The first in the series, "Burzynski, the Movie," is an internationally award-winning documentary originally released in 2010 (with an Extended Edition released in 2011) that tells the true story of a medical doctor and Ph.D biochemist named Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski who won the largest, and possibly the most convoluted and intriguing legal battle against the Food & Drug Administration in American history.
His victorious battles with the United States government were centered around Dr. Burzynski's gene-targeted cancer medicines he discovered in the 1970's called Antineoplastons, which have currently completed Phase II FDA-supervised clinical trials in 2009 and has been given permission by the FDA to begin the final phase of FDA testing–randomized controlled clinical trials. .
When Antineoplastons are approved, it will mark the first time in history a single scientist, not a pharmaceutical company, will hold the exclusive patent and distribution rights on a paradigm-shifting medical breakthrough.
In the compelling follow-up to the first internationally award-winning documentary, “Burzynski: Cancer is Serious Business, Part II” explores the current status of Antineoplastons' clinical testing sanctioned by the United States Food & Drug Administration—and features a modern story of the struggling journeys of cancer patients being treated today at the Burzynski Clinic in Houston, Texas.
For most patients undergoing Burzynski's treatment, their advanced cancer itself runs secondary to the constant barrage of skepticism coming not only from their local oncologists, but also from friends and family who feel their loved ones are making suspect treatment decisions—even though mainstream oncology has already left many for dead.
As the story unfolds, it reveals a real-time change of hearts and minds from many of these doctors and families and with candid interviews with board-certified oncologists, surgeons and neurosurgeons.
"After twenty-seven years of independently testing Antineoplastons—including randomized clinical trials, we found that Dr. Burzynski was right. It's obviously not anecdotal anymore."
Hideaki Tsuda, MD Kurume Medical University, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan
2. Does the National Cancer Institute acknowledge the clinical efficacy of Antineoplastons today? +
Also see a longer National Cancer Institute posting including some results from brainstem glioma Phase 2 trials of Antineoplastons:"A phase II study also conducted by the developer and his associates at his clinic reported on 12 patients with recurrent and diffuse intrinsic brain stem glioma. Of the ten patients who were evaluable, two achieved complete tumor response, three had partial tumor response, three had stable disease, and two had progressive disease. Patients ranged in age from 4 to 29 years. Treatment with escalating intravenous bolus injections of antineoplastons A10 and AS2-1 continued for 6 months. The average dose of A10 was 11.3 g/kg daily, and the average dose of AS2-1 was 0.4 g/kg daily."
3. I read that Burzynski charges hundreds of thousands of dollars for his Antineoplaston treatment. +
Not true. Up until January 2013, The Burzynski Clinic gave away the medicine itself for free, but charged for other services. The medicine costs the Burzynski Clinic $12,000 per month per patient to give it away for free. The Burzynski Clinic did, however, charge for the services that surround the therapy. The initial upfront cost of Antineoplaston treatment was around $20,000 for the first month, and $7,500 per month after the first month. This left the Burzynski Clinic & Research Institute with a $41,500 annual loss per patient treated—annually.
*Antineoplaston therapy is not to be confused with Burzynski's "personalized gene-targeted therapy" - for more on this, watch "Burzynski, Part II".
Most insurance companies do not cover any costs to the patient, although some have done so if the patient is diligent enough with their insurance company.
Proof that The Burzynski Clinic does not yet profit from this therapy can be found by reading The Burzynski Research Institute's Annual 10K Filings for its publicly traded "BZYR" stock: "The Company [Burzynski Reseach Inc] had net losses of approximately $5,031,000 and $4,831,000 for the fiscal years ended February 29, 2011 and 2010, respectively."
5. Does Dr. Burzynski currently use animal or human urine to treat cancer? +
Absolutely not. In 1967, after obtaining his medical degree and while completing his PhD in biochemistry, Dr. Burzynski discovered a strain of peptides in human blood and urine that had never before been recorded in biomedical research.As Dr. Julian Whitaker stated in the film, "discovering something in the urine [and blood] at that time, that had never been discovered before—is like finding a whole bunch of new islands ten miles off the coast of Miami, it came as a big surprise." Dr. Burzynski had no idea what this discovery meant at the time. However, he and his colleagues were extremely excited about this new discovery, and he continued to explore it. After testing the human blood of various different sexes, races, and ages of people—he found that these newly discovered peptides were either absent or revealed a very low count within the blood of those individuals with cancer. He eventually found that this peptide count was virtually identical in both human blood and human urine.
Dr. Burzynski simply hypothesized—if he could simply extract these peptides from healthy donors, and administer these peptides to people with cancer, perhaps it would be helpful in treating the disease. Upon this initial exploration, he discovered that extracting the amount of peptides from healthy human blood was very laborious as the amount of blood needed to obtain a necessary amount of peptides far exceeded the amount of blood reasonably available.
Upon this realization, he began extracting these peptides from human urine, since it was far easier to obtain large amounts of healthy human urine vs. healthy human blood. Dr. Burzynski began setting up collection containers at state parks, religious institutions, and even prisons.
As for animal urine, it seems some of the members of the press who reviewed this documentary such as The Village Voice,Time Out New York, and the New York Post either did not pay any attention, didn't bother to watch the film at all, or they maliciously lied about the contents of the film. (The Village Voice and Time Out New York have since edited their reviews online to exclude the "animal urine" inaccuracy, but the New York Post still stands behind this glaring inaccuracy).
The chemicals that are used to enable your body to produce these peptides that make up the active ingredients for Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski's patented, Antineoplastons are: Antineoplaston AS2-1: Phenylacetlglutamine, Phenylacetate Antineoplaston A10: Phenylacetylisoglutamine
Anyone today who states that Dr. Burzynski currently uses urine of any sort in the treatment of human cancers is either (a) lacking the necessary resources or motivation to investigate this story thoroughly (b) is very confused by the difference between the initial discovery in 1967 vs. how his operation has been running since the 1980's up until today. Or, sadly... (c) is intentionally lying.
If you are currently a client of Aetna insurance, or are simply curious, it's important to note that if you visit their website and search for "Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski" or "Antineoplastons" you will find that they state: "Aetna considers antineoplaston therapy (auto-urine therapy)...". "Auto-urine therapy" is the practice of urinating into a cup, and drinking it. This is one of the finest examples of either careless research, or malicious slander by the medical establishment. If urinating into a cup and drinking it was a method for treating any disease, why would one need a doctor to perform this treatment? Or better yet, why would someone need an insurance company to cover such a treatment? Or even better, why would someone want to be insured by a company that is incapable of accurately documenting the simplest of scientific data within it's literature?
6. What was the outcome of the duplicate patents? +
"It seems the entire criminal indictment was geared toward placing Dr. Burzynski in prison so he could not defend himself against the criminal theft of part of his discovery (AS2-1). While they did manage to patent PA (phenylacetate) which Dr Burzynski never patented, it also included PAG (phenylacetylglutamine) which was patented previously by Burzynski—however, his AS2-1 patents include both chemicals. Since Dr. Burzynski is a free man now, and even though the 'copy cat' NIH patents were approved, Burzynski can't really successfully sue the NIH or Elan until they actually 'act' on those patents by manufacturing and selling the substance. Right now, the only thing Burzynski can do is to ask the patent office for re-examination of the NIH patents. Frankly, Dr. Burzynski has spent enough time fighting, he just wants to put this behind him and continue developing his medicine and treating cancer patients."
Dr. Burzynski can't exactly walk in the front door asking the Department of Health and Human Services for the approval of his discovery for public use, while simultaneously knocking on their back door with a criminal indictment.
7. What is the story with all the anti-Burzynski bloggers? +
First, watch this TEDx lecture:
"What frightens the establishment about Antineoplastons, has nothing to do with some guy in Texas who invented them—based on some peptide-based extract. It's about their loss of control and authority over a highly profitable share of the market that they've controlled since The War On Cancer was enacted."
Eric Merola Director: Burzynski: Cancer Is Serious Business Film Serious
The goal is to inject as much noise as possible to keep the public from deciphering the true signal.
The most recent example of Astroturfing in the news was exposed in an August 9, 2015 New York Times article titled “Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets”. The article explains how Coca-Cola (in response to a 25% decrease in sales the last two decades due to a decline in health for consumers) created a non-profit called “Global Energy Balance Network” and has placed millions of dollars into this non-profit for the goal of spreading positive pro-Coca-Cola propaganda trying to debunk the obesity and Type 2 diabetes health hazards from consuming Coca-Cola. The rhetoric is all the same, claiming “science-based” data, when in reality the data is the farthest from “science-based” at all.
Creating a fake grassroots organization to push an agenda of protecting an organization’s bottom line has proven to be one of the most effective forms of propaganda in our modern times. The average joe doesn’t know the difference between a propaganda campaign and a legitimate scientific study.
Another example of a past famous Astroturf campaign, is when health advocates began winning legislation to raise taxes and increase regulation of smoking in the USA—Phillip Morris, Burson-Marrsteller, and other tobacco interests created the "National Smokers Alliance" (NSA) in 1993. The NSA and other tobacco interests initiated an aggressive public relations campaign from 1994-1999 in an effort to exaggerate the appearance of grassroots support for smoker's rights.
The anti-Burzynski/Antineoplastons group who ironically call themselves "The Skeptics" work the same way. Some are paid by third party interest groups, that appear to be unrelated to the industry itself, in an effort to destroy or at least stall the progress of Antineoplastons. (They aren’t exclusively against Antineoplastons, they go after anything that isn’t invented, packaged, and sold by the pharmaceutical industry). The rest operate under tight dogmatic "groupthink" behaviors, and blindly follow the paid ones, having no real idea of what they are writing and publishing due their weak intellectual vulnerability to desperately want to be accepted by the larger “paid” group. It’s a very intelligent and effective way to go about spreading disinformation in a world where many naive and vulnerable people want to not believe these activities occur, so they seek a google search to reinforce their core belief system—regardless if what they find relates to the truth or not. Just how right-wing groups prefer right-wing publications, left-wing groups prefer left-wing publications, and so on.
*If you read any of these "Anti-Burzynski" blogs you will notice their rhetoric is based on rabid hateful contention, resorting to character attacks and ad hominem attacks, while completely avoiding the facts themselves. Those who believe the unsubstantiated statements written in their blogs are their target audience. These very same people are the so-called "editors" who gate-keep the “Burzynski” Wikipedia page, then write their own blogs as "sources" to the very same unsubstantiated statements placed within the Wikipedia page.
There is little hope of changing the minds of these groupthink individuals, because they are not “science-based” individuals searching for the truth, and we wouldn't recommend wasting your time with them trying to convince them of the proven facts before them. Groupthinkers have been a big part of the human culture since the beginning of time.
Because it is difficult to decipher who is an Astroturf Group and who is a well-meaning journalist, sometimes they are able to influence vulnerable members of the mainstream press. These same bloggers recently manipulated Liz Szabo of USA TODAY (in Nov. 2013) and worked together to create one of the most unsubstantiated and biased articles on Burzynski to date.
What are they so afraid of?
You will notice they do not attack other similar documentary projects the same way they attack this one. The reason being, most other so-called “alternative cancer therapies” do not stand a chance of actually reaching FDA approval and changing the paradigm of cancer therapy like “Antineoplastons” do. It’s a genuine threat that scares them to the core.
The reality is, if Antineoplastons were placed on the market for any type of cancer—anyone would be able to gain access to it under the FDA's "Off label" clause. This would be permanently and detrimentally damaging to the cancer industry, as most any cancer patient who has experienced a failed surgery, or has an inoperable cancer would inevitably choose Antineoplastons over conventional toxic therapy, simply for quality of life issues. Also, since the patents on Antineoplastons have been around for a long time, they would only hold a 7-year exclusive patent upon reaching market before becoming a generic drug (like most antibiotics). Even if a member of PhRMA were to purchase Antineoplastons for distribution, it would destroy their company along with all other competing companies, upon the medicines reaching "generic status".
The industry also profits greatly from all the anti-inflammatory medications, anti-nausea medications, anti-depressants, and more that are given as a standard to many cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. The issue of Antineoplastons is merely a market issue, not a scientific one. Creating an aggressive Astroturf campaign is one of the final stages of defense when an industry is trying to preserve a monopolistic advantage over the market.
A little bit of advice:
Overall, you need to be able to think for yourself. Question everything, including us and this film. Feel free to verify all sources used for this film for yourself via the Sourced Transcript [link]. You will notice the Astroturf campaign related to the "anti-Burzynski bloggers" refuse to do that, they instead engage in ad hominem attacks to avoid the truth presented in this project. These Astroturf bloggers have an agenda, and are not open to any rational discourse whatsoever.
Our society is increasingly built on wars of information and disinformation. The fact that most people will basically believe anything they are told without bothering to find out if what they are told is true or not—makes them for vulnerable prey, especially when they are dying of cancer. The writers of the "anti-Burzynski" bloggers know this—and take full advantage of this. That is the entire goal of an Astroturf campaign.
Next time you read an article from ironically titled blogs like “Science Based Medicine” or “Science Blogs” take the time to actually “fact-check” what they are writing, and you will begin to see their house of cards for what it is.
8. Is it true that Eric Merola's cousin, Domenica Prescott, was treated with Antineoplastons? +
Yes, it is true. Shortly after the original documentary was released in 2010, Domenica was diagnosed with a Glioblastoma Multiforme brain tumor. Even though Eric Merola had been investigating Antineoplastons and Burzynski since 2007, and even though the film was available to be seen at the time her her diagnosis, the remainder of the family wasn't easily convinced that trying anything "alternative" would be a good idea for Domenica. After Domenica underwent 2 surgeries, a full round of chemotherapy (Temodar) and over 6 weeks of radiation—all of which failed her, Domenica began Antineoplaston therapy (ANP) in early 2011. After only 8 weeks of ANP therapy, her tumor decreased in size by nearly 30%. A few weeks later, Domenica died of a fatal seizure—where she suffered massive head injuries and excessive bleeding. By the time Domenica's father found her on the bathroom floor, it was too late to save her. Seizures are very common with inoperable brain tumors like a Glioblastoma or Anaplastic Astrocytoma—in fact, that is usually how people discover that have a brain tumor in the first place. While this is extraordinarily sad, since Domenica did not die of her cancer being uncontrolled—but instead one of the common side effects of this tumor type—all while she was one of the lucky ones where ANP was showing efficacy. Many paid groupthink "Astroturfing" bloggers (people who have never met Mr. Merola or Domenica Prescott—who identify themselves as "The Skeptics") ignore this reality—and wrongfully write and blog that Domenica died because Antineoplastons were unable to control her cancer.
9. What inspired Eric Merola to make this documentary? +
Chapter 1 of 10 (sourced transcript) fact check this project for yourself.
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Chapter 2 of 10 (sourced transcript) fact check this project for yourself. 
Chapter 3 of 10 (sourced transcript) fact check this project for yourself. 
Chapter 4 of 10 (sourced transcript) fact check this project for yourself. 
Chapter 5 of 10 - fact check this project for yourself. 
Chapter 6 of 10 (sourced transcript) fact check this project for yourself.