Merchant of Hope.

It sounds like a Lifetime movie: an UK family on the brink of heartbreak, their mother already found out to be diagnosed with breast cancer, gets a double whammy when her four year old daughter suddenly stops moving like a four year old should. Soon after, one of the most incomprehensible things to have happen to so young a child is confirmed; the daughter is also stricken with a practically untreatable brain tumor.

As devastating as those circumstances are though, the family refuses to give up. They hear of a revolutionary, but not yet approved treatment out in the United States that just might be able to do what chemo and radiation can’t and save their little girl. While not readily available, for $200,000, they can enroll her in a clinical trial of the treatment. And through the charitable help of friends big and small, including local celebrities, they begin to do the impossible and steadily but surely raise the money they need to give their girl the only chance she has.

Of course, this isn’t a Lifetime movie. It’s the very real story of Billie Bainridge, recently documented by her uncle earlier this week in a bid to earn some publicity for her case. Diagnosed with a rare Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), Billie’s prognosis is slim; chances are she won’t live past another year. So the family has pinned their hopes on a tiny clinic in Texas, run by Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski. But in a final insult to decency, it turns out their hopes are likely in the hands of a discredited and dangerous crank who’s been peddling his revolutionary and new treatment to those hopeless for the last thirty years.Burzynski has billed his brainchild, antineoplaston therapy, as the cure to cancer since the 70′s (back when his antineoplastons were extracted from people’s urine), but while self-promoted books and movies laud his treatment as the cure-all to cancer, actual evidence of its effectiveness is little to none. Even as some of his studies have been funded by several governments, Burzynski hasn’t been able to present a compelling case for his drug in thirty years worth of tests.

His results never replicated by others, and apparently not one to let reality get in the way of things, Burzynski and his publicity machine have now taken to accusing pharmaceutical companies and the US government of suppressing his methods so as not to upset the cash cow that is cancer treatment. Meanwhile, to circumvent regulations, Burzynski’s clinic holds mock clinical trials of his treatment to desperate families with little recourse left, making them pay out of pocket while promising that his antineoplastons are on the brink of being accepted as the miracles that they are.

Never fear though, when confronted by criticism, Burznyski’s clinic has responded back by providing strong proof via documentation of his many test cases and inviting cancer researchers to openly examine his data. No, wait, that’s not true at all, he’s actually only lashed out with threatening letters that not so vaguely throw around the possibility of viciously suing any and all critics.

Much like Einstein did when someone accused him of being late that one time.

But Burznyski shouldn’t be the story here; Billie and the children like her should be. The amazing generosity showcased by the donations for Billie should be a reminder of the kindness of friends and strangers alike, and the pledge by her family to donate any funds they receive past $200,000 to cancer research should remind us how much further we still have to go in understanding and defeating this terrnbly complicated disease. Instead, this is the story of a deluded man who has sold false hope in a bottle to countless people, people in no position to turn down a chance, any chance, to save the people they love. In that sense, Burzynski, even if he does likely believe in his treatments, is worse than the cancers that have so ravaged his patients, preying on their hopelessness to advance his crusade. At least the cancer is honest about wanting to destroy you from the inside out.

That wraps up this week’s follow-up post. Catch a new post every Wednesday and Friday/Saturday.

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