An Extremely Loudmouthed Very Minor Minority: Anonymous Racist Net-haters Exposed in Sweden

The last week or so, the big news in my country has been the reporting in daily tabloid Expressen of the result of the independent Research Group's unmasking of the most active and organized online "net-haters" on various racist or semi-racist or "nationalist" internet fora – a phenomenon I discussed from a moral psychological point of view in a former post. The messages of the haters convey a rich collection of completely unrestrained, inconsiderate or even mildly civil language, open blatant racism, many statements about the need for using fire arms as a reaction to current Swedish immigration policy. And, of course, countless attacks of a similar sort on people who openly question their views  or those of our own little new-racist party, the Sweden Democrats (for my take on the European new-racist political movement se the series of posts linked to here), inciting to violence and, in the case of a 16-year old girl who dared express opposition, organized rape. All under the prescious protection of a perceived online anonymity.

English coverage of this news is here and here. The Swedish reports of Expressen are here, here and here (with many further links to comments, particular analyses, debate and so on) and further comments can be found here, here and here, just to mention an extreme few of a lot of domestic news reporting. The analyses from the Research Group itself can be accessed via their webpage "Avkodat", i.e. Decoded. The unmasking itself was apparently done without any sort of illegal hacking, it is reported. Rather, the Research Group used modern, smart approaches to effectively assemble and analyze publicly available information, albeit apparently some of this information was public due to a security flaw of the Disqus online community service. I'm unsure, however, of how significant that particular aspect was in facilitating the unmasking.

The exposure of the identity of the net-haters first demonstrated a number of elected or otherwise public representatives of the Sweden Democrats, most of which immediately resigned or were forced out in accordance with the zero tolerance for racism policy that was proclaimed by the party's central leadership some years back and has resulted in the resignation or disappearance from public view of a great many people at all levels of the party. Further analysis has revealed that these and a rather small number of other people have been extremely active in various online debate fora in a way that can only be described as a consciously coordinated campaign, going on since many years, to the effect of creating the false impression of a change of public attitudes to immigration, etc. and to consistently and repeatedly terrorize and scare people who hold other views to keep them from voicing them publicly. Thus creating the false impression of the new-racist agenda as being in fashion, more widely accepted, and so on. In effect, the alleged "silent majority" that these sort of people love to hold themselves out as speaking for has turned out to be a cowardly and not even minimally civil or morally decent extremely small minority of loudmouthed extremists, lacking any sort of support among ordinary people and when exposed conveying loving character traits such as blaming their own children to have hijacked their computers. This, to me, is the most important result of the unmasking done by the Research Group and Expressen – this whole sense of a "nationalist", "racist" ideological wind having gotten hold of large portions of the population does not hold up to scrutiny. It's a marketing lie created by a very, very minor group of very unusual and extreme people under cover of supposed anonymity, but as all trolls exposed to the sun, when brought up in the daylight from their murky, foul dwellings, they burst just as well as that empty balloon of the image of public opinion they have been trying to create.

Now, Expressen choose to expose not only people holding public or political office, but also some of the other most active of the haters without any such formal ties to any party or organization. This created a small burst of criticism on press-ethical grounds. It's one thing, the argument went (expressed for instance by Ulf Bjereld, a professor of political science at my university) to expose public figures in this way, that's like catching officials taking bribes, or criticising political representatives for furthering a double agenda. But to expose "ordinary persons" who are not formally representing a political party or holding a public office is more problematic. The editor in chief of Expressen, Thomas Mattsson, has replied in a way making it obvious that he is aware of the press-ethical problem as such, but has made another judgement than Bjereld.

In this debate, in spite of being generally rather critical of what I see as an often much too eager willingness of the press to identify individuals, I side with Mattsson. Bjereld's argument rests solely on the assumption that being a public figure has to be defined in rigid, formalistic terms such as being an elected politician. I rather hold that the relevant questions are, first, if the person is a public figure and, second, to what extent the dissemination of the information is in the public interest. These two criteria together, due to the circumstances described earlier mean: (a) that the most active of the net-haters have, by their own conscious actions and fully aware of acting in the public domain, made themselves into public figures (these are not your average Joe shooting of an ill-considered comment in a forum or discussion thread now and then), (b) the result of the totality of their coordinated (I'm not saying planned, I don't assume a conspiracy here) actions are of the utmost importance from a public perspective by creating widespread false impressions influencing democratic and public discourse. Observe, also, that Expressen's exposure in no way curtails these people's freedom of speech or opinion or expression or somehow punishes or condemns them or in any other way undermines what may be seen as democratically important values. It simply reports about an issue of large national and principal democratic importance, in which said people have by their own free actions chosen to implicate themselves. Now, what this means is, of course, that I also agree with Bjereld that there is a limit to what level of identification of those active under anonymity in these fora would be press-ethically justified. But just as in the case of other publication decisions, the determination of that boundary is not done by assuming an arbitrarily chosen rigid formalist criterion of the sort suggested by Bjereld.

My View of Chelsea (FKA Bradley) Manning's Sentence

NOTE: due to Manning's own request to be referred to by the name of Chelsea and as being of female gender, the original text has been slightly updated on August 23, 2013.

Today, Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley and of male gender through the massive mass media reporting) received her sentence after having been declared guilty on 20 of the 21 charges on which she had been put before military court (several of which she confessed to) for leaking an abundance of classified material, among that the infamous diplomatic cables, to Wikileaks. She was acquitted on the charge of aiding the enemy, which potentially could have motivated life or even a death sentence. The prosecutor had moved for 60 years out of the originally 136, eventually reduced to 90, total maximum years for the crimes for which she was convicted, but the judge settled on a maximum 35 years in military prison (of which she has to serve a third) – some commentators reporting "a minimum of 5.2 years in prison with a 32 year maximum" – without explicit motivation. Commentators, however, refer to Manning's age, her confession, and plea for forgiveness and, not least, the brutal way in which she was treated at the first extended phase of her arrest as reasons for reducing the sentence. The general guess is that counting everything, she may be out in 10 years time from now. The prosecutor has expressed dissatisfaction and stated that the sentencing will be appealed. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, just to name a few of the sources available.

Commentators are very varied in their responses, but many on the side of things that I spontaneously sympathize with are making the point that the sentence is overly harsh compared to (a) US soldiers convicted for war crimes, or (b) other people convicted for leaking military or otherwise classified info to the press. The (a) type comment received some extra spunk this tuesday, when the US Director of Justice filed for having a court granting immunity to George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz against allegations of unlawfully instigating the war in Iraq in a recent suit. Now, I agree in a way with both these types of comments with regard to the unfairness and lack of legal security they expose, and I'm on the record as stating that Manning's actions were not only morally permissible, they were in fact required and admirable and have equally expressed my horror at the infamous video of a US helicopter crew laughing and joyfully gunning down civilians in Iraq. But at the same time I would like to insist on a distinction being made here between normative comments and factual ones. Moreover, among the normative comments, one must distinguish between those pertaining to the single case and those pertaining to the institutional order handling said single case (in this case the US system of criminal justice).

So, normative comments are about, simply, whether or not the sentence is a good thing. Given the moral permissibility of Manning's action to leak the material she did, the answer is simple: no, of course not! But this is mainly because from this same point of view, there should have been no conviction, no court proceedings and no arrest in the first place.

At the same time, this attitude, as I mentioned in my second post on Manning's leaks, is inconsistent with viewing Manning's actions as morally justifiable civil disobedience (since that assumes unlawfulness and that the offender takes the legal consequences). This latter analysis, which I support, brings into the picture the existence of a system of law that there is a value in upholding and allow to rule. Now, it may very well be that such rule of law is unsystematic in the US context, and that, e.g., president Obama has been hypocritical when condemning Manning's action more harshly than those of, e.g. Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the infamous pentagon papers. However, that does not justify undermining rule of law even more. It is quite clear that Manning committed criminal acts when leaking, no matter how morally justified these leaks were. It may very well be that the system of law defining these crimes is perverted in various ways, for instance in that it lets US soldiers who commit heinous war crimes (or political leaders who unlawfully order entire wars, for that matter) off the hook much too easily, but that is merely an argument in favour of harsher sentences in those cases (in the political case, equality before the law and due process in holding politicians legally accountable on the same condition as anyone else), not acquittal, amnesty or a milder sentence in Manning's case. Moreover, this is still a system where everyone, Manning included, had the possibility to understand the legal standing of her actions and what she could to expect in consequence. Much, much worse would be a system were law is just a cheap show, and court verdicts vary according to the momentary whims of those that happen to be in power to enforce whatever preferences they happen to entertain at the moment. That would be the rule where the only law is that of the strongest and no order or system whatsoever exists for anyone, except briefly for those fortunate to be allied with whoever is in momentary power in everyone's war against everyone else; where the life of the common person is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" as Thomas Hobbes so famously remarked. So, in sum, while I may support the claims that there are perversions in the US legal system in its view on crimes connected to the military and imperfections and hypocricy in its application, this does not justify even more of the same.

Now, none of this is to say that Manning's sentence is legally correct or reasonable; I know far too little about the US legal system to be a judge of that. But it seems to me perfectly reasonable (a) that she was convicted for crimes due to her leaks and (b) that she received a substantial sentence for that. This in no way reduces the moral worth of her action to leak, it just underscores that sometimes it is one's moral right and duty to break the law and that this may hold even with regard to laws that are in general quite reasonable (like those protecting military secrets in a world where military conflict is abundant). This is the nature of civil disobedience and, according to standard notions of the conditions for justified such disobedience, you should also face the legal consequences as part of your action. Having reached that conclusion, we can then debate how hard the sentence should be in a case like this (this is very much open to moral argument and judicial discretion in the US legal system as I understand it) and, even more, how soon a pardon should be extended, but those are matters that I leave open.

Instead I close by moving from the normative discussion to a factual one: how should Manning's sentence be assessed in relation to realistic expectations?  In fact, and this is the end of my line of comment, my impression is that the sentence is actually much milder than what was to be expected given the circumstances. These circumstances include: (a) the guilty verdict, (b) the American fondness of (irrationally) harsh sentencing in criminal law, (c) the claim of the prosecution for almost double the jail time eventually settled for by the judge, (d) the maximum sentence for the crimes for which Manning was convicted being almost three times what she received, (e) the nature and circumstances of the actions: leaking military information in the midst of military conflict, (f) the (by me alleged) fact that a large portion of US citizens probably simplistically view Manning as a common traitor and wouldn't have cared less if she had been locked away for good (no nice view of mine of the American people, but hey, I didn't choose they public relations agency, they did – in free elections!) – a harsh sentence thereby bringing no political risk from a legitimacy point of view.

In short: Manning's actions were morally right, required and admirable. It is at the same time quite in order that she has been convicted of crimes and sentenced for that and Americans should all be thankful for living in a society where rule of law prevails (however imperfectly) even when having such unpleasant consequences, albeit it would be even better if US military war criminals were convicted and sentenced proportionally to the seriousness of their crimes, and the President refrained from making statements possibly inconsistent with case law. The reasonableness of the sentence can surely be debated (not least, I would say, taking into account the fact that Manning's intention was to expose serious criminal behaviour that she had good reason to believe would for strategic military reasons have received no attention, had she tried to move the matter internally according to due military process), but given the circumstances the actual sentence is in fact a very, very pleasant surprise! Even more, given these very same circumstances, my reading is that the judge is actually making a (however subtle) statement in Manning's favour!

Greek Public Service Broadcasting Close-down: Told You So!

The week's second I told you so (the first one is here), this time with regard to my analysis of the Greek government's shocking close-down, effective immediately, of its public service broadcasting agency, ERT earlier this week.

Friday and today, reports are now coming in that the Greek PM Samaras has been taken aback by the mass and force of protests and civil disobedience, and is offering "to hire a small number of workers to resume public broadcasts". 

You don't say??!! A small number? Carefully selected, I presume? With a carefully selected brief, I presume even more? Exactly according to plan then! Read more here.

A Moral Theory of Online "Hate" Harassment and Attacks

First of all: most of the links in the beginning of this post are in Swedish - English links are highlighted with bold text. My direct familiarity with the issue is from Sweden, hence the language of most links, but I know that the issue is general and is discussed in many settings around the world.

Second of all: a quick little addendum was made just now (5 minutes after 1st posting) regarding the "internet dickwad" theory, that Fredrik Falk made me aware of. See further below......

In my country, there have been repeated public debates about the completely unacceptable and many times obviously criminal behaviour of some people when they use the anonymity of online resources to react to other people's open and publicly expressed opinions. In particular against women, especially those who express some sort of view on gender, family or sexuality related policy issues. And then we have what happens to all of us who dare to breathe even a syllable about migration or refugee policy that is not perfectly in line with the PC militia of the new wave of European racism - what I in a series of posts a few years ago called "nationism". Other topics which seem to feed these people are, of course, issues about religion and society, and (perhaps a bit more surprising) environmental politics, such as climate change policy. However, in many cases it seems that it suffices that the victim is of female gender, appear to be an immigrant or have dark complexion, or is perceived as something else that a straight heterosexual in his or her sexual orientation.

Recently, these debates have received a renewed momentum, as a large group of Swedish female public figures, journalists, debaters, bloggers, etc. – but also ordinary women engaging themselves in public discussions online – have gone public with what sort of awful filth they are exposed to from a presumably minor but apparently very active group of people. Even our prime minister has publicly identified the problem as serious and said that steps need to be taken. Several of these net haters behave identical to the so-called "internet warriors" of racist/nationist parties and more loosely coordinated anti-muslim or -semit groups, or generally xenophopic or anti-immigration activist movements, although sometimes they in fact belong to the opposite end of the right-left political scale (here). The phenomenon has been the subject of in-depth critical journalist scrutiny, as well as prime time news and debates in national TV and articles in newspapers and media magazines (here, here, here, here, here, here, here to name just a few) – in fact, the comment field of the national TV website had to be closed due to a tsunami of hate-reactions to the exposing of the haters – and also given echo in Norway. A few renderings in English of these recent events are here and here. Currently, the press is continuously publishing stories of more locally or less politically active people who have fallen victims to these sort of attacks and it is apparent that the phenomenon is systematic and much more widespread and serious as a threat to freedom of speech and opinion than previously acknowledged (here, here, here, here, to name just a few).

The behaviour of the "net haters", as the established term has come to be, is often equivalent or very close to criminal harassment, libel, threat or incitement to any of these or even violent crime. However, existing laws are obviously not constructed for a situation where these sort of patterns are the rule and occur in a systematic and coordinated (albeit perhaps not always in a specifically planned) way. Thus, although experts have claimed it to be rather easy to identify who the haters actually are and although sometimes these people seem to think that being on the internet as such provides protection – as in this fantastic display of stupidity and total lack of spine or sense of responsibility, when young female radio host Cissi Wallin on air phones up the guy behind a twitter account that has posted direct death threats – it has proven difficult for the police to investigate or prioritise this probable criminality (see also here, here) due to how existing laws and law enforcement regulation are written. Thus, demands have been made for stricter and tougher legislation and instructions to the police and responsible ministers seem ready to act (here, here, here, here, here).

At the same time, as had it been pre-ordered, we have another sort of reaction – the idea of the haters themselves as either victims or, at least, guiltless due to structural forces that direct their actions. The former type of reasoning is, of course, a well known spineless tactic from the new racist movement – it's your own fault that you're being attacked, you should count on it when saying such things as you do. Not so little resembling the rapist's or molester's so-called defense that "her dress/smile/dance/intoxication made me do it" (surprisingly similar to the orthodox islamist motivation for obligatory veils for women, by the way). I will not link to any of the numerous sites where this type of reaction is displayed, since I don't want to give them the favor of a backlink and extra hits. The latter reaction has been exemplified by self-professed internet activist Oscar Swartz, who launches the familiar thesis that the actions are so to speak not what they appear to be but "really" an understandable and predictable reaction to a hopeless situation in tough time regarding economy an employment. This is a refrain that has been regularly repeated before and also in similar areas, such as attempts to understand growing sympathies for racist/nationist parties, and so on. I realise that this sort of theory is both widespread and tempting. However, this structural theory is blatantly false, and I will close this post by explaining why and put forward an alternative and to my eyes much more plausible hypothesis in terms of individual moral psycho-behavioural qualities.

If you want to claim that the behaviour exhibited by the net haters is dependent on or explained by either (i) objectively tough economic circumstances or powerlessness (private or generally in society) or (ii) subjective experience of such things, you need to show: (a) that net haters as a rule are in condition (i) or (ii), and you need to show (b) that anyone in (either of) those conditions will be prone to exhibit the net hate behaviour. I will not speak of part (a) of the necessary argument besides noting that it is far from established, partly because the haters continue to hide behind online anonymity. However, let us for the sake of discussion grant that (a) is true. This brings us to (b) and it is here that the real troubles for the structural theory of net hate begins. Bluntly put: this theory cannot explain the fact that many (in fact, the overwhelming majority of) people who are in circumstances (a) are not exhibiting net hate behaviour, although they have access to the necessary technical resources. So what is the alternative explanation that would take care of that part of the story as well? I suggest that it has to be partly in terms of certain individual psycho-behavioural qualities that most people associate with clear-cut moral values in a pretty straightforward way. My idea is not that these qualities explain net hate by themselves, but rather that they need to complement the sort of suggestions that the structural theory provides, so I will not juxtapose it to that idea and call it "individualist". At the same time, the theory I propose much better than a purely structural theory manages to capture what makes us react to this phenomenon and want something done about it. Therefore I will call it a moral theory of net hate.

To get to this theory, then, let's start with the vague idea behind the structural theory that feelings of powerlessness, insecurity, of being under threat and so on lead to the net hate behaviour. The mechanism assumed in this supposed explanation is a psychology with several parts, but one of them is that conditions like the ones mentioned produce aggression when triggered by things (such as voiced opinions) not in line with one's own perception of things, attitudes or way of life. Let us, once again, for the sake of discussion accept this (although, I am far from convinced of such a simple causal pattern to be true to the facts). This would mean that also all of those people who are not net haters, but are in the condition of having feelings of powerlessness, insecurity, et cetera will have aggression likewise triggered. However, since they are not net haters, obviously, such triggered aggression does not automatically produce the net hating behaviour. Another mechanism typically assumed by the structural argument is that, due to the condition of the hater, the hate act will provide him or her with a benefit – typically feelings of security, control, power, and so on, that align with the initial state in a way that provides an incentive to further similar behavíour, and so on. In short: net hating is a bit like addiction. However, once again, apparently there are a lot of people who are not steered in this direction although they are in the initial condition – either because the (assumed) triggered aggression does not produce the promise of this sort of benefit, or that such a promise does not motivate enough for the net hate behaviour to follow. In effect, there has to be some additional qualities of the net haters that make them behave as they do. What may that be? I have three combined and complementary suggestions:

1. Lack of insight about the fate of the victims. The hater does not "really realise" the damage he or she does, for instance due to distance, active objectification, and so on.
2. Lack of concern for the fate of the victims. The hater at heart understands very well what harm is inflicted, but does not care enough to be motivated, for instance, since the hater is actually gratified by the thought of that harm.
3. Lack of consideration in light of existing concern for the fate of the victim, the hater lets other motives (such as longing for the gratification of feeling powerful or secure through the suffering of others) direct his or her actions.
4. Lack of willingness to take responsibility in light of the prospect of exhibiting the hate behaviour without "getting caught" at it.

If some or all of these features are added to (some of) the ones already mentioned, I suggest that we come close to a model that can explain net hate behaviour. Especially item 4 is, I suggest, an important ingredient together with the technical fact that the internet provides ample opportunities for (at least self-perceived) anonymity. It may be, however, that some haters are not so concerned with "getting away with it", and in those cases 4 will not be essential.

Now, all of these qualities of a person are, I suggest, associated with widely embraced moral opinions. More exactly, they motivate why the behaviour of the net haters is both default morally wrong, and lacks valid special excuses. The framework of the structural factors around the net hater's behaviour does not alter, but rather serves to underscore this.

First, the lack of insight, to the extent that is in place, can be seen in parallel with criminal negligence: we are supposed to understand that what we say or do to other people may affect them in a negative way and we are likewise supposed to take care and think over whether or not our actions may have such effects. Being in a hurry, excited or similar things is not a valid excuse for not taking such care, especially in blatant cases like threatening to kill or maim or assault someone sexually.

Second, the lack of concern is an attitude that may be compared to that of a sadist – someone who understands that he or she harms other people, but who doesn't care because he or she likes it. But ideally we are supposed to be motivated and thus concerned. In fact, in most cases this features would be considered an aggravating circumstance rather than an excuse.

Third, the sadist, just as the net hater who lacks the appropriate concern for the well-being of the victim, may escape serious moral criticism if he or she restrains him- or herself. That is, just as any of us who may at times be motivated to do nasty things to other people out of aggression, fear, coldheartedness or pure egoism, may control ourselves by activating other parts of our motivational system – such as moral rules about not seriously harming other people unnecessarily, being considerate and civil, and so on. Pretty simple and straightforward norms that we can assume net haters to know perfectly well and therefore judge their behaviour harshly when they so blatantly overstep them. And if they should claim that they don't know about these norms, we can move back to item number one and argue a negligence defect for which they are in fact culpable.

Fourth, I do think that many instances of net hate are crimes of opportunity, so to speak, very dependent on the fact that the hater believes that he or she can do it without being identified or confronted. As I said, there may be situations where this is not the case, but when it is, it adds two further layers of moral deficiency. One is that of lack of willingness to take responsibility. The other, of course, is that of culpable cowardice. Of course, both of these reasons for degrading their behaviour morally even more, is what they have in common with most other petty criminals.

It is important to note, that factor no. 4 is, so to speak, parasiting on one or several of the others. That is, I am not here subscribing to this suggestion:

After all, most of us succeed in behaving pretty ok on the internet, if nothing else because we take the effort of restraining ourselves.

It is of extra importance to note that the institutions of free speech, opinion and expression in liberal democratic societies in fact rest on the presumption that people keep within the sort of moral limits just set out. It may of course, be debated exactly how harmful a behaviour needs to be for the limits to the just mentioned freedoms to be approached. But what in any other circumstance would be considered as unlawful threat, libel or harassment is clearly residing in this territory. This will leave plenty of room for all the nastiness and edge we need in public debates – if, in fact, we actually need that at all. The importance of this type of limit is, of course, that without it the mentioned institutions lose their ability to do their job in a good society. If they are regularly limited due to the fear of people to speak their mind because of the reactions they may receive from haters, this is equivalent to a situation where the state itself acts to instill such fear. And then, we are no longer living in a bona fide liberal democracy. The only reason to tread cautiously is the very same concern, not to overstep the boundaries of defensible public debating within the framework of free speech. In light of the rather clear moral boundaries being overstepped by the net haters, this to my eyes presents no serious problem.

BBC newspeak on mob hate crimes against Roma in France

So, here's a short note on a piece of news reporting that upset me quite a bit yesterday night. Partly this is due to the nature of the events described, bearing evidence of the French authorities' increased acceptance of lawless harassment against Roma people, thus setting aside basic obligations to tend to human rights, rule of law and legal security. But even more so, the way in which these events are described upset me. Especially considering the source being not the press office of the Front Nationale or the British National Party, but actually the BBC.

Basically, what is reported is that of a local French mob running amok – inspired by the usual anecdotal rumours and lose slander figuring in cases like these since the witch-hunts of the 17th century – taking the law into their own hands and forcing (one supposes by threats of violence and/or actual physical force, how else does one force?) a group of homeless Romas (sometimes referred to as Gypsies or Travellers) to flee a camp set up on a wasteland close to a Marseille housing estate. In the process, parts of said camp were set on fire and anonymous members of the mob in so many words say that they were passively or indirectly inspired to the attack by local police authorities. Said authorities in turn seem to actively turning a blind eye to the incident claiming that they were "not able to report any crime".

This, the usually impeccably to the point and correct BBC chooses to describe as "vigilantes" with "no reports of violence" "evicting". Yep, vigilantes – just like Batman or any other righteous crime fighter who steps in when the high and mighty lost their ability to uphold the law. Yep, non-violent – just like that example of peaceful popular protest known as Kristallnacht that also had suspected arson and unlawful coercion and threat on the menu, besides general mayhem And the best of all: evicting, just like any landlord would do had the tenants not behaved themselves – all proper and according to due procedure. Yep, nothing to add to the local police's obviously completely ridiculous stated inability to report any crime. If this is not the worst case of racist newspeak I have encountered in mainstream media for a long time I don't know what is.

Shame on you, BBC!

Time for Pressure on Media Promoting and FDA Facilitating the Burzynski Clinic Quack-Scam

The criticism of the close to fraudulent cancer treatment scam operated by the Burzynski Clinic that I have covered in some earlier posts (here, here), due to its attempt to silence public criticism through legal threats and general bullying and harassment, needs to shift focus. We know that what the clinic does is a confidence scam of a classic type: The necessary confidence-part is secured by conveying an impression of offering a "last hope" experimental treatment to desperate cancer patients and their close ones (while what one is actually offering is a procedure that has been experimental for three decades and not been shown to have any sort of effect in spite of all these years of research devoted to that end). The actual scam is the appallingly high price charged for the FDA-approved chemotherapy treatment that has to accompany the experimental one, lest the clinic would be clearly guilty of severe malpractice. But, as I said, this is now well-known and need not be further supported, besides mentioning some additional details that have surfaced lately, such as the disastrous track-record of the Burzynski clinic's clinical trials and the piquant fact that those who want to make donations to support the clinic's research are asked to wire the money directly not to the clinic or its attached research center, but to the dear Dr. Burzynski himself, and the fact that said Dr. Burzynski is under investigation for rather serious misconduct by the Texas Medical Board.


But let's not once again lose ourselves in what we already know, but ask the question: what makes the scam possible? One, of course, is the combination of the quite understandable desperation of anyone who has been struck by the information that one or one of one's close ones has incurable, terminal cancer – this is the source of there being a prey for the Burzynski vulture-strategy. Second, equally obvious, the complete  ruthlessness of the clinic itself and , at least, its leadership and its medical and management staff. But the fact is that that the clinic is extended ample help and support from two directions that are not equally obvious or expected.


One of these is "old" mass media. What started the whole story this round was an article in the UK newspaper The Observer, promoting a charity call for financial support of a family that wanted to take their sick child into the Burzynski program, but couldn't afford it (no wonder!). It was blog posts (primarily this one and this one) reacting to the fact that an otherwise respectable newspaper in this way made itself into a mindless megaphone of a quack-scam that attracted the wrath of the Burzynski Clinic, eventually leading to the ensuing threats and harassment. Later, it has been discovered, that the very BBC choose to publish a more or less similar item. Quite recently, The Evening Standard (also the UK) made a rather similar publication, wording its article carefully to make the facts about the Burzynski treatment look dubious and inconsequential by placing the word 'unproven' last in the article and surrounding it with square quote-marks (thus implicitly conveying the message: 'that's the establishment using fancy words to hide the fact that they don't care about seriously ill children'). Representatives of all publishers have defended the publication of their articles (here, here and here), but seem not to understand what they have been doing – which is making themselves into marketing tools of the confidence scam of the Burzynski Clinic for the prospect of attracting a few more readers. They all refer to a "human interest" reason for publication, but this falls apart as soon as one sees through the shallow, shiny coating that makes the Burzynski Clinic remind of a respectable health care institution at first glance. This is simply bad news-evaluation, poor research and bad publication judgement. Unless, of course, there are deals under the table that would at least make the publication make short-sighted financial sense. In either case, I fully concur with Josephine Jones' conclusion that the publications are immoral.


The other source of support comes from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA. This was a theme of the criticism that was pursued by Oxford University neurolopsychology professor and popular author Dorothy Bishop early on and which I mentioned in my first post on Burzynski. With all the threats and harassment against bloggers, however, it sadly disappeared as a major theme in the discussion. For, this is a fact: one thing that makes the Burzynski Clinic scam possible to run within the limits of the law is the fact that FDA has been continuously granting the clinic permission to run clinical trials for several decades. This despite the set-up of the scam operation, where these trials are systematically exploited to press enormous amounts of money off of desperate and vulnerable people. There are three very good reasons for why this should make the FDA retract all trial permissions. 

First, one may plausibly argue that what the Burzynski Clinic does is to use the hugely elevated charge for regular chemotherapy to cover the costs of the clinical trials, which means that what people are in fact paying for is to be allowed to participate in experiments with unproven procedures. But this goes against all minimally decent research ethical standards. When a patient participates in a clinical trial, it is the the patient who is doing the clinic running the trial a service, not the other way around. If anyone should be payed anything, it is the patient who should receive and the clinic that should give.


Second, the confidence scam is by itself reason enough to withdraw permissions. Someone may try to argue that, for a private health care institution, it is not wrong or unreasonable to cover costs of research by distributing them in the form of a price increase on offered services (that's a bit like viewing research as a part of the overhead). However, in the case of the Burzynski Clinic, this argument is unavailable for two reasons. One, the clinic offers but two services: regular chemotherapy on its own, or chemotherapy plus the experimental procedure, and it is the price of the latter that is elevated. Two, the clinic's marketing shows that in reality the research and the regular clinical practice cannot be separated. The Burzynski Clinic has but one service on offer: regular and approved chemotherapy with add-on of an experimental procedure. From whatever side one looks, this is a clinical trial, and that is what the clinic charges for.


Third, the track-record of both the past research of the clinic and the scientific publication of Dr. Burzynski himself is, in combination, a rather serious reason for doubting both the scientific basis for viewing the research as defensible in the first place, and the competence of the Burzynski Clinic team to conduct it. Add to this the investigation of the Texas medical Board mentioned above, and you can add reason to doubt the scientific, medical and ethical integrity of the research leader.


If the FDA was to decide to review the entirety of this complex of reasons, I'm quite sure that they would indeed find cause to revoke the permissions for conducting clinical trials granted to the Burzynski Clinic. And if not that, so at least reasons for changing some of its regulation so that a decision to revoke could indeed be supported. In effect, there are very good reasons to pressure the FDA on this point. Not being a US citizen, I myself do not feel well placed to figure out the best strategy for doing that in an effective manner (petitions? open letters? formal complaints?....), but if someone better placed takes an initiative, I would be more than happy to get on the wagon!