On August 12, 1998, Kim and Roman Moreno received the news that every parent dreads: Their seven-week-old daughter, Tori, was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor called Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma. The tumor was in the brain stem, the most sensitive area of the brain. This type of cancer was considered inoperable and always terminal. The Morenos were told that chemotherapy might extend Tori’s life by a few weeks, but at the cost of severe side effects. They decided to forgo chemotherapy because of the side effects and the fact that it would not save her life.
The Morenos were told by three separate oncologists at Long Beach Community Hospital in California that Tori’s brain tumor was a terminal case. They also reached out to the late Dr. Fred Epstein, who at that time was one of the country’s leading pediatric neurosurgeons. Epstein told them that there was nothing that could be done.
The Morenos started researching brain tumors, and this is what led them to Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, M.D. and PhD in biochemistry, based out of Houston. Burzynski was treating cancer with a therapy called Antineoplastons (ANP). ANP is a natural treatment that has some excellent results for helping children with brain tumors. It also has few side effects, all minor and short-term, and is totally different from chemotherapy and radiation.
To give a brief definition of what ANP is and how it works, antineoplastons are peptides and amino-acid derivatives in the blood that were discovered by Dr. Burzynski. Cancer patients are deficient in ANP, which provides a defense against cancer by switching off the expression of mutated genes that are causing the cancer.
The Morenos had to get a special exception in order to be able to access ANP for Tori. Roman took Tori to Burzynski’s clinic in Houston in October 1998. In a recent interview, I asked Burzynski whether he thought he could save Tori. He said, “Her condition was so bad that we really didn’t know how much we could help. The question [was], Do we have enough time because her life expectancy was only about a month or so?”
While at the clinic, Tori had a chest catheter fitted, and Roman was trained on how to change the bags of medicine that were filled with ANP. Roman took Tori back to California, and she was on ANP 24/7. Roman told me that the only side effect of ANP was extra urination, so they changed Tori’s diapers more often.
The first improvement in Tori’s condition was noticed in December. Roman told me, “So the first brain scan where we saw some success and some diminished cancer was in December, so it left the doctors in California in awe of seeing some reduction in December, about two months into the ANP.”
Roman said he had to fight very hard to get his insurance to pay for the treatment. It was only when he hired a prominent California attorney and threatened to sue the insurance company for many millions of dollars that they agreed to pay up.
Tori was on the intravenous ANP for about three years and then switched to the tablet form for about 3.5 years. Today, Tori is 25 years old and has been cancer-free for more than 20 years. She has two children of her own. She did not suffer any side effects from the ANP, but did have some nerve damage on her right side from the tumor. She had to learn to write with her left hand, which her parents taught her when she was a child, and she walks with a limp.
You would think that pediatric doctors and cancer doctors would be beating a path to the Morenos’ door to find out how Tori was cured, but there has been little interest. Roman told me that Tori’s own pediatrician, Dr. Albert Lee, “was thrilled” that she was cured. He added that the late Dr. Epstein “was objectively thrilled” about Tori’s recovery as he was certain she would not survive.
I asked Roman whether there was any interest from the mainstream media. He said he invited the media to Tori’s high-school graduation. “Tori was not scheduled to see her first birthday. When she became a senior in HS, I thought it would be fair for Dr. Burzynski to get some more media attention [and] try to provoke some more interest in the Antineoplastons. So, I did invite the media to her graduation and a local channel did show up and broadcast that,” said Roman. But that has been the extent of any interest from doctors or the media.
Another Incurable Cancer Cured
There is a related story about another little girl, Crystin, with a terminal brain tumor that is important to document. It was her father, Ric Schiff, who had recommended Dr. Burzynski to the Morenos.
Crystin was diagnosed with a malignant rhabdoid tumor in 1994, when she was four years old. Crystin’s case was considered terminal by the tumor board at the University of San Francisco Medical Center (UCSF). The only treatment option was an aggressive combination of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
But the side effects of those “treatments” were appalling. Ric Schiff documents how the chemotherapy and radiation treatments affected Crystin. “Over the next 6 months, we literally tortured our little girl. Crystin’s urine burned her from the poisons, and we had to use rubber gloves to change her diapers. She threw up constantly and lost weight rapidly.… Every little cold was life-threatening” due to the treatments seriously compromising her immune system.
The Schiffs started researching brain tumors and found Dr. Burzynski. Ric said that although the doctors at UCSF made negative comments about Dr. Burzynski, when he visited the clinic he saw something completely different. Ric writes, “All around me sat patients who were having unbelievable successes against their cancers. On the wall was a startling ‘before’ and ‘after’ MRI of a small child with a brain tumor who had been completely cured.”
Crystin was put on Dr. Burzysnki’s ANP for many months. The ANP cured Crystin of cancer, but she died on July 29, 1995, due to complications from the chemotherapy and radiation. Ric writes, “Her autopsy revealed the ultimate cause of death was brain damage as a result of radiation and chemotherapy.”
There is an additional important story about the Schiffs’ experience. When the Schiffs were first thinking about going to see Dr. Burzynski, they were referred to Dr. Michael Prados, who at that time was the head of neuro-oncology at UCSF. He told them that Burzynski’s treatment did not work. But later, the Schiffs learned that Prados had made a legal declaration that Burzynski had cured two of his patients of brain tumors a few years prior to talking with the Schiffs. So, Prados had known that Burzynski’s treatment worked for some people, but he told the Schiffs that the treatment was worthless.
When I spoke with Ric on the phone in September 2023, he verified all of this. This raises the question: How many other patients with brain tumors who visited UCSF over the past 25-some years were told that their only treatment options were surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation?
For more than 40 years, Dr. Burzynski has been trying to get his treatment approved by the FDA. The tablet form of ANP has been approved, but the intravenous application of ANP has not been approved. Virtually all people suffering from brain tumors and other serious cancers need the ANP delivered intravenously because far more of the medicine can be administered this way than is possible with the tablets.
I asked Dr. Burzynski in an interview in April 2023, “Is it fair to say that the FDA has done everything in their power to make sure ANP is not approved and also to try to put you in prison?” His response was, “Absolutely, that’s what they did; they wanted to put me in prison for 270 years.” I clarified, “To put you in prison for curing kids with brain tumors?” He confirmed, “Yes, that’s right.… This is a complete deviation from the mission they should provide to the American people. I am ashamed of what they did because they knew very well that it was working. They conspired with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and pharmaceutical companies to steal it [ANP] behind my back. They got about 11 patents, which they should not get at all because I already had a number of patents approved.… But like in every big agency, there are good and bad. I encountered some good people within the agency; not everything is bad. But the prevailing policy is horrible.”
The fact is that if ANP was approved and oncologists could prescribe it to cancer patients, this would have an enormous negative impact on the pharmaceutical companies’ chemotherapy profits, which are well over $100 billion a year worldwide. In addition to that, there are substantial profits for companies producing the radiotherapy machines and the hospitals that run them. Radiation oncology profits worldwide are more than $8 billion. The pharmaceutical industry and hospitals would see a massive drop in revenues if ANP was approved. Cancer patients would much rather take ANP, which has very few short-term side effects, than suffer the serious side effects of chemotherapy and radiation.
The FDA and Pharmaceutical Companies
Since 1992, a large part of the FDA has been funded by the pharmaceutical companies it is supposed to regulate. As Michael White writes, “Today, close to 45% of its budget comes from these user fees that companies pay when they apply for approval of a medical device or drug.”
There is also the so-called revolving door between the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies. This is where senior FDA officials work at the FDA for a few years and then move on to high-paid positions with one of the drug companies. Nine of the last 10 FDA commissioners have gone to work at a drug company.
The FDA has spent millions of taxpayer dollars in court cases trying to put Dr. Burzynski in prison when they know perfectly well that his treatment works for a lot of cancer patients who suffer from brain tumors. The Texas Medical Board tried to remove his medical license. The fact remains that existing cancer treatments are a massive business, and Burzynski’s ANP is a major threat to those profits. The obvious question is, has the FDA purposely stalled approval of ANP in order to protect pharmaceutical companies’ profits?
The NCI’s budget is more than $7 billion, and a large portion of that is supposed to fund promising cancer treatments. They have never given Dr. Burzynski a penny in funding over the last 40 years. Massive cancer charities such as the American Cancer Society and Cancer Research UK collect tens of millions every year, and a portion goes into funding new treatments. They also have never given Burzynski any funding or assistance.
Burzynski’s treatment has had success with other serious cancers, not only brain tumors. There were also extensive clinical trials of ANP held in Japan. In one randomized, controlled, clinical trial, 62 percent of patients with colon cancer survived longer than five years.
You can review his website to see how many people Dr. Burzynski has cured. Bear in mind that the FDA usually demands that cancer patients have already tried chemotherapy and radiation before being allowed to access ANP. By that time, most of them are extremely sick from those treatments, and it’s very hard to save them.
Every year, millions of cancer sufferers, including our family and friends, are given the same three choices: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. There are certainly times when surgery can be a lifesaver, but we should never be forced to take chemotherapy and radiation when a much-better treatment exists. We should not be restricted by a highly compromised medical system that is controlled by the FDA.
So, what can you do about this? You can start by emailing a link to this article to your friends and family. Help educate people about what’s going on here. Start WhatsApp and Facebook groups, get a grassroots campaign going, and reach out to health websites and popular podcasts. Help get the word out.
You can petition your state governor. Governors have a lot of power to help get ANP approved in your state, especially if you live in Texas. We’ve got to step up and demand a change, because I guarantee you, if you do nothing, 10 years from now we will be in exactly the same situation. The pharmaceutical companies will continue raking in their chemotherapy profits while our friends and families are denied access to ANP.
Gavin Phillips has been interested in writing about political and health-related matters for more than 25 years. His interest in the so-called alternative cancer treatments began when a good friend died of ovarian cancer. He saw the severe side effects of chemotherapy and thought that there must be better treatments available. That is what led him to Dr. Burzynski. Gavin interviewed a number of his patients and parents of children who have been cured of supposedly terminal cancers. He can be reached at [email protected]
