For those who watch FX's comedy series, Archer, Sterling Archer needs no introduction. For the rest of you, just picture a narcissistic jackass 007-type spy whose antics undeniably entertain. The kind of guy who, in season 2 episode 9, believes he's badass enough to undergo chemo without the hindrance of side effects, only to be blindsided when his agency's doctor informs him that his meds are phony; he has in fact been popping mere sugar pills and intravenously injecting Zima. Worse, his fellow cancer-stricken friend, Ruth? Similarly duped, now dead (she was a frail elderly lady aka plotline sympathy sponge). Cue revenge rampage where Archer takes down the entire Irish mob behind the malpractice.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be playing the part of the "Irish mob." Dr. Burzynski, a medical doctor and ph.D biochemist, will be playing the part of "Archer," fighting for justice on behalf of the "cancer-stricken patients," who will be played by ... cancer-stricken patients.
Basically in 1967, Burzynski discovered a naturally occurring compound, antineoplastins, present in the bodies of healthy individuals and lacking in cancer patients. Realizing the potential for a genetic mechanism to reverse tumor growth, he patented the treatment. He has been curing even the most aggressive forms of cancer with remarkable success rates since then. But as explained in the Los Angeles Times, "Burzynski's Antineoplastons, with their high success rate AND lack of side effects, pose a significant threat to the trillion-dollar industry of treating cancer with the traditional methods of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy." And as Dr. Li-Chuan Chen, former National Cancer Insitute Researcher, says in the film, "under the capitalist sun, there is nothing sacred. Money talks."
And so the documentary charts the 14 year-long litany of legal battles waged over the rights to administer antineoplastins. The film's "a dramatic expose of the FDA and its incestuous relationship with Big Pharma as it seeks to first discredit, then co-opt Burzynski's discovery," writes Variety. The FDA went as far as raiding Burzynski's private practice, confiscating medical records, hauling him to grand jury after grand jury trying to make indictments stick, and ultimately trying to send him to jail so that he couldn't fight the criminal theft of his invention! From what I can tell, he's still tied up in legal battles and the FDA has yet to cease and desist.
And so the documentary charts the 14 year-long litany of legal battles waged over the rights to administer antineoplastins. The film's "a dramatic expose of the FDA and its incestuous relationship with Big Pharma as it seeks to first discredit, then co-opt Burzynski's discovery," writes Variety. The FDA went as far as raiding Burzynski's private practice, confiscating medical records, hauling him to grand jury after grand jury trying to make indictments stick, and ultimately trying to send him to jail so that he couldn't fight the criminal theft of his invention! From what I can tell, he's still tied up in legal battles and the FDA has yet to cease and desist.
Patent fraud, government harassment, and scientific sabotage. And all because "when Antineoplastons are approved for public use, it will allow a single scientist to hold an exclusive right to manufacture and sell these medicines on the open market—leaving the pharmaceutical industry absent in profiting from the most effective gene-targeted cancer treatment the world has ever seen. Oh what would Archer have to say about all this?
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