Why? Because America�s mainstream cancer establishment, led by the NCI (under the Department of Health and Human Services), seemingly does not want a cure or even a successful treatment for cancer to ever be found. That thousands of cancer patients suffer or die each year from lack of access to �approved� alternative cancer treatments is evidently of no concern to them.

The way the medical power structure is set up in the United States any cancer therapy must be tested, validated, and approved by the FDA in cooperation with the NCI before it can be officially and legally supplied to patients.

Theoretically, NCI and FDA use unbiased scientific criteria to make their determinations. In practice, they seem to bend science to deliver a predetermined outcome. When you sit at the top of the medical power structure, it�s pretty easy to get the results you want. Here�s how NCI fixed the research study to disqualify Dr. Burzynski�s antineoplastons.

Dr. Burzynski had been using his antineoplastons for over a decade, successfully reversing life-threatening cancers in at least 30% of his patients whom conventional doctors had predicted would die. Antineoplastons are derived from amino acids and peptides, which are building blocks for proteins. Dr. Burzynski originally identified and isolated at least 5 different antineoplastons in the urine of healthy humans. He determined that these molecules, naturally found in a healthy human body as part of its immune defense system, have a strong anticancer effect at a genetic level.

In fact, according to Dr. Burzynski, these molecules are able to turn off the activity of genes that would otherwise lead to cancerous (neoplastic) growths. They can actually stop cells from dividing and increasing, and eventually producing a tumor mass. It is almost as if cancer is the result of an antineoplaston deficiency.

Dr. Burzynski synthesizes antineoplastons in his 47,000-square-foot government-approved facility in Texas. For Dr. Burzynski�s 3000 patients, antineoplaston treatment is a lifesaver; among prominent alternative physicians, the treatment is gaining respect and credibility. Outspoken alternative medicine advocate Julian Whitaker, M.D., for example, has stated: �This is a treatment I would try if I discovered I had cancer.

Even though getting an essentially hostile and intrinsically biased government agency such as NCI to cooperate fairly in a clinical trial to test and possibly approve an alternative cancer treatment is a dubious long shot, Dr. Burzynski knew NCI validation was necessary for the future of his antineoplaston therapy. In 1991, Dr. Burzynski began negotiating with NCI to set up a study involving his patients and protocols.

There were problems from the beginning and, in August 1995, NCI shut down the cancer trials and blamed the failure on Dr. Burzynski. However, a careful study of the correspondence between him and NCI officials reveals how NCI deliberately and craftily scuttled the research trials, then tried to cover its tracks with bureaucratic backfilling and misleading statements. They weren�t quite clever enough because they left a smoking gun.

In October 1995, NCI released a statement to the press and public called �Cancer Facts,� explaining why the antineoplaston trials, part of its official Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP), were closed. NCI�s �facts� were more sleight-of-hand and misrepresentation than fact.

First, NCI said that out of Dr. Burzynski�s �entire� clinical experience, he was able to select only seven brain tumor patients who had benefited from antineoplastons. The inference, of course, is that for the several thousand other patients, the therapy had been ineffective. According to Dr. Burzynski, he prepared �dozens of cases for the NCI reviewers.� They had seen only seven because they had budgeted only one day to visit his office.

Second, NCI claimed Dr. Burzynski had not included all available patient information. The opposite is true, says Dr. Burzynski, who notes that an NCI official actually commended him on �how complete and well-organized� his patient studies were.

Third, specific ground rules were established by Dr. Burzynski. At the dosage level to be tested, only patients with a tumor of a specific size would be included in the study. At the time, NCI agreed, but in late 1993, Michael A. Friedman, M.D., Associate Director of CTEP, asked Dr. Burzynski if NCI could change the protocols and make cancer patients with bigger tumors eligible. Dr. Burzynski said no, because this would require a stronger dose, not agreed-upon in the study.

In a letter dated November 2, 1993, Dr. Friedman acknowledged this and agreed that NCI would �accede to all the modifications that you have stipulated.� In March 1994, Mario Sznol, M.D., also of CTEP, asked Dr. Burzynski if they could modify the protocols. In April 1994, Dr. Burzynski declined again, requesting a separate trial for patients with larger tumors. After all, the clinical future of his antineoplastons was at stake and they must be given a test equal to their therapeutic abilities. It�s hard to believe that anyone at CTEP or NCI really wanted any proof to emerge that antineoplastons worked.

The dates are not clear for the next stage, but at some point NCI disqualified two patients from the ongoing study. One patient no longer had any detectable cancer cells; the second had skin reactions, not from antineoplastons, but from a different drug. Actually, this skin condition had improved under antineoplastons. In other words, the minute NCI saw evidence of antineoplastons working, they scuttled the data by withdrawing the two patients and thus the evidence.

In early 1995, NCI investigators modified the testing protocols without Dr. Burzynski�s permission or knowledge. Later, when challenged by him, Dr. Sznol tried to prove that what they had done was not that much different from �criteria and methods in [Burzynski�s] experience.�

A few months later, the legal advisor for NCI�s parent organization, the National Institutes of Health, told Burzynski that permission of a drug�s inventor �is not required� in order to make changes in a study. In effect, NCI was saying they can change the research rules anytime they want and Dr. Burzynski can�t stop them. For good measure, NCI also blamed the change in rules on its research affiliate, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, who, in turn, blamed NCI.

Finally, NCI said they dropped the studies because �there was no hope of completing the studies in a timely manner.� Since when is there a time limit when it comes to saving lives? NCI has already had more than 30 years to find a cancer cure. Is this a �timely� manner?

The net result of NCI�s shady backroom maneuvers is that the trials were halted and Dr. Burzynski�s antineoplastons are no closer to government approval in 1996 than they were in 1991. Science is not always completely objective; if you are clever, you can set up an experiment to prove (or disprove) virtually anything you want.

NCI was able to stack the odds against antineoplastons by altering the eligibility criteria so they would be tested under conditions for which they were not designed. It�s like fixing a horse race because you�ve bet heavily on a lame horse (chemotherapy) that would otherwise not even place. Then, when the antineoplastons did poorly, NCI could claim they had scientifically and objectively evaluated them and antineoplastons had come up short. But as the documents suggest, it was a rigged outcome.

If NCI was genuinely interested in finding a nontoxic alternative to conventional cancer treatment, they would have worked with Dr. Burzynski every step of the way, on his terms as the inventor and prime clinical user of antineoplastons. They could have assured that this therapy would be given the best conditions in which to exhibit and prove its benefits. Instead, they used the situation to discredit it.

Today, almost 1 out of every 3 Americans is expected to develop cancer. Existing conventional cancer treatments are dangerous, toxic, expensive, and usually ineffective. NCI should be doing everything possible to find safe, nontoxic, and effective alternatives for cancer treatments. Instead, they are conspiring with our tax dollars to defraud the U.S. public of life after cancer.