Burzynski

I think it’s time for me to say something on this subject. It is after all very closely related to my current… vocation (if one can call it that, being a PhD student still!) and impacting directly on some of my friends.

One of those friends is my co-host of our long-neglected podcast, Super Duper Woo-Fighting Duo (With Capes)! – Rhys Morgan.

Edit: even BoingBoing is on it this evening!

Background

Feel free to scroll down to ‘The Threats‘ and ‘Some Interesting Correspondence‘ sections if you know all this…

The subject is one Stanislaw Burzynski, based in Houston, Texas. He offers an experimental treatment (though to call it that is probably a bit generous) to cancer patients called “Antineoplaston Therapy”. These antineoplastons are claimed to be peptides (bits of protein – though they’re generally not, technically – see comment 11 for more) found in urine. When a difference between cancer patients’ and healthy individuals’ urine peptide profile was found, an assumption was made that cancer sufferers were lacking these protein chunks and therefore replacing them should be an effective cure. A list of his patents and publications can be found here. This NYT article is extensive and demonstrates the shocking wealth accumulated:

… the gross income of Dr. Burzynski and an institute he runs was $40 million from 1988 to 1994… he took home $1 million a year.

However, the theory itself is dodgy at best and years of tests have not convinced the worldwide medical community. Yet Burzynski continues to run his clinic, charging people tens of thousands of dollars with promises of efficacy and hopes of being cured – even if the patients have been given a few months or years by doctors elsewhere.

Edit: this is shocking – records show Burzynski threw random chemotherapy cocktails at people (those saying chemo kills; well, he certainly didn’t seem to do his research on it), failed to disclose pharmacy ownership conflict of interest, did not alter treatment despite scans showing no improvement... Texas Medical Board might finally be doing their job.

Also see here for his public record – makes for a disturbing read. Plus, they also have a range of ‘healthcare products’, unsurprisingly – glorious website full of scibabble nonsense words and indeed typos.

What’s happening?

Now, more and more people are starting to criticise this man and his practice and the tactics we have seen so many times before – legal threats, bullying, hoping to silence – are coming thick and fast. There is now a petition asking the clinic to release a concise, publicly-available review of all the clinical trial data it has accumulated over the years.

The turning point was this uncritical article in the Observer about a stricken family with a little girl suffering from a serious brain cancer. The family details their emotional struggle – one which many of us will sympathise wholeheartedly with – and the resulting search for hope, their sights landing on Burzynski’s clinic.

Peter Kay offered to do some benefit gigs to help towards their $200,000 funds goal for this ‘treatment’. These were on the 24th and 25th November last week, and tonight the Comedy Store in Manchester is hosting another with various acts. I also saw a tweet reporting that BBC 6 Music had run an advert for one of the money-raising events.

Many immensely generous donations have been made. It is heartening to see human kindness at work – but so very upsetting given the circumstances.

Here are some e-mails regarding the article that were not published (or at least, not fully) by the Observer – a lot of people are concerned by their endorsement and the lack of provision to challenge what was written. Obviously this is a sensitive issue, around a grief-stricken family, but many others will continue to suffer if this is not properly addressed.

Publicity around this man and his dealings has soared today, as a result of retweets from Stephen Fry, Ben Goldacre, Dave Gorman, Dara O’Briain and continuing valuable support from others such as Simon Singh.

Another friend of mine, Kat, has written a fantastic post for the Cancer Research UK blog – this is serious stuff and those of us who have watched people deal with such a terminal illness do not want to see them swindled, spending their hard-earned savings lining fraudsters’ pockets and losing precious time with their families and loved ones.

Some people who have been directly affected have set up their own website in the hope that others won’t follow in their footsteps: http://www.burzynskiscam.com/

The threats

So, regarding the bullying I mentioned. Rhys wrote a post in mid-August detailing his views of Burzynski, backed up with accounts of past occurrences – including this case:

“Dr. Stanislaw R. Burzynski, had defrauded the plaintiff and violated the terms of the health plan.
We agree that the defendant may not trick the plaintiff into paying for an unlawful, unapproved drug. We AFFIRM.”

and how the 30+ years of trials have yielded very little to support the claims made. Check out Quackwatch from way back in 1998 for more.

He had to take the post down at the beginning of this month but he has now published all the correspondence here – please do have a read (also on Google+, and I’m pasting it below (click ‘read more’ if you’re on the blog homepage and can’t see it) because his site keeps going down!).

His silence was broken because Andy Lewis started receiving his own threats after he wrote his criticism of the Observer article, Kay’s unquestioning support and the issue as a whole. Another here for your amusement. Also read more from The 21st Floor, David Gorski, scienceblogs (good comments), Peter Harrison and Zen Buffy – Josephine Jones is compiling a kind of I Am Spartacus! list for posts on the subject.

Some interesting correspondence

A friend sent me this link to a September 2004 letter to the editor of the academic journal Integrative Cancer Therapies (who have published quite a few of Burzynski’s papers) from a researcher by the name of Andrew Vickers. He takes issue with an article by Burzynski published in the journal in March of that year:

Burzynski SR. The present state of antineoplaston research.
Integr Cancer Ther. 2004;3(1):47-58.

I’ve downloaded and saved this paper if anyone wants a copy, get in touch on Twitter or in the comments so I can e-mail you.

The article cites 73 papers and articles, 38 of which have Burzynski as first author, and a further 10 have his name as one of the first 3 authors – probably he’s in the list somewhere with the rest – plus a couple have one Burzynski B. (presumably a family member). If you search his name in PubMed, 45 articles are returned.

—

Moving on to Andrew’s letter regarding the paper cited above, it’s reasonably short – again if you want the PDF, get in touch, but I’ll paste it here with minimal commentary at intervals.

“Editor:

I read with interest Dr Burzynski’s recent review of research on his technique for treating cancer.1 I have several serious concerns about the scientific quality of his article. The first results presented by Burzynski concern glioma. It is claimed that 7% of 62 evaluable patients had a minor response. However, no fraction of 62 rounds to 7%: 4/62 is 6.45%, 8/62 is 8%*. There is also no fraction of 62 that rounds to 36%, the proportion given for objective response.”

So we can be fairly confident that he’s fiddling numbers from the get-go? * It has been pointed out that this is a mistake: 5/62 is 8%. Presume this is just a typo on Andrew’s part – the point remains.

“Burzynski goes on to report preliminary results of clinical trials on colon cancer conducted at the University of Kurume Medical School in Japan. He claims that the “survival rate of more than 5 years” on antineoplastons was 91% compared to 39% in the chemotherapy control group. Burzynski states that “the study was randomized and compared the results of treatment in 19 patients on . . . chemotherapeutics and antineoplastons [with] 56 patients who received . . . chemotherapy alone.” Yet the reference cited (reference 68) is to a case study. Moreover, a 91% survival rate for 19 patients is impossible, as it corresponds to 17.3 patients.”

 Again some weird numbers coming out, and reference to an article claimed to be about a trial, yet is in fact a study of one case.

“Burzynski also reports a single-arm study of 16 patients with liver cancer in which it is claimed that patients had longer recurrence-free intervals on antineoplastons than off. The citations supporting the claim include a case report and a lab study. Furthermore, the figure illustrating the results shows “time to recurrence [statistic not stated] in patients given antineoplaston AS2-1 after standard chemotherapy compared to control group.” This is despite there being no control group in the study.”

Again no reference to actual trials, but to a single case and lab-based work. Plus a lack of controls (so no valid comparison/conclusion can be made).

“There are several other serious shortcomings of the article. Survival data are presented in bar charts: the techniques for presentation of survival data (such as Kaplan Meier) are well established and were developed specially to deal with issues such as censored data; bar charts are unable to incorporate these features of survival data and are therefore considered inappropriate. No number presented in the text (eg, proportion surviving 5 years) is presented with a measure of uncertainty, such as a standard error or confidence intervals.”

 No reputable clinical study would discuss survival using bar charts. Kaplan-Meier curves have been standard for years. Also he’s presented no statistics for confidence in these numbers.

“I am aware that Burzynski is presenting preliminary data, and I have made no comment or criticism concerning the failure to present inference statistics. Nonetheless, even for a preliminary report, I see no excuse for the use of idiosyncratic and highly inappropriate techniques of presentation, failure to incorporate basic statistical estimates, citation of studies in support of statements when those studies have no bearing on the referring statements, inclusion of obvious mathematical errors, and citation of data for nonexistent control groups.”

He cites Burzynski’s study, to which he is referring, at the end of the letter.

—

Burzynski then wrote a reply! In the same month as Vickers’ letter was published (emphasis mine):

Reply to Vickers 

“Editor:

After reading Andrew Vickers’s letter, one may wonder  why the Assistant Attending Research Methodologist  of the prestigious Memorial Sloan-Kettering  Cancer Center would argue about 0.5% of minor  response and statistics that were not required, while  entirely missing the big picture: a proof of concept  and data on efficacy of antineoplastons in Food and  Drug Administration–supervised clinical trials involving  more than 200 patients. Vickers’s many arguments about unimportant issues obscure the realities of the data that we have presented, which indicate remarkable results in cancers for which chemotherapy and radiation are ineffective.

Publication of my article titled “The Present State of Antineoplaston Research (1)”1 occurred at the same time (March 2004) as the printing of Vickers’s article, “Alternative Cancer Cure: Unproven or Disproven?”  in the March 2004 issue of CA: A Cancer Journal  for Clinicians. In his review article in CA Cancer J Clin, he made reference to only 2 articles on antineoplastons published since 1987. He failed to cite more than 40 of our publications and approximately 300 publications by other authors on antineoplastons and their derivatives. In his letter to the editors, Vickers criticizes reporting of results of the clinical studies conducted at our clinic and also at the University of Kurume Medical School in Japan.  The criticism of our report concerns rounding out percentages to the nearest number. That is why we reported 36% of objective responses instead of 35.5% and 7% of minor responses instead of 6.5%. In the article, I also presented the actual number of patients, allowing readers to make their own calculation.

Vickers objects to my presentation of survival data in bar charts. This objection is unjustified in the context of my review. Kaplan-Meier survival probability estimates are more appropriate for detailed reports describing individual clinical trials. In my review, which describes numerous past clinical trials, there was not enough space for these estimates. Also, one should not compare apples and oranges. We can easily produce Kaplan-Meier diagrams for our studies, but, unfortunately, they were not published for comparison studies, such as Prados et al.2 If Vickers reads our recent articles describing survival in antineoplaston clinical trials, published in peer-reviewed journals between 1999 and 2003, he will indeed find Kaplan-  Meier data. Our data on the proportion of patients surviving 5 years contain no uncertainty, since they are  not estimated but true survivals. The patients are either dead or alive after 5 years. No standard error or confidence intervals are necessary.

The final reports on the studies conducted at the University of Kurume had not yet been published at the time my manuscript was submitted to Integrative Cancer Therapies. Japanese researchers have published preliminary reports and case reports; these were listed as references. The Kurume researchers presented the summary of research data directly to me with permission for publication. I described these as “preliminary results” on page 55 without making any changes.  Those researchers are now preparing the final reports for publication.

In conclusion, I believe I have sufficiently answered  Vickers’s questions regarding the clinical trials conducted  by our clinic. Further details will be provided in a number of articles that are now in preparation for  publication.”

Make of that what you will – no further correspondence noted.

—

I’ll just paste the acknowledgements from the paper in question here as these names may be of interest, and comment that the figures are generally of very poor quality, for a 2004 paper:

The studies were sponsored by the Burzynski Research Institute and supervised by its Institutional Review Board (IRB). The membership of the IRB was in agreement with the FDA. The authors [just Burzynski, for the record] express their appreciation to Lucy Rorke, MD, professor of pathology and neurology, University of Pennsylvania, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, for review of pathology slides; Dieter Schellinger, MD, professor of radiology, chief, section of neuro-radiology, Georgetown Hospital, Washington, DC; and Joshua Pleasure, MD, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, for evaluation of MRI and PET scans.

The following physicians at the Burzynski Clinic (BC) participated in the study: Robert I. Lewy, Robert Weaver, Marc Bestak, Maxwell Axler, Alonzo Peters, Benjamin Saling, Barbara Burzynski, Tomasz Janicki, Jaroslaw Paszkowiak, Vishnu Alapati, Dmitri Davydov, Vsevolod Dolgopolov, Barbara Drynia, Andrzej Himmel, Wojciech Iwanowski, Gabor Jurida, Mohammad Khan, Eva Kubove, Grace Ormstein, Joseph Nguyen, Mohammed Radmard, Basel Salhoot, Barbara Szymkowski, and Marek Walczak.

The following senior scientists (PhD), microbiologists, pharmacists, and engineers at the BRI and the BC participated in basic research: Robert Waldbillig, Majciej Klimczak, Elwira Ilkowska-Musial, Leszek Musial, Anna Baranowska, Piotr Kuligowski, Ryszard Madry, Donat Manek, Mike Mokrzycki, Andrzej Wieczorek, Anna Wisniewska, Kris Wisniewski, Irma Witkowska, Dennis Wright, and Iwona Zapedowski.

—

I’ll paste Rhys’ post below in case his site is down.

SDWFD: Episodes 3-6!

Hello from Super-Duper Woo-Fighting Duo!

You can listen to Episode 3 in which we read Chapter 1 of Jim Humble’s book, and Episode 4 covering Chapter 2 (guest hosted by Hayley Stevens of Righteous Indignation, because I was away! Thanks for filling in, Hayley).

Also check out Rhys on the One Show! Bringing ‘bleachgate’ to the masses.

In Episode 5 (also on iTunes!) we’re taking a break from Jim’s book (back to Chapter 3 in Episode 6!) to look at some other woo;

• Cosmetic Acupuncture
• Annie Cap (therapist/telesales extraordinaire)
  
• Colloidal Silver
• Live blood imaging (guest report from @JoBrodie)
• Pumpkin Pie for pudding
  

Enjoy!

Cosmetic Acupuncture

Rhys reads from the leaflet he picked up in one of the two Health with Herbs stores in Cardiff, shown below [when he's scanned & sent it to me!].

I had a look at this website cosmetic acupuncture and their ‘About’ section (I have italicised for emphasis):

Acupuncture has been around for thousands of years and although relatively new to the west the Chinese have been using points on the face to combat the signs of ageing and to help with various skin conditions for many years. It was in use as early as the Sung Dynasty (960AD – 1070AD) when the Empress and Emperor’s concubines received cosmetic acupuncture.

A cosmetic acupuncture treatment will obviously concentrate on points and muscles of the face in order to improve elasticity of the skin and general overall appearance. During the treatment the practitioner will also needle constitutional points on the patient’s legs, arms and body, these are the points that will help to balance and harmonise the patient’s inner elements.

Studies published in the International Journal of Clinical Acupuncture in 1996 showed that of 300 people who received Facial Acupuncture, 90% demonstrated marked results after only their first treatment. [I can't find this study; if anyone can, please send to superwooduo@gmail.com!]

Over the course of treatments the patient can not only expect to be looking more radiant and their skin revitalised, but they will also start to feel more at balance and happy in themselves. The Irish Times recently acclaimed* this treatment as:

“…a viable alternative to cosmetic surgery and the effects can run much deeper than simply improving appearances.”

When the patient feels more in control of their body, mind and spirit they can then start to address other issues in their lives. These may be things to do with exercise or lifestyle, or maybe they would like to stop smoking, or loose [sic] some weight. These are all things that we can achieve when we are in balance and feeling good about ourselves, once you start to feel like this, you will be surprised how much your self image improves. This can be achieved by cosmetic acupuncture bringing a person’s natural beauty to the surface.

* Here they fail to mention the closing line of said ‘acclaim’, which is:

“As I turned in that night, I looked expectantly in the mirror again, only to conclude that a brisk walk or even a swim would have left more of a glow on my face.”

Annie Cap

There is a street in my home town that has a very high turnover of shops; the rent is high, few succeed enough to stay there very long. One of the latest editions caught my eye with this window sign:

I picked up some leaflets from outside and went on with my day. Annie Cap has her own website which is worth a look, and her leaflet is [will be!] below.

Colloidal Silver

This is the wiki article we were looking at for a bit of background on colloidal silver. The link to argyria is well worth a look.

The main worry with this ‘therapy’ is its ability to interfere with the absorption of several drugs; so people on medication may be seriously harming themselves if they choose this alternative therapy at the same time.

Healthy Pumpkin Pie for Pudding

As a happy thanksgiving to our American friends & listeners, he’s a tasty pie recipe that apparently is super-healthy too!!

From naturalnews.com:

How to make the creme…

In a small work bowl of a food processor, place:

Cashew nuts (truly raw-unheated, hand-shelled) = 3-3/4-ounces (refer to notes)

Blend cashews into a nut butter.
Add to food processor:

Water = 6-tablespoons (refer to notes)

Maple syrup (pure, grade B) = 3-tablespoons

Vanilla (pure extract) = 1-teaspoon or equal amount vanilla bean powdered (the vanilla bean powdered is preferred)

Puree ingredients.
Add to food processor:

Psyllium husks powder (plantago ovata) = 2-teaspoons

Press psyllium into mixture. Puree and let creme stand for 10-15 minutes. After creme has thickened, puree again. Place creme atop the pie. Level out the creme. Voila! Cut pie into 8 large pieces or 16 small pieces.

Optional Garniture:

Pumpkin seeds (heirloom, unheated and organic) = 1-cup

Maple syrup (pure, grade B) = 2-tablespoons

Salt, cinnamon and ginger (dried, powdered) = 1/4-teaspoon of each

Place salt, cinnamon and ginger into a bowl and mix. Stir in maple syrup. Stir in pumpkin seeds. Sprinkle up to 1/2-cup spiced, sweet pumpkin seeds over crust then add filling. Top pie with creme. Over top of creme, sprinkle up to 1/2-cup spiced, sweet pumpkin seeds. This garniture adds more pumpkin sapor and a crunchy texture to pie. For festive color, surround each piece of pie with fresh cranberries.

Notes…

*1 Many cashew nuts sold as raw are heat processed to remove their shell. The definition of “raw” for the cashew industry means “not roasted”. In this scheme of things, cashews-in-shell are either boiled in oil or scorched in fire in order to condition the shell (prior to cracking) and speed the process. During this heating process, the cashew nut degrades significantly. Seek out organic, truly raw (unheated) cashew nuts that are hand shelled.

*2 Bottled spring water from the marketplace is not recommended. Fresh water from one of earth’s natural springs is highly recommended.

*3 Best flavor and best nutrition comes from food that is heirloom and grown organically, sustainably or biodynamically.

Article References
Maple Syrup
http://www.healingfoodreference.com…
Cashew Nuts
http://www.healingfoodreference.com…
Vanilla Bean
http://www.naturalnews.com/028432_v…
Cranberries
http://www.naturalnews.com/027768_p…

About the author

This recipe creation is by Dianne Wawrzyniak-Marshall. Via YouTube video, Dianne brings you alive healthful recipes that she and Paul enjoy time and time again. Catch Dianne and Paul in food-prep recipe-demoing action ToLiveWellNow.
http://www.youtube.com/ToLiveWellNow
Dianne Wawrzyniak-Marshall has a passion to share her many extremely challenging experiences and the grand lessons she has learned. If you could pick up a blue-eyed blonde-haired little girl of 5 and spare her so very many years of forthcoming pain of the physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental, would you? Dianne was this little girl. Born in 1963, Dianne desires to share information that comes from deep suffering in order to help parental figures understand how to give children an abundant life(as well as themselves). Dianne wants to help people ToLiveWell!
http://iLoveToLiveWell.com

[I really don't get that last paragraph!! Intriguing.]

SDWFD: Episode 2!

Have a listen here, and you can now find us on iTunes!

woo top phlog!

[Intro by Dr*T]

R: Today we’re going to be reading some more from Jim Humble’s book, The Miracle Mineral Solution for the 21st Century.

M: Also, because we didn’t last time, we’d like to give more of an introduction to MMS and Jim Humble [JH for short!] himself, in case anyone hasn’t been keeping up with the exciting news.

R: I was one of the people to discover MMS; I found it on a Crohn’s Disease support forum and I recorded a video about it. I also adapted the video into a blogpost. I discovered it being introduced as possibly a treatment for Crohn’s disease, I noticed people who were saying it had done wonders for them. Then I did more research into it and found it was being claimed that it could cure absolutely everything. The miraclemineral.org site claims it can cure:

AIDS, hepatitis A, B and C, malaria, herpes, TB, most cancer

But in a recent interview with Righteous Indignation, Humble said it could cure everything but broken bones. Powerful stuff.

M: Asthma, burns, what else?

R: Oh yeah, because as we now know the pain from burns is caused by acids and toxins.

So, I suppose the real aim of this podcast is to help you make up your own mind as to whether JH is a quack or something else

M: Crazy, deluded or just somewhere on that scale? I think when I started researching about JH – was it before you got banned from the forum or shortly afterwards? Near the beginning of everything – I found a video of him, maybe from 2008, which is an hour long but I sat through all of it because it started getting scary. I assumed that he was your typical, swindling, evil, quack/monster sort of thing…

R: Typical snake-oil salesman M: Yes one of those, but we’re not sure; we’re not a100%! So join us as we try to make up our minds. R: Especially after the RI interview M: Yes, it’s a must-listen!

[Rhys reads a spam email because it's vaguely amusing - thanks Mabu!]

M: I have an email from our friend @writerjames, who says:

A very promising first show. During the reading of Humble’s extract I was thinking “NEEDS MOAR SARCASM” at times, but you got around to some sensible response.

Sorry about that, James, we will do our very best to fulfil this request.

The pacing was impressive, you could sort of tell that you were both pretty comfortable with chattering away to each other in this format.

Yes we are!

My only suggestion would be that, if reading out any extracts in future that get much longer than today’s, you break it up every so often with some mockery and commentary as you work through it, rather than ploughing through the pseudoscientific crap in one unpalatable block and leaving all the editorialising to the end.

That is exactly what we were thinking and therefore we’ll do that in this episode!

R: I think James might be a psychic!

M: Yes, I think he might be – maybe he can do a guest report for us and we can test that.

That’s just a thought for further shows, and one that you may well have been planning on anyway.

More evidence!

Certainly wasn’t a problem with the inaugural episode. I look forward to seeing what future adventures your capes take you on!

All the best,

writerJames

P.S. Yes, I’m totally fishing for my first ever mention on a podcast. That’s okay so long as it’s couched in obsequious flattery, right?

Yes! James is fantastic and you should totally read his blog, Cubik’s Rube. [Sorry about all the American-style 'totally'!]

R: OK, today we’re reading:

About this Book

{I hope you do not think this book is just another account of a very interesting supplement that can help some people after they take it for several months. It is not. This book presents the Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), which works in just a few hours. In the world today, the leading killer of mankind is malaria, a disease that is usually overcome by this solution in only 4 hours.}

I think that’s a very big claim to make, don’t you?

M: It is a huge claim and it’s one he makes in the video I was talking about – it says how he came across MMS, that he was in Africa, some people were feeling very sick and so:

I asked them if they would like to try to my water purification drops that I had brought along with me. And in four hours they were up, laughing about how bad they were feeling just a little while before.

{This has been proven through clinical trials in Malawi, a country in eastern Africa. In these trials, MMS has never failed to kill the malaria parasite in an infected human. More than 75,000 malaria victims have taken the Miracle Mineral Solution and are now back to work and living
productive lives.}

M: There’s that 75,000 again R: He does love his round numbers doesn’t he.

Also these clinical trials, where are theys? They’re not published in any peer-reviewed medical journal that I know of.

M: It’s the usual double-standard; ‘look we have studies to show that our stuff works because there are studies!’ well actually the studies don’t show that, they say that it’s crap ‘but your science isn’t evidence!’

R: Except that here it isn’t us saying ‘your evidence is rubbish’, it’s that there is no evidence! Well apart from

M: {After taking the Miracle Mineral Solution, AIDS patients are often disease free in several weeks, and other diseases and conditions simply disappear. If patients in hospitals around the world were treated with this Miracle Mineral Solution, over 50% of them would be back home within a week.}

So, there’s the old cures HIV/AIDS claim again. Apparently if we rolled it out in the world, more than 50% of them would be back home within a week; what about the other 50%? Have they died? Probably.

R: A 100% cure rate for those who don’t die! This paragraph sums up exactly what MMS is:

{For more than 100 years, clinics and hospitals have used the active ingredients in this solution to sterilize hospital floors, tables, equipment, and other items. Now, this same powerful germ killer can be harnessed by the immune system to safely kill pathogens in the human body.}

I don’t quite know what to say about that! M: It’s difficult to find the words. R: Well the fact he thinks that it can kill bugs outside the body means it can kill bugs inside the body… M: Mm, and it can also kill you or at least do you some serious damage!

There’s been some confusion over the ‘bleachgate’ (I’m loathe to call it that as I hate this addition of -gate to the end of words to describe an incident but it’s a catchy, quick Twitter tag #bleachgate) because while activated MMS is a bleach, it’s not your average household bleach , it’s not the same thing, but it is a bleach.

R: It’s a type of bleach used for water purification, stripping textiles, other nasty things M: Things you don’t want to be doing inside yourself basically! R: While it’s not household bleach it’s still not very pleasant at all.

{Amazing as it might seem, when used correctly, the immune system can use this killer to attack only those germs, bacteria, and viruses that are harmful to the body. It does not affect the friendly bacteria in the body or any healthy cells.}

M: Obviously that’s absolute rubbish. If you spread a sterilising agent on something, it’s going to kill whatever’s there, it doesn’t care whether it’s got smiley faces or not.

R: Do you remember that homeopathy study where they used alcohol as the control and the alcohol killed as much as the homeopathic things did? It killed about 80% of the cells; so by Jim’s definition, alcohol should be perfect to use for killing cancer cells! M: Yeah, kind of the opposite! [Here I'm referring to the fact that drinking alcohol can lead to liver cancer; it won't act like a chemotherapy drug!]

{In this book, I have, to the best of my ability, stuck to the facts of exactly what has happened regarding the Miracle Mineral Solution. This book is the story of the discovery and development of the most amazing enhancement for the immune system yet discovered. Thus, it is the greatest solution to the diseases and ills now known to mankind; it is not a drug.]

M: Well there’s that classical thing that alt med people tend to do, which is try to distance themselves from the idea of big pharma drugs; they don’t understand what a drug is, a drug is anything you put inside your body (of exogenous origin) R: Anything that has some sort of effect in the body isn’t it M: Yes, a physiological effect, not manufactured within the body. So  of course it’s a drug. R: He seems to like the term supplement M: It’s a bit more benign-sounding isn’t it R: Yes, because when you say supplement it sounds like the body is meant to have it but is missing it M: Yes it’s clever wordplay to get people on your side.

{I believe if you follow my efforts to develop the data presented in this book and to make it available to the public, the story will help make it real to you and convince you to give it a try.}

R: It hasn’t! M: Not yet. We’ll see, maybe by the end of the book , we’ll all be taking MMS! R: Maybe we’ll find out that Jim’s book was actually published in the Lancet or something!

{To that purpose, I have provided complete details on how to make the solution in your kitchen, and to buy most of the ingredients off the shelf. It is entirely possible that one day you will use this solution to save someone’s life, perhaps your own}

R: Very humble, Jim, very humble.

{Because the Miracle Mineral Solution functions as a supercharger to the immune system, it is not meant for treatment of any particular disease, rather it is meant to improve the immune system to the point of overcoming many diseases, frequently in less than 24 hours.}

M: One wonders how a bleach would possibly do that.

R: It also contradicts his claim of ‘if patients were treated with MMS, over 50% would be home within a week’ – why is he saying that there and then..

M: Well obviosly if you’re in hospital, you want to stay there for at least a week! R: Well, yes, hospital’s quite a nice place, I gather M: The food’s good.

{My purpose for writing this book is that this information is far too important to allow any one person, group, or even several groups to have control of it. It is information that the world should have. After 5 years of seeing practically nothing done by a group that could have done a great deal, I finally realized that the information simply had to be distributed to as many people as possible or someone would always be out of the loop of receiving this life-saving data.}

M: This is his aim – to tell everyone about this fantastic discovery, to save all the lives!

R: Possibly a bit of a messiah complex?

M: {It regularly occurs that there is a great deal of important medical information withheld from the public that could save lives. It is my intention to prevent this from happening with this information.}

M: I’m not sure where these people get the idea that important medical information isn’t given to them. I mean, it’s all there. Sure, sometimes you have to pay to get a journal article, but then there’s a free review somewhere, or, ask your doctor..

R: If you really want to get hold of a medical paper, there are ways of getting it so that you can make an informed choice about your own health instead of relying on hear-say.

More about Jim

It’s quite odd how he refers to conspiracy theories.

M: Yes I think that’s what surprised me about the video, again – I was expecting the guy to talk about his crazy bleach solution but he brings up all kinds of conspiracy theories. There’s a fantastic one at the beginning where JH decides to tell us about all the other stuff he’s done in his life, he says:

I did things like set up A-bomb tests.

I’m not sure why that’s something to be proud of.

I worked on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. I was able to wire the first computer-controlled machine in the United States at Hughes Aircraft Company… they called me in and had me repair the Lunar Vehicle.

Really?! A gold-prospector from the deep south, OK then. R: Bit odd. Why choose him? M: It’s not as if he’s qualified!

And so, did they go to the Moon or didn’t they?

So he’s not even buying into the moon landing! Fantastic. R: Didn’t he even reference the moon base conspiracy theory? M: he has:

I don’t know whether they took it to the Moon or they took it out to the mountains in the desert… He was going through the files one time and he come upon this photograph, 8 x 10 photograph, that showed a space station on the back side of the Moon.

You must, you absolutely must, visit this site about the Secret Nazi Moonbase. It’s absolutely hilarious – beyond parody.

What were the other things that JH claims to have achieved in his life?

R: At miraclemineral.org, Jim also claims to have:

worked on secret radio control electronics, set up experiments in electrical generation by magneto hydro dynamics… Jim’s immediate goal is to return to Africa to eliminate all of the malaria in a single African nation in order to prove to the world that it is possible.

M: An admirable goal, but perhaps slightly unrealistic. R: Slightly? Given that he hasn’t even produced any evidence that MMS works, it’s pretty unlikely. He also claims to have intented, and I think is by far his biggest and best invention:

the first automatic garage door opener.

M: Wow! R: I am in awe of this man M: I like his hat. R: Not only does he plan to cure Africa of malaria, he’s also invented a garage door opener. M: Brilliant. R: Brilliant man.

M: What else has Jim been up to in his amazing life? R: I don’t know, it is hard to find information about Jim, othe rthan stuff fairly recently  M: considering he’ must be late 60s if not into his 70s by now.

Suspect Shopping

R: I don’t quite get why he has these photos on his website that appear to be photoshopped. M: Yes they’re obviously shopped and there are a few around R: The website MMS Debunked has a few…

M: Almost as if they’re hyper-sharpened and images of different resolutions… badly shopped but not really sure to what end.

R: This one is very obviously photoshopped M: Yes he looks like a card-board cutout there! R: Again the white glow and it’s so different the resolution, colouring, everything.

M: Highly suspect.

Seminars in the DR

Jim does seem to be quite difficult to get hold of; possibly because at the moment he seems to be living in the Dominican Republic.

R: When I geolocated the IP address from the comment he left on my blog, it did go back to the DR! M: So he may be telling the truth there! But it seems he has been fined for distributing MMS illegally

R: Didn’t they claim it was a herbal remedy in Africa to cure AIDS? M: Yes so he is wanted in lots of places including the US. Canada has already banned MMS obviously so he’d not be welcome there either.

In the DR he has been running some training courses so you can come and learn about MMS! In a newsletter from this year, Jim gives some details of the course:

There will be a week of theory where I cover the details on what MMS is, how it works, the basic chemistry for anyone coming off the street, how it is made, labeled and bottled,  how to treat Cancer, Hep C, HIV, colds, H1N1 flu, and dozens of other diseases. I try to tell you everything I know.

Surely that wouldn’t take long!

When people leave here they really know how to use MMS for all things, skin diseases of all kinds, colon problems, how to regenerate the liver, how to treat brain cancers, how to treat babies and pregnant women, and how to treat animals from mice to elephants.

You can treat your pet elephant! R: Pet elephant?? M: Yeah why not. Stampy.

For 5: Bag, see below...

You will be personally taking MMS while here, spraying your skin with powerful solutions of MMS (but won’t hurt you), spraying others’ skin and hair. You will learn to use sprays, baths, IV solutions, MMS gas, soak the feet, and most importantly, the new protocols that in the country of Malawi have cured more than 800 people of HIV plus 40 cancer cases, 50 of feet and leg numbness, 3 heart disease cases, 13 diabetes cases, and many other diseases and problems.

It just does everything, it’s amazing. R: Yes and he’s now discovering other ways to use MMS!

wtf?

And there’s also the hilarious picture of him stuck in a black sack. M: Yes that is wonderful, from Phaelosopher’s blog; the pictures of JH on these training courses are generally quite amusing – he’s usually standing in front of one of those flip-charts that he’s been scribbling on barely legibly, trying to draw atoms and things…

R: Wait! Chlorine dioxide is an ion remember? That’s what Jim Claims…

M: Now you’re just being picky. You and your science! So yes there’s the picture of him sitting in a giant bin sack and I really don’t understand what he’s doing. Maybe it’s one of these MMS gas protocols or something.

So, you can attend the first week of these courses for the little sum of $750 USD! And if you want to stay for the second week it’s $250. But remember, he’s not making any money from MMS! R: No, of course not, that money all goes into running more courses.

And, we have some more information on what he actually does teach in the training course:

Jim is teaching the latest protocols and  here are some of the other topics Jim teaches:

The Fundamentals of MMS: the discovery and evolution of the usage of the world’s most important broad spectrum non-toxic anti-microbial agent including these topics:

• Chemistry of 28% Chlorine Dioxide solution
• Sourcing of MMS chemicals
• Home manufacture
• Basic first aid and diagnosis
• How to make money selling MMS

but remember, Jim isn’t making money from this!

• Running an MMS help desk—or not
• Working in remote areas: strategies for communication and protection
• Training in remote areas
• Legal and FDA considerations
• Problems with foreign health departments and permissions

So that’s going to be almost every country in the world now! M: Jim’ll teach you how to escape the man.

• How MMS attacks different pathogens in the body
• The evolution of MMS protocols
• Successful stories with different diseases

So you can sit around the campfire and listen to Jim telling stories about how he cured cancer AIDS, Hep.. M: Yay, anecdotes!

• Practical applications of MMS for water purification

Actually teaching something possibly of worth there!

• Health ministers training

Yes you can become a minister in his church. M: We’ll cover the church stuff later…

• MMS2
• New protocols
• Question and answers

I doubt anyone will be asking something like ‘do you have evidence this works?’ M: He’ll say “yes! Here are some phone numbers of people I’ve cured. They have phones. Call them! I’ll pay the phone bill@. R: Yeah, I’ve not bothered to call back on them yet but you can, you can do my work for me! M: I’m so busy helping people cure their elephants of asthma. R: Poor pet Stampy.

On the genesis II website he later refers to it as a ‘life changing, world changing seminar’! M: Sold it to me! R: I want to go. In the second week you can either help people in the Dominican Republic, or you can get to go over to Haiti! Let’s go and help all the people in Haiti who are still recovering from the earthquake. Because that’s not got any moral or ethical implications has it? M: He’s saving the world!

R: OK, I think that sums up Jim’s course pretty well.

M: We hope you have a better idea of why it is we’re talking about MMS and Jim Humble; we hope you will tune in with us every week to help us decide what kind of guy Jim is.

R: e-mail feedback to superwooduo at gmail dot com or you can follow us on twitter @Superwooduo

M: For more information on MMS you can follow #bleachgate and do drop in to my blog [here you are!]

[Rhys pimps his blog again and reckons I had twice already *lovers' tiff*]

M: We need to pimp the wonderful new podcast from our friends Martin Robbins and Michael Marshall called Strange Quarks, which you should definitely listen to every week.

R: It was sort of the inspiration for this podcast wasn’t it? M: Yes, but they’re professional R: And we’re just ramblers. We aimed to infiltrate our show but made our own instead! M: We’re going to take it over but don’t tell them…

Justin Satov 05 November 22:14 I quite liked it being longer. It was the soundtrack to my morning as I readied myself for work.

SDWFD Episode 1

Here’s the transcript of Episode 1 for those who like it typed out with links! R: = Rhys and M: = me, if that’s not obvious. Emphasis in book extracts, denoted by { stuffaboutwoo }, is mine.

[Annoyingly-catchy jingle from Dr*T # welshboyo and noodlemaaaaz]

 

R: Hello and welcome to Super-Duper Woo-Fighting Duo (M: with capes!) – I’m Rhys! M: I’m Marianne!

R: This podcast is going to be all about Jim Humble‘s book, or at least this episode will. In future episodes, we aim to ramble on about quacky, wooey things M: General ridicule, bit of comedy, but there’ll be some serious stuff as well.

R: Yes. One person we aim to ridicule is Phaelosopher, for example!

M: Yes, I’d really like to see why he spelled it that way. R: Yeah! Why not spell it ‘Filosopher’ or something like that, why choose to spell it ‘Phaelosopher’ when that’s so easily exploitable?

M: It’s asking for trouble! R: Indeed it is. Anyway, I think we should get on with reading the editor’s note from Jim Humble’s book: Miracle Mineral Solution of the 21st Century. M: Let’s.

MMS Part 1: Editor’s Note

R: {Editor’s Note Dated October, 2009
First published in 2006 this book ranks among the most read books in the world. Over 3 million downloads have gone out from thousands of web sites. Over 4,000 web site owners are “friends of MMS” and they provide free copies to anyone who asks for it. The original copyright statement remains unchanged. As of June, 2009, Jim Humble became a perpetual traveler and his work continues in Africa and other countries as described in his updated web site http://JimHumbleFoundation.org.

The links within the original book version gradually became obsolete or broken. Therefore a table has been placed at the end of the book which lists Internet

resources – recent educational materials that have been written mostly by Jim since June 2009. They are updated frequently and are listed at the end of this book.}

M: {The world-wide Flu Pandemic announced by the World Health Organization has caused numerous health web sites in the U.S. to be brought off-line. This is based on U. S. Congress openly supporting arrests and fines against persons and organizations that promote alternative remedies for flu and Influenza other than those approved by the World Health Organization. Vaccinations and Tamiflu or other approved antibiotics are said to be the only legitimate means of reducing flu symptoms. At the time of writing, most web sites located in non-US countries still provide MMS information as listed at the end of volume one.

Viewed as a classic work this book stands as the authentic history of how ClO2 came to the front as the most potent and powerful germicidal agent on the planet. Jim explains how activated MMS cannot harm normal living body cells. His contribution was that he found the best way to package MMS as a safe affordable product, and to test it for five years to prove reliable outcomes. His discovery is now used daily by more than a million people around the world, not including dogs, cats, horses, and other animals. All this since 2006 when MMS was introduced along with this book.}

R: {MMS suppliers are no longer listed or identified because search engines provide that information quite effectively.

Disinformation on the Internet states that MMS (and the ClO2 that it generates) is the same as chlorine and therefore it is dangerous. That is not true. Chlorine dioxide has been well known in industry for 70 years. Chlorine Dioxide is even an approved food additive at food-packaging time because it destroys salmonella, ecoli, and every other known germ – eventually converting into molecules of water as it disappears.}

M: {MMS was developed and tested by Jim between 2001 and 2006, involving over 75,000 volunteers in five different countries. This is the story of those years and the events that led to standardization of the current MMS product.

New protocols and methods for using MMS have evolved in the years since the release of this book. The latest discoveries and innovations are described in the links at the end of the book. Disregard links within the book – they are now obsolete. The Editor – October, 2009}

Discussion

R: Mmm, a very interesting start. M: Indeed. So, this book apparently ranks among ‘the most-read books in the World’! R: Big claim! M: Not sure where they got their data on that. It is a big claim. And indeed, living up to his surname, it’s apparently viewed as ‘a classic work’.

R: Mm, think I’d disagree with that. M: think I would as well.

R: Maybe classic as in classically hilarious? M: Yes, I was going to say, it is a bit of a classic!

R: One thing that stood out to me was the ‘Tamiflu and other approved antibiotics” – I don’t think many doctors would recommend Tamiflu for .. M: bacterial infections, seeing as it’s not an antibiotic! R: But I also don’t think they’d recommend antibiotics for flu! M: Indeed, well they shouldn’t R: Yes, that would be rather silly and dangerous. I find it funny, you know, most doctors wouldn’t recommend Tamiflu for just your average flu; they only started giving it out for the swine flu pandemic.

M: More amusing perhaps is his clear separation between the millions human users and the “dogs, cats, horses and other animals” that have been happily taking MMS apparently! R: Yes, because everyone knows that they like to take ClO2, hehe!

M: Wasn’t there someone who was giving it to their cat recently, but the cat unfortunately died? I seem to remember hearing about that. R: Yes, that was on Facebook on the MMS/Jim Humble UK group. Which is now shut down! M: Ah it is, fantastic! That was a scary, scary place. R: Yes and there were some scary people on that M: Yes, asking how best to treat their infants with it.

R: I remember hearing as well about the child who was having activated MMS dripped into their eye, and they were saying how the eye was burning M: That was very distressing. R: but then Jim Humble told them that was a sign it was working! M: it’s the standard thing; however bad you feel, it just means it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. R: Rather concerning.

R: The final thing : straw man argument of saying “Disinformation on the Internet states that MMS (and the ClO2 that it generates) is the same as chlorine and therefore it is dangerous. That is not true” – I don’t see anyone on the internet claiming that MMS is chlorine, or that it’s the same as chlorine. M: no, certainly not, quite the opposite. Everyone seems to be pointing out that just because a particular element is in a compound, doesn’t mean the compound is going to behave as the element does – that’s pretty much never true – and anyone with basic chemistry knowledge knows that. R: Yes but Jim doesn’t seem to have basic chemistry knowledge M: of coures not!

R: I think finally the thing I wanted to point out was “MMS was developed and tested by Jim between 2001 and 2006, involving over 75,000 volunteers in five different countries” – if that took place in a double-blind trial, I would really like to see the results. M: Certainly, 75,000 is an impressive cohort! R: Yes, yes – something tells me though that he didn’t actually get 75,000, but if he did – if he did – if he didn’t do it in the setting of a clinical trial, well I’m sorry they’re just 75,000 anecdotes and no matter how positive they are, they’re all useless, medically.

M: Indeed, it seems he’s very fond of his round numbers, generally to the 5,000′s.  It’s a bit suspicious. [PS: sorry, suspect! I hate that!!] R: He is very fond of anecdotes as well – one that we’ll be coming on to later is how someone had given MMS to their young daughter, around the time of puberty, they gave them the MMS and they reported that their daughter had grown breasts because of MMS! M: Yes, it’s a revolutionary discovery! R: and I think it was all in the space of about a week! M: We’ll certainly come back to that one

M: So next week we’d like to do a bit more of a fuller episode so we’ll go into the Jim Humble’s first chapter in his book, also in later episodes we’ll be having some guest reports from people and we’ll be looking at some interesting leaflets from various CAM-type shops that are, irritating, let’s say!

R: I’ll just give you a little spoiler, one of them is going to be on ‘cosmetic acupuncture‘! M: and I have here something that was really annoying me at home, from a new ‘complimentary health therapy’ shop with a ‘qualified homeopath’ in residence R: Damn those homeopaths! M: Or ‘holistic therapist’ as her calling card says. R: I think you know when you see the word holistic, you’re talking about a CAMster.

R: OK, well thank you for joining us on this week’s Super-Duper Woo-Fighting Duo M: with capes!

R: You can find me on Twitter: @rhysmorgan M: and you can find me: @noodlemaz.

R: You can email us at superwooduo@gmail.com – we’d appreciate any and all feedback, positive and negative – even if you’re a homeopath or even Jim Humble, if you are Jim Humble, please get back to us and we will read your comments. I think that’s a good place to end! Goobye. M: Bye!

PS. Thank you to Dr*T for this week’s intro!

—

PS: we forgot to ridicule “Africa and other countries” – because everyone knows Africa r country in Asia!!1!

Phew, that’s better.

In other news: new mic acquired and next time we’ll break up the reading with discussion instead of leaving it all to the end (thanks to @writerjames for emailing the suggestion, we’d already decided it was a good idea!).

Super-Duper Woo-Fighting Duo!

… with capes!

Yeah, lego. Most superman/woman stuff is disturbingly pornographic.

To save the world from the Evil Woo-mongers, Rhys and I have teamed up in spectacularly stylish fashion to produce this new podcast!!

No, the market is definitely not saturated.

Yes, I’m getting a new microphone (sorry about my laptop fan buzz!) – did not have time to prepare as this went from a joke to reality in the space of 24hrs!

You can find us here on ipadio and on iTunes. We hope to bring you some woo-fighting action approximately once a week.

Do join our Facebook group and follow us on the Twitter!

Fortuitously, our first episode is also 10:23 long (ipadio’s added about 0.4s). It’s a sign.

Oh, wait…