Interview with Dr. Burzynski (M.D., Ph.D. Biochemistry)

[Guest guest]

http://www.cancerinform.org/aburzinterview.html

 

 

Interview with Dr. Burzynski (M.D., Ph.D. Biochemistry)

Interviewer: Gavin Phillips ©

Distributed 12.05.03

 

Anyone may post this interview to their website, as long as it remains

unaltered and freely available. Please place a link back to this webpage.

 

Thank you. Gavin.

 

This telephone interview with Dr. Burzynski was held in December 2002. The

purpose of the interview is to inform people about Dr. Burzynski’s cancer

treatment, Antineoplastons. It will be circulated for free on the Internet. I

have no affiliations with Dr. Burzynski either personally or professionally.

 

Hello Dr. Burzynski. I would like to thank you for taking the time to inform

people about your cancer treatment Antineoplastons, and your experiences in the

area of cancer over the last 25 years.

 

Is it true that you were the youngest person in Poland in the 20th century to

earn two advanced degrees, an M.D. (Medical Doctor) and Ph.D. in biochemistry at

only 24?

 

I’m not sure if I was the youngest, I was among the youngest. In Poland, its 15

years average (Gavin. For a Ph.D.) after you receive an M.D.

 

What motivated you to come to the United States? When did you arrive here?

 

Well basically freedom. You see, I could easily stay in Poland. I was a

prominent student, one of the best they ever had in medical school and certainly

if I would become a member of the Communist Party I would accomplish a lot in

Poland. But I didn’t want to be a Communist and after I declared, “forget it,

I’m not going to be a Communist”, they persecuted me. So, practically, it would

not be possible for me to do any research in Poland. I arrived in the United

States on the 4th of September 1970.

 

You began working at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston?

 

I was not employed for 6 weeks, then I got the appointment at Baylor in the

position of research assistant. A couple of years later I became Assistant

Professor.

 

I have read that your cancer research was motivated by your observation of a

cancer patient in Poland that was missing a particular peptide in their blood,

is this correct?

 

Well Yes. First I discovered some peptide fractions in blood and then I was

trying to determine their significance. This means that I was screening the

blood samples from people who suffer from various illnesses, among them cancer

patients. I found some remarkable changes in concentration of these Peptides in

cancer patients. Basically there was a great deficiency of these Peptide

fractions in the blood of cancer patients.

 

What are peptides and how did your research develop from there to developing

Antineoplastons?

 

Peptides are chains of Amino Acids, so if you put together 2 Amino Acids, you

have a Peptide.

 

You have said, " Cancer is really a disease of cells that are not programmed

correctly. Antineoplastons simply reprogram them so that they behave normally

again. "

 

They do, but we are not really interested in making normal cells out of cancer

cells. What we are interested in is correcting one basic difference between

cancer cells and normal cells, and this is the mortality of normal cells and the

immortality of cancer cells. Cancer cells are immortal. And if you change them

into mortal cells again they will die and the tumor will disappear.

 

I read a humorous part in Daniel Haley's chapter about you in his book,

" Politics in Medicine. " He says that initially you derived Antineoplastons from

your friends blood, but had to change because your friends stopped coming

around, is that correct?

 

Certainly it was difficult to obtain a lot of blood for the research. It was a

necessity to look for a source that is widely available. I realized from the

very beginning that once I use urine, my critics will use this against me; try

to just smear me, “That’s the doctor who is using urine to treat cancer.” But

there was no other way to do it.

 

There are plenty of ignorant remarks about your treatment because it used to be

derived from human urine. The process you use now does not involve collecting

human urine. Please describe the complete process you use.

 

Ever since 1980, we are using synthetic analogues of Antineoplastons, made in a

state-of-the art biomedical manufacturing facility. These have nothing to do

with urine or blood.

 

Would you describe Antineoplastons as natural?

 

They are natural of course, they exist in our body.

 

Your treatment does require a strong commitment from your patients as they must

be infused with Antineoplastons for many weeks or months, is that correct?

 

But most of our patients are taking oral formulations. I would say that perhaps

15% of our patients are taking intravenous infusions of Antineoplastons; the

rest take capsules or tablets.

 

The patients who have the most advanced type of cancer will require heavy

dosages. There is a limitation of how much medicine you can take by mouth. Fifty

or sixty tablets a day, that’s pretty much all you can take by mouth. But if you

give intravenous infusion you can deliver the equivalent of 3,000 tablets a day.

 

You went into private practice in 1977. How was this funded?

 

Well, I started private practice in 1973. It was not necessary for me to have

any funding, because I joined with other physicians.

 

Is it true that Dr. Mask at a hospital in Jacksboro, Texas ran your first human

clinical trial? What types of cancers did you treat? What were the results of

these trials?

 

I would not call it a clinical trial, because only two patients received initial

treatment. They were very advanced, close to death and unfortunately, both of

them died. But these cases were not lost because we found we can administer

Antineoplastons without having bad side effects.

 

What is the general side effect experienced by your patients when using

Antineoplastons? Does it damage the immune system as chemotherapy does?

 

We are not talking about one medicine; we tried 12 different pharmaceutical

formulations. Basically it depends what formulation we use, but when we give

them orally, we see practically no side effects at all. Patients may develop

skin rash, which may last for a day or two.

 

But, when we give large dosages intravenously, we have to watch fluid

balance…and electrolyte balance. We don’t see any delayed toxicity once the

treatment stops. Everything practically goes back to normal within say a day or

two. It does not even come close to the adverse reactions that you experience

with chemotherapy.

 

What is the cost today for a patient using your treatment in a pill form and do

insurance companies pay for it? *

 

Well basically, we do not charge patients for medicines, Antineoplastons are

given free of charge. What we are charging for are supplies, and we are charging

for standard services such as office visits, nursing services, Lab tests,

consultation, evaluation etc. And these services are priced the same way as the

average medical services, and they are covered by the insurance.

 

*(Gavin. Insurance companies will rarely pay for Antineoplastons, which is

considered an experimental treatment. It also depends on the type of insurance

plan someone may be on.)

 

So if a patient were using the pills, what would it normally cost per month.

 

About $2,000 a month.

 

Antineoplastons is most effective against brain cancer, is that correct?

 

Well, it’s not really correct. Because brain tumors are very difficult to treat,

we concentrate our efforts on the toughest type of cancers. Out of our clinical

trials, we have eight that came to the final point, which means they proved that

there is some efficacy, and six of these are in various types of brain tumors.

But there is another clinical trial, which deals with advanced colon cancer,

which also proved efficacy and another one with liver cancer. But we still need

to wait a little longer to have a larger number of patients treated and then

statistically find out if this is going to work.

 

Basically the treatment works when we have involvement of the gene, which can be

activated by Antineoplastons, and such genes, like gene p 53, are involved in

50% of all cancers. The treatment turns on gene p 53. So it has more to do with

what kind of gene the patient has in his cancer cell, rather than the type of

cancer.

 

Is there a special diet to follow when using your treatment?

 

Yes, since we are expecting there may be some changes in minerals, we usually

emphasize a diet that is relatively low in sodium. We treat every patient

individually. Every patient has a consultation with a dietary expert who tries

to individualize his diet

 

Is your treatment being used in any other countries?

 

Yes, we have people coming to us from all over the world. I think we can

probably count easily 70 to a 100 countries from which people are coming. But

the main effort is now in Japan, outside the US. In Japan there are 2 clinical

trials being conducted by Japanese doctors. Also, a group of doctors in Mexico

obtained approval from the FDA and Mexican government to do clinical trials.

 

Now I have several related questions about brain cancer in children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dustin Kunnari and Dr. Burzynski. Dustin is one of Dr. Burzynski’s great success

stories.

 

Dustin had brain surgery at 2 ½ years old. The surgery removed only 75% of the

tumor.

 

Dustin’s parents, Mariann and Jack, were told that Dustin would only live for 6

months. Chemotherapy and radiation may extend Dustin’s life slightly, but at a

very high cost in quality of life with very serious side effects.

 

Mariann and Jack decided to look into alternatives. They found out about

Antineoplastons and after only 6 weeks of intravenous treatment, Dustin’s MRI

showed he was cancer free.

 

 

 

One year later another tumor appeared on the MRI. By this time Dr. Burzynski had

developed a more concentrated form of Antineoplastons. After 5 months the tumor

was gone. Dustin has remained cancer free ever since and was taken off

Antineoplastons when he was 7. Dustin is 12 today.

 

 

About how many children suffer from brain cancer in the US each year?

 

The statistics are available for 1999. The new cases of brain tumors in children

were counted as 2,200. Now around 3,000, I would say.

 

Approximately what percentage of children is still alive after 5 years using

orthodox treatments for brain cancer?

 

It depends on the type of tumor and it’s location, some of the toughest are

those that are located in the brain stem. Up to 5 years, you have practically no

survival when you use the best treatment available, which is radiation therapy.

Chemotherapy usually doesn’t work for such patients. After 2 years, 7 %

survival. After 5 years, practically none.

 

 

 

 

 

Dustin, after brain surgery.

 

To further complicate matters, Dustin’s oncologist kept threatening his parents

with a court proceeding to take Dustin away and force him to take

Chemotherapy/Radiation treatment.

 

This continued for a year, even after Dustin’s success with Antineoplastons.

 

Please see the Burzynski Patients web site for more information,

http:// www.burzynskipatientgroup.org

 

You may also e-mail Mary Jo Siegel, the lady who runs the web site. Mary is also

a cancer survivor using Antineoplastons.

maryjo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it correct to say you have had very good results when treating brain cancer

in children?

 

Yes we have. I gave you the example of the toughest, which is located in the

brain stem. We get about 40% survival rates after two years. After 5 years at

the moment we have about 20% survival rate. The reason is that most of the

patients who come to us, have received prior heavy radiation therapy, or

chemotherapy. They usually die from complications from these treatments. Those

who survive the longest are patients who previously did not receive radiation

therapy or chemotherapy. The longest survivor in this category is now reaching

15 years from the time of diagnosis; and she’s in perfect health.

 

With the more common variety, which is aciotoma located outside the brain stem,

we get much, much better. We have 75% of patients who are objectively responding

to the treatment. This means that the tumor will disappear completely or will be

reduced by more than 50%.

 

This is another strong point. It’s extremely important. Children are usually

damaged for life after radiation therapy, when we can avoid it and bring them

back to life.

 

What criteria must parents of children with brain cancer meet before being able

to have their children treated by you?

 

Well, practically all of these brain tumors must be inoperable. This means that

it’s not possible to remove them with surgery. Except for one category, they

should have advanced disease. The tumor should have the size of more than 5 mm

in diameter and be located in a place that cannot be operated upon.

 

There is one category of these tumors, medulloblastoma, where the FDA requires

that the patients would receive prior standard treatment and fail before we can

accept them. In the rest of these children we can accept them without failure of

prior treatment.

 

 

 

Roy , a more recent patient of Dr. Burzynski’s.

 

Please see the Burzynski Patients web site for more information,

http:// www.burzynskipatientgroup.org

 

 

You may also e-mail Mary Jo Siegel, the lady who runs the web site. Mary is also

a cancer survivor using Antineoplastons.

maryjo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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