Connie and I recently attended a celebration gala in Houston, Texas, marking Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski's 30th year of successfully treating cancer. Nearly 600 people were in attendance, many of them former patients who had been cured at the Burzynski Clinic. Note: I did not say remission or five-year survival. I said cured!

Imagine a room filled with hundreds of once-terminal patients now completely free of cancer – or on their way to recovery – telling their stories, introducing their families, dancing, and simply reveling in the joy of being alive.

"Fatal" Brain Tumors Cured
One of the guests was a radiantly healthy young woman named Jodi Gold Fenton. In May 2000 at age 31, Jodi was diagnosed with a rapidly progressing stage 3 astrocytoma. Her oncologist told her that this brain tumor was inoperable and her best hope was extensive radiation and chemotherapy, which might keep her alive for five years. Without treatment, he gave her 18 months to live.

Jodi contacted the Burzynski Clinic and started treatment. The tumor began shrinking almost immediately, and within two months, it had disappeared. At the gathering, Jodi shared that while undergoing the therapy with high hopes of success, her strongest wish was to dance with Dr. Burzynski at her wedding. Five years later, she got her wish.

Then there was Paul Michaels, who was diagnosed at age four with a slow-growing, baseball-sized tumor in his brain. Paul's doctors said that surgery was inadvisable, and they doubted he would live more than a few years. So Paul's parents took him to the Burzynski Clinic. Within three years, the tumor had shrunk to the size of a pea, and Paul was back to rollerblading and roughhousing with his friends. Today, 26-year-old Paul is cancer-free, works as a personal trainer, and is studying to be a registered nurse specializing in physical rehabilitation.

Dustin Kunnari is a strapping young man of 16. I first met Dustin 12 years ago when I visited the Burzynski Clinic – his mother reminded me how the two of us had sung "I'm a Little Teapot." At that time, four-year-old Dustin was being treated for a medulloblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor. He'd had surgery, but his parents had refused the recommended chemo and radiation because of its long list of side effects (mental retardation, sterility, severe motor problems, leukemia) and nonexistent track record of success. After a year of Dr. Burzynski's treatment, Dustin was free of cancer. Today, he skateboards, wakeboards, and is looking forward to college.

No More Prostate, Breast, or Colon Cancer
I was particularly happy to meet a number of former patients who heard about Dr. Burzynski through the Health & Healing newsletter. Richard Barniak, a longtime subscriber, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in April 2004. He remembered reading in the newsletter about a doctor in Houston who was having great success treating various types of cancer at the genetic level. He started his treatment at the Burzynski Clinic three weeks after his diagnosis and has been cancer-free for almost two years.

When Tracy Edrey, a mother of two young sons, was diagnosed with breast cancer, she followed in the footsteps of her mother, who subscribes to the newsletter and had been successfully treated by Dr. Burzynski for breast cancer. Tracy has been cancer-free for nearly three years. "I thank Dr. Whitaker for allowing me to find out about the Burzynski Clinic. I thank Dr. Burzynski for offering me a place where the staff treats me more like a friend than a patient, and where doctors go that extra mile. Thank you for working tirelessly to end this disease."

M.J. Rifkin was admitted to the hospital with terrible abdominal pain in August 2005. A tumor was removed from his colon, but he was told cancer had metastasized to his liver and he would require chemotherapy and radiation as soon as possible. He recalled a conversation he'd had months earlier with his brother, a Health & Healing subscriber. "If anyone in our family ever gets cancer, there's a place in Houston where we should go."

He started treatment in September, and within a few months, his cancer markers and scans were normal. M.J. found something besides a cancer cure in Houston: on December 15, 2007, M.J. and Pat Alexion, his patient coordinator at the Burzynski Clinic, celebrated their first wedding anniversary. "I am very thankful that there is a man in California who I've never met, Dr. Whitaker, who led me to Dr. Burzynski and my wonderful new life."

Cancer: Genes Gone Awry
I know what you're thinking. What is this therapy? How does it work? And, if it's so good, why don't all oncologists use it? In the 1960s, Stanislaw Burzynski, MD, PhD, a young physician and researcher in Poland, discovered novel peptides, or protein fragments, in the blood. Noting that these peptides were absent in patients who had cancer, he theorized that they must have something to do with the body's cancer protection system. And indeed they do, for Dr. Burzynski's discovery cuts right to the heart of both the cause and the cure for cancer.

Cancer cells, whether in the brain, pancreas, lung, breast, or elsewhere, have one thing in common: undisciplined, uncontrolled division that can destroy tissues around them, metastasize, and cause death. This is driven by changes in gene expression, chief among them a "silencing" or "turning off" of tumor suppressor genes, resulting in an increase in oncogene activity that leads to cancer cell proliferation. If silencing tumor suppressor genes increases oncogene activity and spurs cancer growth, then the inverse is also true. Turning on tumor suppressor genes and turning off oncogenes shuts down cancer.

A Real Cancer Cure
This is exactly what the peptides Dr. Burzynski discovered – which he named antineoplastons – do. Antineoplastons are the body's innate defense system against cancer; they normalize gene expression and prevent unruly cell division. When these peptides are in short supply, cancer goes on a cell-division rampage. But when they're abundant, cancer cell proliferation stops, and cancer goes away. It's that simple.

Antineoplastons explain the inexplicable in cancer. How can a woman have a normal mammogram with no evidence of tumors, then die nine months later from rapidly growing breast cancer? Why does another woman with the same type of cancer survive for years, with or without any treatment? The answer lies in the concentration of antineoplastons circulating in the patient's body. Those who succumb to cancer are virtually devoid of these peptides, while those who have them in greater abundance are far more likely to survive.

Dr. Burzynski figured out how to isolate these peptides from blood and urine and eventually how to synthesize them in a lab and administer them to patients. He first proved the safety of this therapy. There's no danger of antineoplaston treatment harming healthy tissues because it doesn't poison or burn cells – it simply gives the body what it needs to stop uncontrolled cell division. And he has clearly demonstrated its effectiveness in scores of clinical trials and thousands of patients, many of whom were singing Dr. Burzynski's praises on that special night in Houston. This is why I consider antineoplastons to be the single-most important breakthrough in cancer therapy ever and possibly the only one we will ever need. Antineoplastons are to rapidly growing and universally fatal cancers what penicillin is to pneumonia.

The Cancer Industry
Now, let's look at the other half of the question: if this treatment is so good, why don't other oncologists jump on board? Here's where it gets ugly. The paradigm that governs all conventional cancer treatment is that one must "purge the body of cancer cells." Conventional cancer treatment is a search-and-destroy mission: find a tumor, cut it out, poison it with chemotherapy, or obliterate it with radiation. If there is an approach to cancer that obviously does not work, this is it. In spite of dramatic advances in these invasive procedures (if one could call them advances), the death rate for cancer has not budged over the last 50 years; it fact, it has increased. Yes, you may hear about cancer patients surviving longer today, but the reality is that we're talking months, not years, for most of the common types of fatal cancer.

Despite the fact that this approach doesn't work, it is nevertheless firmly entrenched and almost universally accepted. One reason is because physicians are notoriously resistant to change. We're all guilty of this, but the history of scientific advancement reveals that the medical establishment is particularly obstinate, and this is understandable. Oncologists and cancer surgeons spend three to five years in intensive training to ply their trade. Acceptance of Burzynski's discovery would nullify those efforts.

Show Me the Money
However, there's another, darker side. Cancer is big business. We spend more than $72 billion every year on medical treatment. We pay out at least $15 billion annually on mammograms, colonoscopies, and other screening tests. And we've squandered more than $200 billion on research of dubious value since the declaration of the war on cancer in 1971.

As you can see, an enormous amount of money is at stake. Accepting "alternative" therapies upsets the apple-cart, and that's the last thing any conventional physician wants to do. Oncologists have a vested interest in perpetuating the current system, as do hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that depend on filling beds and selling drugs. And cancer research has become so narrow that scientists and doctors working on completely new approaches and therapies have, at best, a hard time getting funding. At worst, they are actively persecuted.

Just ask Dr. Burzynski. Coming up with a new cancer paradigm and treatment, opening a clinic and manufacturing facility, and attracting patients from all over would have been a feat in itself. But that isn't the half of it. He also had to overcome an unprecedented amount of harassment from government agencies and other protectors of the status quo.

Dr. Burzynski's Fight
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the medical establishment have done everything within their power to drive Dr. Burzynski out of business. They've raided his office, placed restrictions on patient enrollment, and subjected him to grand juries. Trumped-up accusations led to a criminal trial that could have put him in jail for 270 years – and allowed his enemies to steal his therapy, which without question they have tried to do. (If you have a hard time believing this, read The Burzynski Breakthrough by Thomas D. Elias. You will be appalled.)

Fortunately, Dr. Burzynski has been acquitted of all charges, but as some of you may know from personal experience, any kind of trial is a tremendous financial burden. I have always been proud of the fact that I am the only physician who publicly supported Dr. Burzynski when he was on trial. However, I had no idea how much that support meant until this event.

Mary Jo Siegel, a 17-year survivor of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, was a cofounder (along with Rita Starr) of the Burzynski Patient Group. She told the gala attendees, "In 1995, when Dr. Burzynski was forced to spend weeks defending himself in a courtroom and racked up astronomical legal bills, Dr. Whitaker offered to help. He told me to visualize a room full of letters and donations to help Dr. Burzynski through this rough time. Much to my surprise, mail from Health & Healing subscribers soon began pouring in. For several weeks, the postman would drop off bags full of letters, each containing $5, $20, $25, or more. Keeping up with them became a full-time job! All told, these wonderful subscribers donated more than $700,000 to the Burzynski Legal Defense Fund. Without this support, Dr. Burzynski would have been forced to close the doors to his clinic and countless lives would have been lost." (If you'd like to read the article that ignited this outpouring, visit the Subscriber Center at members.drwhitaker.com. Aug. 2008: Bad link. Use http://www.drwhitaker.com/Shared/Subscribe.aspx)

Go Against the Grain
Obviously, the multibillion-dollar cancer industry has too much at stake to go away peacefully. But what really astounds me is that the public continues to buy into the nonsense, giving generously to the same well-heeled cancer organizations that have been failing for decades! And, if diagnosed with cancer, most people elect to go along with chemo, radiation, or whatever therapy the doctor orders, hoping that they will somehow beat the odds.

Of course, cancer is scary, but it's no scarier than conventional cancer treatments, which routinely do more harm than good. I understand that it isn't easy to explore alternatives, especially when you think your life is on the line, and I would not encourage such a course if there wasn't clear evidence – make that proof – that Dr. Burzynski's treatments are a cure for cancer. If you or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer, you owe it to yourself to check out this remarkable therapy.

Recommendations
The Burzynski Clinic has effectively treated more than 50 types of cancer but has the most consistent success with cancers of the brain, breast, head and neck, prostate, colon, lung, ovary, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Patients with aggressive brain tumors often qualify for FDA-controlled clinical trials and can receive IV antineoplastons. Others may be treated with personalized combinations of gene-targeted medications, some of them from the antineoplaston family, with comparable results.

To learn about treatment at the Burzynski Clinic and success rates for different cancers and to read patient testimonials, visit burzynskiclinic.com and burzynskipatientgroup.org, or call 713-335-5697.

Julian Whitaker, MD, has practiced medicine for more than 30 years and is the founder and director of the Whitaker Wellness Institute in Newport Beach, California. This story is reprinted with permission from his monthly newsletter, Dr. Julian Whitaker's Health & Healing. For more information about the newsletter, call 1-800-539-8219 or visit www.drwhitaker.com.