August 2016 saw the end of arguments in the administrative hearing following disturbing allegations by the Texas Medical Board about Stanislaw Burzynski’s Houston cancer clinic. Burzynski, the discoverer, manufacturer, sole U.S. prescriber, and sole U.S. dispenser of a cancer treatment he calls “antineoplastons,” has been treating patients with his unproven therapy for forty years. For the past two decades, Burzynski has administered his drug under the auspices of dozens of FDA-approved clinical trials, none of which has been able to answer whether or not antineoplastons are effective. Participation in the trials, which are generally not covered by insurance, can cost patients hundreds of thousands of dollars. (See “The Burzynski Battles: Four Decades of Unproven Cancer Cure Claims,” SI, March/April 2014.)
A complaint was filed in December 2013 by the Texas Medical Board following an FDA investigation, which found the clinical trials in a breathtakingly poor state. The original complaint was expanded to some 200 pages of allegations in July of 2014, though they have since been pared down for concision. The Board staff alleged that Burzynski failed to meet the standard of care with nontherapeutic prescribing, abetted the practice of medicine by unlicensed personnel, denied patients informed consent, failed to disclose relevant pharmacy and lab ownership interests to patients, billed improperly and demanded retainers, practiced deceptive marketing, committed a host of failures to protect patients, kept inadequate records, and failed to adhere to protocols in his clinical trials.