Cancer, Burzynski, antineoplastons and how profit has to come before life

Polish doctor Burzynski pioneered cancer treatments using antineoplastons see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antineoplaston. The film 'Burzynski: Cancer Is Serious Business' shows the concerted efforts of various bodies in Texas and the USA to undermine him, whilst his patients and/or their parents movingly witness how they have lived way beyond the expecatations of the prognoses of oncologists.

Underlying all this is the vested interest of big pharma in continuing to use existing treatments, from which they are making big money, along with the natural conservatism of the medical establishment.

The powers that be don't want important medicines to be in the hands of an individual through patents - tey want institutions to have the rights to them - this usually means big pharma.

Given that Burzynski invented/discovered antineoplastons, and first patented them, we might resonably argue that he should benefit from the money made from them. In fact he has has to spend $millions defending hiself against accusations including of being a fraud a quack.

How much better is it, though, for Burzynski to benefit from ANPs than big pharma? For money to be made out of medicine, people have to be ill. The cancer sufferers in the film make emotional pleas in courts and hearings for Burzynski to be allowed to treat people unhindered by government/industry to stop him, but even if Burzynski had always held the rights to the drugs unfettered, this would still be a problem, as he would still be making money from people being ill, and could conceivably want to protect his patent. If someone came out with a better or cheaper treatment, they would then make all the money. How would he feel about that?

If your livelihood depends on things going wrong that you have to fix, you face the same paradox. In an RBE, the patient would come before the patent. In fact there would be no patent. Discoveries / inventions would be open source, and used to benefit humanity as much as possible, within the overall limits of the earth's resources. Money would not be a limiting factor.