Comment and Opinion
CancerBusters.Com
This site, an advertisement for the Burzynski Research Institute, almost made me vomit. Imagine using the tragedy of a 5-year-old boy's cancer to promote fraudulent cancer cures. People often ask me why I spend the time I do on The Millenium Project, and this site gives a partial answer. Some of the people who sell quack cures have no morals and will use anything and anybody who comes along to promote their cause.
Here's my prediction. When Thomas Navarro dies of cancer (which he is almost certain to do if not given treatment), the lying frauds with the "alternative cures" will stop talking about him and find another victim to use for publicity. If his parents raise enough money to send him to some scamster in Mexico he will still die, but his parents will be asked to pay the outstanding bills. The quacks will not admit that they don't have a cure but will claim that they would have cured him if only they had got to him in time. In fact, it is better for the frauds if he dies after receiving their treatment, because not only will they have been paid but they will have a martyr to use in future publicity campaigns. All it will cost the Navarro family is their house and their son. All it will cost Thomas is his life.
The Cancerbusters site won the
Anus Maximus Award for the year 2000. The award was announced in the following words:
The top award this year goes to the acolytes of Dr Stanislaw Burzynski who have created an advertising site at www.cancerbusters.com using a five-year-old boy named Thomas Navarro. Thomas is dying of cancer and this site exploits that tragedy to try and get the law changed so that quacks can have the untrammelled right to deceive desperate, sick people by promising them magic cures for cancer, AIDS and other diseases for which no cure is yet available. While this site is specifically a Burzynski promotion, his competitors support the site and mention it because if the campaign is successful it will dramatically increase the size of the market for quackery and therefore their opportunities to make money.(Another Burzynski advertising site, www.ouralexander.org, came a close second for this award but missed out because it had no outright request to send money.)
Update, 9 January 2002
Thomas Navarro died on November 16, 2001. Here is something I wrote to a Usenet newsgroup about this. The discussion that followed said a lot about the way supporters of "alternative medicine" apply double standards.
Thomas Navarro died on 19 November, 2001. For six weeks after that, the advertising site exploiting his tragedy was still asking for money and saying how alive he was. Now the site has gone completely - there is nothing at http://www.cancerbusters.com at all. The people who were using him to advertise a quack cancer cure have no further need for him now and haven't even bothered to put up a memorial notice.
Position Vacant
Wanted - small child with terminal cancer to use in an advertising campaign. Must be cute and look sick. Hillbilly parents an advantage. (I'm sorry but we cannot accept applications from fictional children at this stage as there is not enough time to rehearse an actor before Rep Burton's next circus.)
