Comment Re:Are his customers happy? (Score 1) 515
People who sell "hopes" at high prices steal money from believers who can meet their price, and peace of mind from believers who can't.
People who sell "hopes" at high prices steal money from believers who can meet their price, and peace of mind from believers who can't.
The northwest passage has always been a viable trade route. Anyone who things otherwise has been listening to warmists spout off that we've never used it. I'll give you three guesses as to why Canada and Russia have so many ice breakers up there.
Always been viable? The first ship to successfully travel it from west to east took three years (1940-1942). And that wasn't even trying it out as a trade route.
If you want to live and work in a bog swarming with bugs, go for it.
The 600,000+ people living in Washington, DC don't seem to mind too much.
Some politicians are sufficiently toxic that I doubt the bugs would go after them.
In this case Burzynski apparently doesn't even have a proper trial protocol, and no credible statistics could result. He's also been at it for quite a long time (30+ years!), much longer than it should take to do some proper testing. Hence.... quack.
Look, you don't get to reverse the burden of proof on treatments, where we should accept any claims unless they've been disproven. There are far too many wacky claims to be able to use that approach, even if it was appropriate. If the proponents of any treatment want it to be labeled as genuine rather than quackery, then carry out proper trials and produce reputable publications. Choosing not to do so suggests that the proponents themselves know that it's quackery.
If someone wants to do testing on the effects of chewing a measured amount of certain roots -- go ahead. I suggest you not smear your submitted papers in goat blood, though, and be careful about dosages if you haven't isolated the compound.
Though maybe he's lying about not thinking lying is wrong.
Meanwhile, the UK government is currently looking into reforms to their rather chilling libel laws (burden of proof is reversed from the US laws, with the defendant having to prove the truth of their statements), so this set of threats and the attention it's getting is potentially helpful.
And then, once they're cured of the fatal disease, you can still sell them all of your other drugs!
Feel free to explain how electromagnetic therapy is supposed to do anything about that.
As for the "drug companies don't want a cure" argument -- if any company, drug or otherwise, could get their hands on a cure, they'd be over the moon with joy, thinking about the license to print money that they'd found. If a drug company really thought Burzynski was onto something, they'd try to buy him out, not supress him.
His "clinical studies" don't have the proper controls, which means that they cannot produce anything more than anecdotal results. At my university, the ethics board would not approve any type of experiments on human subjects in such a situation; potential for scientific advancement is required to justify any risk.
At best it's a fishing trip, not a scientific study.
And saying so shouldn't lead to libel threats and I-know-where-you-live intimidation attempts.
"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_