Panorama and Burzynski

Set your HDR to record – Panorama have announced the air date for their investigation into Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, his antineoplaston therapy and his clinic. Monday June 3rd at 8:30pm on BBC One (HD). Read on for more information…

Back in January, I was contacted by Panorama at the BBC. They told me they were doing an investigation into Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, the doctor who offers the controversial antineoplaston treatment to cancer patients at his Houston, Texas cancer clinic. They wanted to know if I’d be interested in taking part. Of course, I accepted and was interviewed later that month about my involvement with the clinic and Dr. Burzynski.

You may recall that back in November 2011, somebody called Marc Stephens, representing the Burzynski Clinic, Burzynski Research Institute and Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski himself contacted me (and others) with threats of a libel lawsuit if I didn’t remove my heavily critical, though not libellous, blog post entitled “The Burzynski Clinic”. I’d written this blog post back in August 2011 in response to one of the many big media campaigns run by families to raise the hundreds of thousands of pounds to get a place on one of Burzynski’s clinical trials. Marc Stephens went on to threaten to contact my school “to inform them of [my] illegal acts”. He also sent me Google Maps images of my own house, apparently to confirm that it was my mailing address, so they could send the legal paperwork. You can read about this all in much more detail, including the entire email back and forth on my blog post “Threats from the Burzynski Clinic”. Eventually, the Burzynski Clinic fired him, saying they found his actions inappropriate.

This was the main focus of the interview. I’m not sure what will make the final cut, but I’m confident that Panorama will handle this topic with sensitivity whilst also being firm and not falling foul to false balance.

This is something you do not want to miss. Nor the fall out that will follow in the next few weeks. Let’s just say, Burzynski is in for a hell of a time, these coming months…

Remember, Monday June 3rd at 8:30pm on BBC One (HD)!

UPDATE: I received a phone call yesterday informing me that, unfortunately, my interview hasn’t made the final cut. The programme is only half an hour long and I guess if something doesn’t fit the narrative too well in the short time they had, it’ll be left on the editing floor.

Published by Rhys

Computer Science graduate, from Oxford Brookes University. Originally from Cardiff.

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