Mainstream Media Aiding and Abetting Quackery and Pseudoscience: Burzynski Edition

Why did the idea that autism is somehow caused by vaccination spread so widely?  One reason is that the mainstream media, especially in the UK, ballyhooed this mistaken notion.  The best  introduction to the media's complicity is in Seth Mnookin's The Panic Virus  (you can also find his blog at PLOS-One The Panic Virus)

This time around, the issue is a pseudoscientific treatment for cancer, and the media's complicity.  On November 20, 2011, the UK newspaper "The Observer" published a credulous and  heart-strings-tugging article about a little girl with terminal cancer and her treatment by a US center, The Burzynski Clinic, offering an expensive cancer "treatment" that is almost certainly ineffective.

One UK reader responded.  The Observer edited his response to remove their own responsibility and to recast the tone of the article:

I have had the Observer delivered each Sunday for some forty years and therefore feel entitled to describe myself as a loyal reader. ^but 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. ^ "As stars came out to help little Billie, my cynicism melted away" (Focus).

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.