Burzynski Patient Derek T.’s Story

Derek T. first appeared in the press in June 1993. At the time, he was suffering from a brain tumor and the community was rallying around him (and 2 other kids with cancer) to raise money for the Children’s Wish Foundation. Derek was 6 years old and had been taken to Sea World by the charity. According to his mother, who appeared in the Hamilton Spectator:

Derek’s mother […] was also overwhelmed.

“I just can’t believe how much the community is pulling for us,” she said. “People really didn’t know what to do, so they did this. It has helped the family and I think the trip to Sea World helped Derek’s health.”

Derek’s journey was chronicled by the Hamilton Spectator, so we have a pretty good record of his progress. At the time of the fundraiser for the Children’s Wish Foundation, according to an article that appeared in April of 1994, his tumor was shrinking thanks to radiation treatment. He went back to school in September but, then we hear in the issue from April 18:

But, around Christmas, his flu-­like symptoms turned out to be the tumor growing again and pressing on his brain.

‘It happened very fast,’ said his aunt.

Before long, he was confined to a wheelchair. As the condition overtook him, Derek could only shake his head and move his hands to communicate.

That’s when the [family] re-­mortgaged their home and decided to ignore the advice of caregivers at McMaster University Medical Centre.

They were on their way to Houston, to the Burzynski Clinic, where they have used an unproven experimental chemotherapy for nearly 40 years under the guise of clinical with no good evidence for efficacy. The Spectator is way out of its league and has basically no idea what the treatment entails as we see in April:

In Houston, he hopes to receive a new treatment involving injections of plasma­like antineoplaston cells through the chest catheter.

No, not even close. If only the Spectator had reviewed the 1982 report by Canadian physicians Blackstein and Bergsagel commissioned by the Ministry of Health in Ontario, which had some damning revelations:

We were left with the impression that either [Dr. Burzynski] knows very little about cancer and the response of different tumors to radiation and hormonal measures, or else he thinks that we are very stupid, and he has tried to hoodwink us. As we look back over the cases were were shown, we are left with the impression that the only patients who are still alive either had slowly growing tumors, or had received effective treatment before being referred to Houston.

The 1982 Canadian report concluded:

After reviewing 20 case reports, selected by Dr. Burzynski as his best examples of clear cut responses to Antineoplastons we were unable to identify a single case in which therapeutic benefit could be attributed to Antineoplaston.

And even more from the 1982 Canadian report:

We believe that it is unethical to administer unproven agents such as Antineoplastons to patients without satisfying the requirements of the FDA and an ethics committee, that the minimum standards for human experimentation are being met. We also believe that it is immoral to charge patients for this unproven, experimental treatment.

So, in April 1994, the family, facing the progressing disease ends up in Houston. Instantly, unnecessary life-threatening complications arise just trying to get Derek on treatment:

His parents […] and his five-­year­ old sister […] flew to Texas last Thursday, when Derek was admitted to hospital for insertion of a catheter in his chest through which the new drug will be pumped. ‘They had trouble inserting the catheter because they couldn’t find a vein, then when they got him stabilized … his heart went wild and started beating 200 times a minute,’ said his aunt […] in a telephone interview yesterday. ‘He has a very low blood count and when your blood count is down you don’t heal properly,’ she added. ‘We’ve been told the next 24 hours are going to be critical.’ The child has already received one blood transfusion and may need another, she said

The doctors objected to antineoplastons for a reason. At the same time, the family is feeling the pinch:

Money, she added, is becoming a major worry for the family. ‘This hospital stay isn’t something we’d planned on,’ she said. ‘OHIP doesn’t cover any of this because it’s an experimental treatment and you pay for your Kleenex and bedpans and everything.’

This is the case at Burzynski’s clinic, though it would probably not be elsewhere. Usually, patients receive medical care in exchange for being on a clinical trials, because the developers intend to make their money when the drug goes to market. R&D is an investment in real drug trials. At the Burzynski Clinic, patients pay dearly to receive experimental treatment.

When Derek was let out of the hospital, he moved into a motel, where they hoped treatment would begin:

‘They figured on Wednesday Derek was stable enough that they could start the treatments, so what’s going to happen is that they’ll set up all the medical equipment they need in the motel so they can do the treatments there rather than having to get Derek to the clinic every day,’ said [Derek’s aunt]. ‘I think someone will be coming over every day to spend a couple of hours to get this treatment into him. ‘We’re told they may be able to come home in two to three weeks, but it could be four to six weeks before they start to see any effect from the treatments,’ she added.

The kid’s too sick to go to the Clinic.

Two days later, we hear:

They have been told the treatments could last six months, or continue indefinitely at a cost of between $3,000 and $10,000 a month. Yesterday, Derek’s aunt […] said: ‘Yesterday was a good day for him, his spirits are up and he seems to be gaining strength. ‘What they’re going to do is continue the treatments for 10 to 14 days and then see about letting him come home. His parents seem to feel better now that the treatments have started. They seem to be a little more up now.’

All the while the community is rallying around Derek to raise money for Burzynski. A few days later, Derek’s uncle returns home and talks to the press:

‘I think our little guy’s getting better,’ [Derek’s uncle] said yesterday afternoon. ‘They’re saying that if he makes it through the next month his chances will improve fantastically.’ ‘I think the next two weeks are going to tell it all,’ he added.

The child is in a pretty horrible state, almost locked in, it seems:

‘Now he’s a lot more alert and staying awake a lot longer,’ he said. ‘They’ve worked out a little sign language to communicate with Derek ­­he looks up for yes and closes his eyes for no.

And in this interview we get a sense of the power of testimonials, which are nearly worthless as evidence of a treatment’s efficacy:

In the weeks before Derek’s parents […] decided to make one last attempt to save their son’s life, they contacted several former and current patients of the clinic to ease their natural suspicion. ‘We had a lot of suspicion before we went down,’ the uncle said. ‘We were asking ourselves should we go or should we just stay here and let Derek die in peace.’ That’s when they started talking to former patients, gathering uniform reports of miracle cures.

‘I sat there on the phone in tears talking to these people and then told John and Brenda they had to make a try,’ he said. ‘Everyone we talked to had a different story, but it was all one miracle after another.’

And that’s the hook. These patients stories are deceptive, and it’s not because the patients are lying (though they are almost certainly wrong in every case). USA Today reporter Liz Szabo documented some of the problems and practices at the Burzynski Clinic that explain the apparent “miracles” without crediting Burzynski.

On May 6, we hear that money has been pouring in for Burzynski on the back of this kid’s suffering. The uncle seems to be hearing that things are going well:

According to Derek’s uncle […], the child is improving every day. ‘He’s starting to move his arms and say things like ‘Mom’ and ‘No.” ‘They’re quite enthusiastic at the clinic about the progress he’s making. ‘Everything sounds really good so far.’

That may sound like a gain, but it also sounds… really, really slight. Almost imperceptible, and you know that the family is scanning and interpreting every grunt and motion as a reflection of what is going on with the tumor. Except the next week, on the 14th, we hear:

The Winona boy, 6, who is undergoing an experimental treatment for the brain ­stem cancer that threatens his life, was taken to hospital earlier this week for treatment of fatigue and because he wasn’t eating. Derek’s uncle […] said the hospital treatment was needed because the megadoses of the serum he’s receiving frequently left him too tired to eat properly. After two days, however, he was returned to the motel room where he’s staying with his parents. ‘He had a bit of a turn for the worse, but now he’s doing fine again.’

So, by the family’s account, this was a life-threatening side effect of the treatment.

But the fundraising for Burzynski has gone well. By May 25th, some $40,000 in donations have arrived for the treatment. The family is still in Houston. I wonder if he is too sick to move:

In a telephone interview yesterday, Derek’s mother said the child remains weak from the constant flow of drugs he is receiving, but she is learning to take great pleasure in small victories.

“I got really excited yesterday because I heard him laugh a little while he was watching cartoons,” she said. “That was the first time I’d heard him laugh in two months.”

When Derek was discharged from a Hamilton hospital two months ago, his parents were told there was little hope he would survive. That’s when they decided to make a last­-ditch stand against the disease.

“When he got out of the hospital in Hamilton, they said his time was limited, but now we’ve celebrated another birthday and that’s got to say something,” [his mom] said. “If you saw him in the hospital when he could barely move his arms, you’d know just how far he’s come.”

Honestly, I’d be interested in seeing what type of anti-inflammatory steroid dose the kid is on. As reported by USA Today, according to an FDA warning letter from April of 2013:

In a written response to FDA inspections sent to the agency in April, Burzynski had argued that patients with brain tumors often need anti-inflammatory drugs, called corticosteroids, to restore normal levels in the body. The FDA did not accept this explanation, however, noting that Burzynski had patients on steroid doses that were five to 64 times higher than the levels that doctors would expect patients to need. [emphasis added]

This does throw into question, as the FDA noted, the reliability of Burzynski’s results. And in reality, things are not going well, as we hear on the 28th of May:

A thousand miles from home, in a tiny motel room on the outskirts of Houston, Tex., [Derek’s parents] pray for a miracle.

On the bed in front of them lies their seven-year-old son Derek, his mouth hanging open, his pale body limp. A tumor the size of a golf ball is pressing on the stem of his brain, paralyzing most of his body and causing pain no child should suffer.

[…]

The youngster can’t move his limbs, he can’t talk, and it’s a struggle to even open his eyes. But he is alive.

[…]

“As a parent, you can’t just sit there and watch your son die,” [Derek’s mom] says. “You do everything in your power to save his life. You try anything and see anyone who might be able to help because that’s all you can do. You are so desperate.”

Yes. And that’s why the FDA and the TMB need to step up and stop playing ball with predatory alt med peddlers. In the same article, we see the family is having doubts:

At the moment, the [family is] not convinced Dr. Burzynski is Derek’s miracle maker.

[…]

It’s costing the [family] as much as $1,000 a day for doctors’ visits, equipment, emergency trips to the hospital, and to keep up the steady flow of Dr. Burzynski’s concoction for their son.

[…]

“Sometimes I wonder if maybe we should just hop on a plane and go home,” [Derek’s father] says. “But then the next day we’ll see an improvement and think, this is his only chance.”

And at this point, improvement is indistinguishable from just not getting worse. In some ways, this case is reminiscent of the course of Chase S.’s story. Chase was essentially lying in state for months in his parents’ living room, while the family insisted that he was improving.

The family has been in Houston much longer than the usual 3 weeks, and they are thinking about trying to get Derek home in early June, as we hear on the 4th:

While there’s no evidence yet to show the treatment is working with Derek, [his dad] said they are eager to come home. “We’ve been here quite a while now and we are comfortable administering the medication so we could do all that at home,” he said in an interview yesterday.

There were plans to do an MRI scan on Derek to determine if the brain tumor is shrinking but he’s been too weak the last 10 days to undergo the procedure.

He’s been battling fluid in the lungs and cold­-like symptoms; yesterday was his first day back on solid foods in a week.

The father says that Derek is better than when he came down, but how can that be? They plan to return to Canada with a 2-month supply of antineoplastons.

Once the family returns, the paper seems to give us a more frank assessment of Derek’s lack of progress:

“His eyes are much more alert and although he can’t talk, he’s able to communicate with us,” [Derek’s mom] said.

They don’t know for sure if the experimental treatment he received at the clinic ­­- called antineoplastons ­­- has shrunk the boy’s tumor; he has been too weak to undergo the scan that would determine its size.

But they believe the medication has at least stopped the tumor’s growth, based more on what they saw at the clinic than improvements in his physical condition.

“We really truly believe in that clinic,” Derek’s mother said. “We saw so many miracles down there, people coming in real bad shape and walking out of there. We are believers.”

She said seeing those people get better helped keep the two of them going during times when Derek was not doing so well.

“It made us strong and gave us hope,” she said.

“We have no regrets about going down. We’re glad we went and we hope everything works out,” [Derek’s dad] added.

If there is one regret, it’s that they didn’t discover the clinic earlier, when the tumor was smaller, [Derek’s mom] said.

The statement that they “saw so many miracles down there” is curious. It’s too bad they weren’t more explicit about the nature of those “miracles.” They even turn blame back on themselves for why they aren’t seeing improvement, that they did not get their sooner. It probably would have made no difference to anyone but Burzynski’s accounting staff if they had.

Another thing, there’s no evidence that Derek has received palliative care, which is surely indicated. And on June 21st the Spectator headline says it all:

“All we can do is hope, pray,’ says mom: No sign experimental drug is working for Derek”

On September 15th, Derek died. During the intervening time since the last update in the paper, Derek had been in the hospital a lot:

[His mom] explained Derek has been in and out of hospitals in Grimsby and Hamilton for the last five weeks suffering a variety of ailments that included a bleeding ulcer, pneumonia and urinary infections.

And in the end, the family rationalizes why the treatment did not help, as we see in the paper:

Derek’s father […] said they’d been told their son would need to get the anti­neoplaston treatment, delivered through a catheter inserted in his chest, for a solid six weeks in order to show any benefit.

Because of his recurring health problems, however, the longest stretch they managed was five weeks. “We got the treatment into him, but it was never as much as he needed,” [Derek’s dad] said.

This is the first time that we have heard this “six solid weeks” nonsense. As we know from any number of patient reports, nurses have claimed that it begins working immediately. It’s hard to say why in this case the family would be told this (if that is in fact accurate that they were), but it does give the Clinic an easy out when the boy arrived too sick to even make it to treatment.