a cancer treatment, not only did the FDA and government try to end his treatments by taking him to many court cases over a 14 year period… they failed!
Odd because The FDA at that time was funding Dr Burzynski trials.
The American government using pharmaceutical company named Èlan tried to steal Dr Burzynski’s work fraudulently by taking patents of his work and getting them signed off.
He has saved thousands of lives, the people who the so-called medical profession turned away.
So, now his clinic is striving because they ‘FDA, Government) failed to touch him. Because he is a genuine medic professional with a treatment that works.
Now he can only treat patients within a trial because…. American government with their power gave him no choice but to do it this way, so yes unfortunately patients have to pay for their treatment. Would you be arguing this ‘patient pay’ if it was a treatment next to chemo or radiotherapy?
All because of the billion dollar financial status within Cancer, which would be a massive loss to the Pharmaceutical industry
The villains are the people Administering radiotherapy- chemotherapy. I don’t need to explain what happens to the body after receiving chemo. It’s inhumane and may I point out that chemo is in fact a killer.
Every battle that Dr Burzynski was up against he came through.
There’s a lot of interviews you can watch on the FDA – Food Drug administrator where they say they will not trial any meds from a single person. We only use pharmaceutical companies.
So Rhys, please know a great deal of depth about what you’re arguing about. Discrediting a pioneer of such creditability a non toxic cancer cure….yes cure. It’s putt there. Sadly it’s being pushed inside a box. The box being trials. It’s pretty rather futile. I feel Rhys is very uniformed on this subject.
Trials… please remember that his trials are treatment! The cure is with him Antineoplaston Therapy patented .
I’m not surprised Rhys was ask to remove it.
Maybe try and talk with some of his Dr Burzynski patients that have been cancer free for many years, the same patients who had an aggressive form of brain and medics gave tho woman 6 months to live with treatment called Chemo. She researched and didn’t want her scalp burnt, she would has lost her hearing amongst over side effects. So she researched and found Dr BurzynskI , cancer free. There’s a lot of cases out there too.
Do you believe sending menacing emails to a child, with photos of where he lives, is the mark of a professional cancer pioneer?
Of course not. Stephen clearly took things into his own hands without speaking to anyone else a the clinic. Appealing behaviour.
He is now fired from his position.
Dr Burzynski had a highly regarded lawyer. Dr Burzynski takes the correct route for everything after his experiences with the legal system and won.
Trust me. The words of bloggers will not remove the work he done. Rhys is a young blogger trying to get a voice like many kids today, just sadly a misrepresentation of What Dr Burzynski has done and still doing is changing lives, lives of terminally people.
So no, it doesn’t sound like something A pioneer of his staid would do….and he didn’t.
I not sure I know too many doctors who hire hatchet men to attack critics – but if that is your standards about how innovative doctors should opperate then fine. Worth noting that Stephens was only fired after it hit the press in a big way.
And it is also worth noting that it is not just bloggers who note Burzynski’s wrongs. The Texas Medical Boards has decided to put him on probation and fine him $360,000 in penalties.
Stephens*
It was dropped from $360,000 to a mere $60,000 …now the taxpayers money was 4 times that amount.
when it comes to the rough and tumble hardball tactics of propaganda, disinformation, harassment, and legal intimidation used by the Cancer Drug Cartel, Burzynski is clearly much better prepared to fight fire with fire than Gerson ever was. In the tradition of Harry Hoxsey (DCA) an alternative cancer figure from yesteryear, Burzynski is a fighter. He doesn’t back down.
If there is one statistic that says it all, that would be the fact that the U.S. Government at both the State and Federal level spent 14 years continuously fighting Burzynski in the court of law. That’s right, there was an endless series of cases that stretched all the way from 1983 to 1997.
I may have my math wrong, but by my count, the State of Texas brought Burzynski into court in 1986, 1988, 1990, 1993, and 2012… the State of Texas lost every single round.
The FDA took Burzynski to court at the Federal level in 1983, 1985, 1996 and 1997. The FDA lost all four of those rounds.
14 years! And each time Burzynski won a case, the government came back with another fight. Although Burzynski ultimately won every showdown, it never stops. He just lives to fight another day.
It helps that Burzynski is media savvy. Perhaps the best thing that ever happened to the man was when filmmaker Eric Merola showed up at his doorstep in 2008 and offered to help. Since that time, Merola has produced two documentaries that do a persuasive job of bolstering Burzynski’s reputation and counteracting an ocean of negative disinformation on the Internet.
However, ultimately, none of this means a thing if Burzynski’s cure doesn’t pan out. Fortunately, it appears that Burzynski has a winner. He is far from perfecting his cure, but there is ample clinical and anecdotal evidence to suggest he is on to something.
So far, Burzynski has found a way to beat the American Medical Establishment at its own game. No wonder they are petrified of the guy. Unless the dark forces find some way to stop him, Burzynski might one day flip the entire industry upside down.
What terrifies the Cancer Drug Cartel the most is the fact that Burzynski owns a PATENT to his treatment.
That patent symbolizes the stake through the heart of the vampire. If he wins, it becomes lights out for the Game as it is currently played. Burzynski is dangerous because he is poised to find a cure for cancer and upset the money train all at the same time. He has to be stopped at all costs or else.
There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground surrounding this man. People either believe in what he is doing or absolutely detest the guy and his work. It takes about five seconds of reading an article to guess which side the writer favors. For example, I am sure you have guessed I am on Burzynski’s side.
No matter what side of the fence you are on, after watching his Documentary, I am sure you will agree that the Medical Establishment has gone to extraordinary lengths to shut him down.?
So far they haven’t succeeded. At every turn, Burzynski seems to give the Cancer Industry a bitter taste of its own medicine.
Now isn’t that ironic? Paybacks are hell.
The failure to strike Burzynski off is a sad testament to the lack of proper medical accountability in Texas.
Cleary there are those who can spot a vampire charlatan and those that cannot. I will continue to help protect the vulnerable from this parasite if you are unable to see through him.
So you are saying it was a failure to save the lives of thousands of patients that the Medical Profession gave the patients death sentences. You would prefer the dead?
Terminally ill! not a miracle but treatment. 60 million dollars spent on this “witch-hunt” and within the last few weeks it has been ruled that FDA and US government can no longer bring Burnzyski in front of justice system. a vampire charlatan he is not. You cannot argue with Science, you are a man of the 21st century or do you believe there’s a big flying horse that Jesus riding upon.
Pleasure chatting to you, I’m off to see my mum whose Stage 4 Colon terminal and given her death sentence.
Stan’s patents have long expired and no one else is interested in them since they’re useless. Don’t believe everything Eric Merola tells you in his infomericals.
Why is this latest Burzynski fan necromancing an ancient thread anyway? Did the Burzynski clinic recently hire a new PR shill to comb the internet?
Rhys must be about 30 by now… 🙂
Shoot, if I get brain cancer, the burzynski clinic is the first one to call. It would appear that only one or two posters here actually watched his carefully documented efforts in his documentary video. This is a shill enriched board for sure.
I would not worry. In order to get brain cancer, you would first need a brain.