I got a bit behind on my work yesterday, so I'll be brief. Yesterday, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) announced its annual Pigasus Awards. Sadly, each and every year, there are far more "deserving" candidates than there are awards to give. However, this year marks something awesome, namely the first time the prize has been awarded to someone who has become such a major focus of this blog over the last year and a half. We're talking Stanislaw Burzynski, who's for the first time won an award that he actually richly deserves:

The Pigasus Award in the Scientist Category goes to Houston biochemist and physician Stanislaw Burzynski, who sells expensive cancer cures by administering “antineoplastons,” costing his customers tens of thousands of dollars, and which have never been shown to be efficacious in controlled trials. His cancer therapy is not FDA approved. Despite his many customers to whom he sells his so-called “cancer cure,” he has never published the final results of a single clinical trial. The FDA has sent his clinic warning letters about their unsafe research methods and is currently investigating possible violations of rules meant to protect research subjects, including children.

You'll be hearing a lot more about Burzynski, probably next week. In the meantime, one can't help but note that an old "friend," that TV peddler of quackery extraordinaire, Dr. Mehmet Oz won yet again, this time the Pigasus Award for Refusal to Face Reality:

The Pigasus Award for Refusal to Face Reality goes to Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Harvard-trained cardiologist who hosts The Dr. Oz Show on broadcast television, one of the most popular syndicated television shows in America. The only person to have won a Pigasus Award two years in a row, he wins a third time this year for his continued promotion of quack medical practices, paranormal belief and pseudoscience, including pseudoscientific Reparative Therapy to "cure" gay people, the “energy-healing practice” of Reiki as a way to cure disease, various TV psychics and mediums such as Theresa Caputo and John Edward, faith healers such as "John of God," GMO conspiracy theories, and any number of new quack diets, herbal remedies, anti-aging cures, and untested “wonder drugs,” among many other pseudoscientific and paranormal claims.

But let Randi himself tell the story:

Sadly, I look forward to Stanislaw Burzynski winning this award again—unless, of course, the FDA finally succeeds in shutting him down.