State to lay out case against cancer doctor
AUSTIN – After months of legal wrangling, the Texas Medical Board and Stanislaw Burzynski finally are set for a high-stakes showdown that could determine whether the controversial Houston alternative cancer doctor can stay in business.
State lawyers will set out Thursday to start trying to convince two judges that Burzynski violated state medical rules, which could cause him to lose his license. The hearing marks the first time that officials will get to lay out their case, nearly two years after they filed a formal complaint and two decades after the federal government tried unsuccessfully to get the doctor imprisoned for interstate commerce of experimental drugs.
The drugs, commonly known as anti-neoplastons, an unproven and oft-criticized type of chemotherapy that Burzynski devised, also are at the center of the state’s case. The medical board is alleging the doctor promoted his experimental therapy to patients, knowing he could not legally provide it to most of them, and that he disregarded patient safety, among other accusations, according to the complaint.
‘Toxicity effects’
Burzynski’s high-powered lawyer, Houston criminal defense attorney, Dan Cogdell, who helped get the doctor acquitted on the federal charges in 1997, dismissed the state complaint as meritless.
“We’re in good shape in terms of the evidence,” he said. “I don’t want to try to pre-try my case in the press, but I’m confident that he’ll be vindicated through his process.”
Cogdell is new to Burzynski’s state case because the doctor’s old lawyer quit, claiming he is owed tens of thousands of dollars. That attorney, Richard Jaffe, has sued Burzynski for roughly $248,000 and sought to force him to declare bankruptcy, the latest twist in a long-running drama.
Burzynski, 72, has sparked controversy almost since coming to Baylor College of Medicine as a Polish immigrant in the 1970s. That was where he first administered his unique therapy and drug, a synthesized version of compounds found in human blood and urine.
In the years since, Burzynski’s self-named clinic and research institute have attracted desperate patients from across the country, even other parts of the world. Despite the doctor’s Internet-based advertising, however, antineoplastons never have been proven to cure cancer and long have been thought illegitimate by mainstream medical advocates.
The federal government has come after Burzynski several times, most seriously in 1995, when a grand jury indicted the doctor on the interstate commerce charges. He was acquitted, but was told he only could prescribe the drug in trials approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In 2012, the feds put a drug trial on hold after the death of a 6-year-old New Jersey boy.
The state medical board, which put Burzynski on probation between 1994 and 2004, started its most recent effort against him in December 2013. The complaint has changed greatly since then, as 172 legal motions and orders led the state to beef up and then scale back its allegations.
The latest version focuses on seven patients who came seeking anti-neoplastons and allegedly were misled and subject to substandard care. Only two of the patients actually received anti-neoplastons. Most received drug cocktails used for cancers other than those for which they were approved and all were put at risk of “considerable toxicity effects,” according to the medical board’s complaint.
‘Long and winding road’
Few of Burzynski’s patients these days actually receive anti-neoplastons, the doctor has said, but they still are a focus of his because he is one of the only providers of them in the world, according to his lawyer.
The case ultimately could cost Burzynski his medical license, but state officials have not explicitly said that is their goal. A spokesman for the Texas Medical Board declined comment on the case Wednesday.
The state will have a week to argue its side. Then, due to scheduling issues, the case will recess until late January, when Burzynski will get a chance to respond. The judges are expected to issue a decision two or three months after that, and that decision only will be a recommendation to the full medical board. The board’s ultimate ruling can be appealed to a district court.
“It’s a long and winding road,” said Cogdell, Burzynski’s lawyer.
The lawyer said that if the medical board rules against Burzynski, he will appeal.
“He will keep fighting,” said Cogdell, adding that Burzynski also will never retire.
“Literally, his life is caring for his patients, and as long as he’s physically able to do that, that’s what he’s going to do,” the lawyer said. “His patients’ lives are at risk.”