I saw director Eric Merola’s new documentary Burzynski: Cancer is Serious Business, Part II. I wish I could take the film as seriously as I take the lives and livelihoods of cancer patients.

Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski operates the Burzynski Clinic, a cancer treatment center in Houston, Texas. Dr. Burzynski claims to have discovered a deficiency of peptides he calls “antineoplastons” in many cancer-afflicted people. Since the mid-’90s, he’s conducted a series of clinical trials hoping to cure cancer by administering these antineoplastons to patients.

Many doctors, scientists, and public health advocates have criticized Dr. Burzynski for not publishing any randomized, controlled trial results in peer-reviewed medical journals. The FDA admonished the Burzynski Clinic for advertising its unproven therapies as effective cancer cures. Antineoplaston treatments are also very expensive, often costing patients $7,000 to $9,500 per month for several months of therapy.

Burzynski: Cancer is Serious Business, Part II (hereafter abbreviated to Burzynski II) takes a three-pronged approach to defending the clinic and its methods. First, Merola interviews several cancer victims who seem to have come away from the Burzynski Clinic with positive results after mainstream oncologists told them they had only weeks or months to live. Second, Burzynski II blames Dr. Burzynski’s inability to establish a foothold for his experimental treatments in the medical establishment on pharmaceutical companies who have taken over the FDA. According to the film, the FDA is a corrupt organization willing to suppress any breakthrough cancer treatment that may be less profitable than established drugs, surgeries, chemotherapies, and radiation. Finally, Merola paints the clinic’s public and private critics as an organized cabal of evil schemers who delight in the deaths of cancer victims.

Following my earlier attention to this forum, I am continuing a run-down of the “Parapsychology and alternative medicine forum,” eight of which have been sifted through, here are the next six…

Since the TESTS (there’s not a single test) are created and agreed upon by both the applicant and JREF – yes, I think it’s fair. There are many other games in town also. Many ways that even the MDC could be dealt with, with the help of a third party group – media would be a likely source that gets to publicize the event/effort. You can whine and complain all you want. It does not change the basic concept that there are many out there making wild paranormal claims that cannot support the claims they make under any kind of controlled conditions. There are also claims made out there that are impossible to detect one way or another without large statistical data pools – the MDC is not looking for or speaking of those kinds of claims.

Okay, what’s “not fair” about the MDC, I ask? The rules are carefully laid out, having been revised several times over the years with the input of legal advice to satisfy legitimate complaints, and yet I continue to hear this mantra. Is it “unfair” to require evidence rather than only claims? Should the JREF accept anecdotes as well, all the “Goldilocks & the Three Bears” material? Let’s get a discussion going, folks! I can tell you, up front, that we answer both those questions with “No!” So just what is “not fair” here? Do I hear more crickets…?

In the sometimes exhausting daily slog of fighting relentless nonsense belief, it is good to just stop and acknowledge the good work skeptics can accomplish. Skepticism is motivated not just by a desire to be right but to do good, to help people avoid the harm of unfounded belief. Tim Crookham of North Texas Skeptics recently had a minor victory as a “citizen skeptic” in this regard. Here’s Tim giving the details:

On Saturday, March 9th, I went down to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.  It's a new museum that opened in Dallas in December of 2012.

At the end of my visit I stopped by the gift shop.  While looking around the museum store, I saw a necklace in a box with the words "Titanium Sport Energy Necklace" printed on the box.  It looked like the braided necklaces I’ve seen baseball players wear.  I picked up the box and the description on the back read something like "works with your body's energy field to increase energy and promote well-being."  It also had things like "good for those with back pain and poor circulation".  I've seen enough Randi talks, Penn & Teller B.S. shows, and Richard Saunders clips that the skeptical alarm bells were ringing loud and clear.  I was both shocked and disappointed that this found its way into the museum.  I tried to find an employee to tell, but the store was packed. 

I went back to the store the next day and talked to an employee and the store manager and told them this necklace was pseudoscience and doesn’t belong in the museum.  They told me that the buyers for the store are in California and that they would pass along my concern.  They were nice, but didn't seem to understand that this was not a good thing to have in a science museum.  I went home and drafted an email to the museum in which I included some web links such as one from sciencebasedmedicine.org regarding the unscientific nature of the product.  I remembered Eugenie Scott saying that it's important to copy knowledgeable people and organizations on emails and the two that came to my mind were the JREF and the Skeptic Society.  I also copied the museum's PR director since the email address for the museum was just a generic info@ email address.  Below is my email: 

Dear Perot Museum Representative,    

I came across some alternative medicine pseudoscience being sold at the Perot Museum Store and was shocked and disappointed.  The item that caught my attention was the Titanium Sport Energy Necklace.  This item claims to work with the body's energy field to increase energy and promote health.  There is no scientific evidence to support those claims.  As a member of the Perot Museum, I request that Titanium Sport Energy Necklace and any other pseudoscientific merchandise be removed from the museum store so as to align the store with the scientific mission of the rest of the museum.  Below are articles regarding energy necklaces and their lack of scientific support. 

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/pseudoscience-sells/#more-15791 

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500368_162-4525964.html 

http://www.wired.com/playbook/2010/11/baseball-phiten-neckwear/all/  

Regards, 

Tim Crookham, Perot Museum Member  

The next day I received a formal response from the museum saying, "Thank you so much for your input. We will coordinate with the Museum Shop to effect removal as soon as possible." Yay for science and skepticism!!!

I’ll second that, Tim. Score one for the good guys.

Do you have any other examples of how simple acts of skeptical activism at the local level have led to such positive change? Let us know in the comments below.

D.J. Grothe is president of the James Randi Educational Foundation.

Here is a rundown of the top stories in pseudoscience, the mysterious and questionable claims from the past week courtesy of Doubtful News

Welcome to the week in the strange, the bizarre and the unnatural, as Jack Palance used to say at the beginning of Ripley's Believe it or Not TV show. You may wonder how people believe this stuff…

Actor Russell Crowe made headlines this week not for his new movie but for putting up a You Tube video that supposedly recorded a UFO. It was solved within a day; not a UFO.

A strange flying thing causes concern over New York's JFK airport.