Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski- fraud or martyr of FDA: Treating unoperable brain cancer

 Vos iz neias     A Houston family has launched a petition to the Obama administration in an effort to get the Food and Drug Administration to allow their six year old son access to a treatment that they hope will cure his aggressive brain cancer.

Elisha Cohen was diagnosed with anaplastic medulloblastoma in October of 2012 and since that time has undergone neurosurgery and high dose chemotherapy to treat his cancer.  While tests showed that the treatments had initially eradicated the tumor, it returned several months later and was deemed by doctors to be untreatable.

“The doctors told me to go home, to take my son to Disneyland,” Elisha’s mother, Devorah Cohen told VIN News.  “But Jewish people don’t give up.  It is not what we do.” [...]

But most importantly, please daven for Refael Elisha Meir ben Devora.  Hashem can hear my son right now and we know that Hashem can bring Elisha a yeshua.”

=========================HOWEVER===================== 

USA Today [...]    Burzynski — an internist with no board certification or formal training in oncology — has said publicly that he can cure half of the estimated 200 children a year diagnosed with brainstem tumors. The Cottos were told that treatment could cost over $100,000, mostly out of pocket, because insurance plans often refuse to cover Burzynski Clinic treatments.

Burzynski, 70, calls his drugs "antineoplastons" and says he has given them to more than 8,000 patients since 1977. [...]

Yet the National Cancer Institute says there is no evidence that Burzynski has cured a single patient, or even helped one live longer. He has not backed up his claims by publishing results from a randomized, controlled trial — considered the gold standard of medical evidence — in a respected, peer-reviewed journal.

And Burzynski's drugs pose a risk of serious harm, including coma, swelling near the brain and death, according to the NCI and informed consent documents that patients sign before beginning treatment. While Burzynski has touted his treatments as an alternative to chemotherapy, a 1999 NCI study found that antineoplastons can cause many of the same side effects as conventional chemo: nausea, vomiting, headaches, muscle pain, confusion and seizures. [...]

"He's a snake oil salesman," says pediatric oncologist Peter Adamson, a professor of pediatrics and pharmacology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "This has gone on for so many years, it's really unbelievable."

For 36 years, critics say, Burzynski has been selling false hope to desperate families at the most vulnerable time of their lives.

"When you want so hard to believe something, you end up listening to your heart and not your head," says Lisa Merritt of Armuchee, Ga., whose husband, Wayne, was treated briefly by Burzynski in 2009. The couple say that Burzynski misled them about the type of treatment that would be offered, as well as the cost. Burzynski, she says, is "the worst kind of predator."[...]