Dear Observer Part 2 ................

Dear Observer

Thank you for publishing my letter regarding the Observer article on the Burzynski Clinic. I am grateful that you gave me the opportunity to raise some of my concerns regarding this organisation. However I am compelled to draw your attention to my concern about the level of the Observer’s response to the issues raised. You cannot be unaware of the ongoing debates on Twitter and in the blogosphere about the Burzynski Clinic. As well as consideration of the medical and ethical issues involved, some of this debate is about the responsibility of the Observer to redress the balance with regard to this matter. There is a perception that the Observer, albeit unwittingly, has given a validity and respectability to an organisation which is exploiting the vulnerable. Many individuals have contacted the Observer expressing their concern, but the printing of one letter does not reflect the disquiet felt amongst the skeptical community. Should you wish to have some measure of this disquiet I can refer you to the excellent blog of Josephine Jones who is maintaining a list of all blogs dealing with this matter. Andy Lewis, Ben Goldacre and David Colquhoun  have all made eloquent and persuasive contributions which deserve wider dissemination.

I am still hopeful that the Observer will fulfil what I believe to be its responsibility for providing its readership with an informed and balanced view of the issues raised in the original article.

Mike Warren

A Reply From The Observer

Following my email to The Observer, a reply arrived in my inbox:

Received this evening, 25.11.2011, 7.45 pm.

Dear Mr Warren
I have been passed the letter you wrote to the Reader’s Editor re. the Burzynski Clinic. We are carrying out furher research into the story and the clinic.
In the meantime, I wondered if you would be interested in having your letter published on our Letters page?
We never run notes sent to the ‘reader’ email as letters before asking the writer.

Best wishes
Robert Yates
Assistant Editor
The Observer

Dear Observer ..............

My email to The Observer in response to this article about the Burzynski Clinic.

I have had the Observer delivered each Sunday for some forty years and therefore feel entitled to describe myself as a loyal reader. I was concerned to see the article entitled, 'The worst year of my life: cancer has my family in its grip' in the 20th November edition. It is entirely appropriate for you to raise awareness of the dilemmas faced by the families of young children suffering from life-threatening conditions such as Billie Bainbridge. What concerns me is the way in which the article appears to give uncritical support to the treatment offered by the Burzynski Clinic. There is much evidence to suggest that this clinic operates on the fringes of medical practice and does little more than offer false hope at a high price. A look at the Cancer Research UK website would have confirmed this. I fear that the consequences of this article will be to raise unrealistic expectations in other cancer sufferers and their families and line the pockets of charlatans. I look to the Observer to provide balanced and informed articles. I hope therefore, that a future edition of the paper will address the issues I have raised.

The issues raised in this article were brought to my attention by Le Canard Noir and has provoked a good number of blog posts. Anarchic Teapot has listed many of these on his site.

Over at The 21st Floor there is an online petition calling on the Burzynski Clinic to release its data.

Night View

Taken on my iPhone as I walked to the Sage.


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ISIHAC

Last night I was at the Sage, Gateshead for a recording of two episodes of ISIHAC. Jack Dee in the chair, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marcus Brigstocke, Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer were the panellists. What an excellent evening, I laughed 'til my face hurt.


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