Thank you for the kind words for my mom. It is an ugly decease, but it is remarkable the outpouring of support that my parents have received and her spirits are still high.
Different treatment plans may interact badly with each other. Unfortunately, most cancer treatments are very invasive. Sometimes it isn't safe for the patient to pursue multiple treatments at once, and in other cases one treatment will prevent the other from working properly. For instance, my understanding is that some of the newer vaccines can't function if you still have avastin in your system, so you have to wait a number of weeks for the avastin to clear out before you can take them. That isn't punishing people for taking Avastin, it is just the physical reality of the treatments.
It isn't that they are punishing Dr. Burzynski’s patients, most of the time when you pick a treatment regimen it rules out other treatments for quite some time. I think it is very important for doctors to explain all these options to you: you can do surgery and then chemo, or you can do radiation but then that rules out surgery, etc. (These are all hypothetical, it clearly depends on the individual patient). Once you pick the treatment you may have to stick with and forgo other options, which is why patients deserve to have all the facts. And since he simultaneously treats patients with more conventional approaches it does reduce their options quite a bit.
Rick
“”Different treatment plans may interact badly with each other. Unfortunately, most cancer treatments are very invasive. Sometimes it isn’t safe for the patient to pursue multiple treatments at once, and in other cases one treatment will prevent the other from working properly.””
Understood, but what I also took from the film was that a large part of the beauty of Burzynski’s treatment, was that it was not harmful/invasive/stressful on the body in general terms and had few side effects. Of course, this is not taking into account the deaths you found in your research, to high sodium levels, that were not noted in the film.
It is disheartening and frustrating if the doctor, like the film maker, is hesitant to simply present ALL of the facts and then to allow the individual to decide. After all, that is what I found to be the most troubling aspect in the film, and in our situation with government and the media today - that not only do few seem to want to provide all that any of us truly require, which is as complete an understanding of the facts as possible, and then as individuals, we can decide what we want to do on our own, but that further - many are actively working to KEEP important facts from us...
Again, thank you much for the frank discussion, and please know that both you and your Mom are in my prayers, FRiend.
May God bless.
Tatt