Is it possible to reverse autoimmune disease—permanently? In this episode of Brave New Us, Dr. Richard Burt, pioneering stem cell physician and author of Everyday Miracles, joins host Samantha Stephenson to unpack his revolutionary treatment for autoimmune disorders. Hailed by Scientific American as one of the top 10 medical advances of the decade, Dr. Burt’s non-myeloablative stem cell therapy has changed—and saved—lives.
Dr. Burt opens up about his early skepticism, the medical establishment's resistance, and the patients who inspired him to push forward. Together, we explore the promise and pitfalls of regenerative medicine and what it takes to bring groundbreaking science to the clinic without losing our humanity.
If you’ve ever wondered:
Can stem cells actually reverse disease, not just slow progression?
What does "immune system reset" mean—and is it safe?
Why is the medical establishment slow to adopt new therapies?
What ethical questions come with cutting-edge biotechnology?
This episode will challenge what you thought was possible.
Topics Covered:
How Dr. Burt’s stem cell therapy reversed multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, Crohn’s, and more
The difference between myeloablative and non-myeloablative stem cell treatments
Why Big Pharma and some doctors resisted the treatment—even after success
What “immune system reboot” really means and how it works
The role of patient advocacy and storytelling in transforming medicine
Why humility, ethics, and hope must guide the future of biotech
How Everyday Miracles bridges hard science with human dignity
Mentioned in the Episode
Dr. Burt’s books:
Leave a Review + Share the Show
If this conversation opened your eyes to what stem cell therapy can do, please:
Rate and review Brave New Us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
Share this episode with a friend, patient group, or doctor
Keep the conversation going at bravenewus.substack.com
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00]
Samantha: Welcome to Brave New Us, where we explore what it means to be human in the age of biotechnology. Today I'm here with Dr. Bert, a pioneer in stem cell medicine, on a mission to convert chronic autoimmune disease into one-time reversible illness. His book, everyday Miracles chronicles his journey from skepticism to breakthrough and how his discoveries now hailed among the top 10 medical advances of the decade earned him accolades from Scientific American, a place on Newsweek's list of the top 50 most influential people in healthcare, and even my favorite, the Keys to the Vatican.
Samantha: We discussed the science, the ethics, and paradigm shifting technology behind what may be one of the most revolutionary stories in modern medicine. Dr. Burt, welcome to Brave New Us.
Dr. Burt: Well, thank you for having me and [00:01:00] inviting me, Samantha.
Samantha: Absolutely. Uh, can you start by telling us what is HCST and how are you using it to reverse autoimmunity?
Dr. Burt: So HSCT stands for hematopoietic, which is a term for blood stem cell transplant. And basically we just use a person's own. They're not, uh, from another person. It's their own blood stem cell that we get out of their blood to reset their immune system. 'cause that blood stem cell will not only make all the components of blood, like red blood cells carry oxygen and things like that, it will also make your immune system. Now the stem cell itself doesn't carry oxygen and it an immune cell, but it makes those cells and it replenishes them. red blood cells that turn over every few months and have to be continually made, your immune cells once made pretty much stick with you the rest of your life. But if you. [00:02:00] Decrease that number, the stem cell compartment will remake those immune cells. one of the, the concepts of this that I had 35 years ago, 'cause I was doing transplants for using stem cells for leukemias, was, uh, you know, why not just do this autoimmune disease? Instead of trying to target a leukemia or cancer cell, try to just reset the immune compartment.
Dr. Burt: Use a more gentle regimen that knocks down your immune cells and let it without inflammation because the, when the conditioning regimen will knock down the inflammation too.
Samantha: So in this treatment, you wipe out and reboot the immune system, like rebooting a computer and then you, the patient becomes their own. With their own cells to restart and repopulate the immune system is.
Dr. Burt: Yeah. Basically when you knock [00:03:00] down the inflammation with the conditioning regimen and knock down the immune cells that are effector causing these bad autoimmune diseases, and then you give them back their own stem cells without inflammation, the stem cells regenerate new immune cells that default towards tolerance.
Dr. Burt: the idea first came to me when I was a fellow at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. . And, um, I. They, they were bringing people in after transplant for leukemias and cancer. And they were reim immunizing them for childhood vaccines because they had lost their memory cells. So once immunized, you normally have memory cells that persist for your life, you know, or, or at least 20, 30 years or longer.
Dr. Burt: They, they may start to diminish, but they're there. So they had to reim immunize them. And I looked at my attending and said, you know, you're reim immunizing these people. 'cause they lost their immune response to these childhood antigens. They'd been immunized to measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus. [00:04:00] I didn't get a response.
Dr. Burt: It was kind of an obvious statement. It's a busy clinic. And so I said, uh, that means we could do this in an autoimmune disease and reset the immune system. And my attending was Professor William Burns, and he stopped, looked up over his glasses and said, you're right, we could do this for multiple sclerosis. I went back to my boss at the NIH who was. The head of the hematology branch and a big researcher in gene therapy and said, I want to do this. And, um, Dr. Neen kind of leaned back in his chair and he said, well, there's nobody working on your idea at the NIH.
Dr. Burt: And I said, I know, but I've discussed it with John Hopkins. They wanna do it.
Dr. Burt: And that's how it started. And we worked in animal models. So I was all charged and ready to go to start Human trials. Thought I'd have answers in five years. Long and short, it's like eight years working in animal models. It worked. So then I designed a protocol and, um. Took it, uh, through the FDA. Now we're not a [00:05:00] drug company. We don't make money. There's no patent on this. Normally people only go through the FDA, so they get a license and they can monopolize the profits and, you know, sell the drug everywhere.
Dr. Burt: That wasn't my goal. I didn't have to do that because it's Unmanipulated broad product. It was voluntary on my part, just, because I thought it was the right thing to do. And so then we eventually started treating, we developed a phase one, phase two, phase three trials. The final trial, you know, is very definitive, published in Jamma back 2019, and on the way, you know, got some grants to help support it, including a $10 million NIH grant and so forth. And there's ups and downs in doing all that, and a lot of hard work. But what it really eventually ended up showing is that this really worked, we could reset an autoimmune disease and put people in these su sustained long-term remissions without any other therapy.
Samantha: Wow, it's, that's incredible. And [00:06:00] just to clarify, when you talk about using stem cells in your conditioning regimens, you are using adult stem cells as you said, and that's none of these techniques rely on embryonic stem cell research or the destruction of human embryos. They're all derived from the patient's stem cells
Dr. Burt: we do not use embryonic stem cells for this or a product of embryonic stem cells, and we don't use allogeneic. That is from another person we use only autologous your own stem cells. And those are drawn usually out of your arm. If you don't have a good vein there. There'd be a catheter inserted here, uh, to, to uh, do the apheresis to collect the stem cells.
Dr. Burt: So they're autologous, they're your own that we take out. And then we use a regimen, knock down your immune system. Then we reinfuse those immune stem cells, which by terminology they're not called immune stem cells. They are, but they're called, uh, hematopoietic. That is blood stem cells that can be gotten from the blood or from the bone marrow.
Dr. Burt: In the old days you get 'em outta [00:07:00] bone marrow, but now people mostly get 'em out of the blood. So it's your own stem cell. And although I only work in adults, 'cause I was in an adult only university hospital, uh, it has expanded to be used in children. And some places do treat children with this technique, and in which case it's collected from the child's own, uh, blood.
Dr. Burt: So it could be, uh, an adolescent or child, but uh, it's mostly an adult and it's their own stem cells.
Samantha: you captured dozens of incredible real life stories in your book of Reading Miracles. I mean, I was literally in tears reading story after story of patients who were entirely debilitated and their lives were really stolen from them by these various autoimmune diseases.
Samantha: Um, Ms at the beginning, uh, scleroderma but they were restored after receiving these transplant transplants and it sounds too good to be true. [00:08:00] It, it really does. Um, I. But testimony after testimony of patients who gave you permission and were begging you, like, please share this, please.
Samantha: One of 'em, I think she even put it on her license plate because she really wanted to advertise this, um, this treatment. Is there one patient's story that stands out to you among these many lives that you have transformed with this treatment?
Dr. Burt: Well, one of the really enjoyable things for me is I do spend, uh, a period of time getting to know people in the process of screening 'em for the procedure and then doing the mobilization stem cells. Then in-house, they're in-house about 14 days and you see 'em every day and, and you really get to know people.
Dr. Burt: And that has made this, you know, really enjoyable when, but when you know people, everybody a story. Everybody has good and bad and everybody dealing with these diseases that are [00:09:00] traditionally not curable and you just stand drugs and solely get worse, have been so incredibly brave with such fortitude and also developed PTSD, kind of like they're always in the war zone.
Dr. Burt: They never get a break. The war's never over ed and it, it weighs on your psyche, uh, even at a subconscious level. But the incredible. You know, courage and strength of these people has is why I do it. And I bring that out in, in the book, of course. Um, but that's true for every patient. So I can't say there's any one patient.
Dr. Burt: For instance, the book I mentioned one patient who was virtually homeless, uh, and had no resources, Eritrea. I gave every patient the right. No last names were put in. And to use a fictitious first name, I encouraged all patients to use a fictitious first [00:10:00] name because I'm all about protecting patient privacy.
Dr. Burt: And of course, every patient read and okayed what I wrote.
Dr. Burt: But the point is, here was this one patient with nothing. living on the street and then, and, uh, I call it Eritrea versus Cruella. And then later in the book I talk about another gentleman who's a billionaire, private Lear Jets. And, uh, you know, what he was going through and what happened afterwards.
Dr. Burt: And an incredibly unique and outstanding individual. So I can't really say that there's, there's any one patient. Each patient's story is so worthy in and of itself.
Samantha: Right, right. Uh, they were really mind blowing to hear about these people who were suffering. And I think that, um, if I'm remembering correctly, that patient who was homeless was because of the MS That those treat, that her treatments were so expensive that and [00:11:00] her. Disease was so debilitating that she couldn't, um, she couldn't continue work.
Samantha: She went on disability, but on disability, she couldn't afford the treatment. So she would skip treatments, which made her worse, which led to the fact of her having to, um, go to the soup kitchens and eventually, um, grateful that she found you, but she was able to receive that treatment. Um, and then her life totally turned around and she's not only walking and able to work, but she's exercising.
Samantha: I think you said she's exercising multiple hours a day, uh, which is really impressive to go.
Dr. Burt: now. She can run. Uh, before, you know, had to like lift one leg to go up a step, had to use a cart in a store to keep her balance and hold herself up while she walked. Uh, she had said in the book, she would get pity looks, which always disturbed her. The remarkable thing is, but by the grace of God, that [00:12:00] could be you or me. She w she is an incredibly smart beautiful woman, it, her life and her ability to work, uh, was destroyed by MS and the system. Was contributing to that problem.
Samantha: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burt: um, you know, the doctors would just do what they're told to do, try to give her another drug that's very expensive. The top prices in 2020 were 92, a hundred thousand dollars. That included Ocrevus, which was $40,000 in infusion. Now. Few, later, years later, it's $60,000 in infusion. So there you go. And what I showed in that book is these drugs like Copaxone that came out, started at eight to $12,000 in in infusion or the interferons, the same price range as new drugs came out that were more expensive, they just increased the price of the old one to match. They all increase to match each other's price. So they're way up there and it's like, how long can the system [00:13:00] continue this without being totally bankrupt? It's already destroying the lives of people who don't have the resources to cover it. And these are ridiculous amounts of money. That is ridiculous.
Samantha: I'm gonna back up a little bit because, um, when we were talking about the. Light bulb moment when you thought, oh, we're using this treatment in leukemia that wipes out the immune system. It has to be retrained with and revaccinated to get the, um, immune system back up to what it was in terms of immunity before.
Samantha: Um, you doctors at the time were using, uh, and correct me if the pronunciation is incorrect, but myeloablative regimen, which was really toxic or is really toxic, be rightly so, to get rid of the cancer cells. Um, but what you developed in for your patients for autoimmune disease is non myeloablative, so it's less toxic than the cancer regimen.
Samantha: Is that correct?
Dr. Burt: [00:14:00] Exactly correct because I came out of the field of oncology and was used treating leukemias, and I was using myeloablative regimens in animal models. Our first protocol was myelo ablative. It was a strong regimen and uh, it also included total body irradiation to make sure we got through the blood brainin barrier to affect any lymphocytes in the brain or spinal cord itself. And we had to start with late progressive ms, even though my animal model said it wouldn't work there, we, we were forced to start there because it's such a new therapy. You don't know. It might be a disaster. Let's start there. Well, long and short is it didn't work and I published in my paper in the title failure. But it took a long time. Other people, I put it there 'cause I wanted people to know that, but a lot of people kept using these people still do use these, my ablative regimens and they were using 'em late progressive. They finally recognize you don't wanna do late progressive, it's no longer immune mediated.
Dr. Burt: But there are people that still push these, my ablative regimen as oncologists and you don't need to do that. You can use the safer non mylo ablative. So once I realized it didn't [00:15:00] work in these light progressives, uh, with an aggressive mylo ablative regimen, I needed to do it in relapsing remitting where my animal model said it would work earlier in the disease.
Dr. Burt: But if I move earlier, I need a safer regimen. And that's why I flipped a non mylo ablative and designed SA regimens and it worked very well.
Samantha: So is that because this regimen is treating or fixing the autoimmune part of the disorder and then the later MS. Is, it's the tissue damage to the brain. Um, has already taken place so it's not able to regenerate the tissue, but it is able in earlier patients to modulate the, or fix the autoimmunity that's causing that damage.
Samantha: Um, like analogously. So I have autoimmune, I have Hashimoto's, so my immune system is attacking my thyroid, uh, to the point where my thyroid tissue can no longer produce enough thyroid hormone for my body. [00:16:00] So if I can slow the attack, I could stop the damage that's happening to the tissue, but I can't, um, by taking my replacement hormone, um, I can kind of make up for what it's not producing, but I'm not fixing the tissue.
Samantha: Is that kind of analogous to what's happening with those earlier stage MS patients versus the later stage?
Dr. Burt: Yes, it's a good analogy. Basically, your neurons are highly subspecialized cells. You know, we have about when we're born 80.
Samantha: I.
Dr. Burt: Uh, million neurons, well, each of which has about a thousand dendritic connections to other neurons. So that's about 80 billion connections that make our nervous system. So in ms, you've got all these cells that are necessary to keep your neurons functional and live and healthy. And once one of them is being destroyed, the neurons start to die back accelerated aging. [00:17:00] And that's the neurodegenerative permanent part. Now in ms, you get an attack, you get better. You may go for a long period of time, get another attack, get better. You know, I. Those are the acute immune attacks, and when you get better, you may go back to baseline or you may have a permanent deficit that doesn't get better, but it's kind of stable, those immune attacks. Your immune system is always trying to reset itself in ms. You have an attack, it tries to reset and stop itself.
Dr. Burt: It comes back out later, tries to reset, comes out later. Eventually the immune system does quiet down, but there's so much damage to the neurons that they just keep degenerating back and then you're in this irreversible decline. That's very gradual. But you know, you see a patient every month, you don't, they look the same, but a year later they're much worse.
Dr. Burt: You know, when did it happen? It's a gradual neuro. Degenerative process. You've moved into a disease that's a neurodegenerative, like a LS or Parkinson's or, uh, dementia. You know, it was just another type of degenerative disease for a specific set of neuro cells. So that's what [00:18:00] happens and that's why this treatment, all therapies for MS currently are immune-based.
Dr. Burt: And this is an immune-based therapy. It needs to be offered earlier in aggressive forms of ms. Now there are some forms of ms. You have one attack and not much happens for the rest of your life, or two, and not much. Of course, we're not gonna offer 'em a transplant, but anybody that's being offered a highly effective DMT upfront should be offered transplant upfront, and that's not being done. Transplant's really a highly effective DMT, it's the most effective. Now the next step though, is actually neuro regeneration. 'cause the hematopoietic stem cell is not a neuro cell.
Dr. Burt: It doesn't do neurogeneration. It resets your immune system, makes new immune cells tolerant to self. So you want to look at people who have progressive MS the, the neuron itself. And that's what my new technology, my IPS therapy induced pluripotent stem cells where we can take your cell and reprogram it back. an Embry state, which is called an [00:19:00] IPS cell, but it's your own adult cell reprogrammed. And then we can further modify that. I have SE seven patents. I was awarded in doing that. And we found that we can repair pretty much any organ system, whether it's from trauma or neurodegeneration.. Now we wanna get that therapy to patients with a LS because patients with a LS, it's a neurodegenerative disorder. It, it's, as I mentioned, affecting all the cells in the nervous system. And you know, once you're diagnosed, you have two to five years, usually three to four years of life before you're dead. There's really, there's some drugs out there. They don't work that well. They just don't, nothing reverses it. There's a few of 'em like antisense, RNA, that can slow it a little bit, but you still just get worse and, and dies.
Dr. Burt: So that's what I wanna do hopefully this year, get that to the FDA and move it forward. And so what I also wanna say, you know, I. Although I've never had money from a drug company, I have started a new biotech company based on our patents for the IPS cells [00:20:00] for regeneration and for aging and for traumatic diseases, uh, that I wanna bring forward.
Samantha: So a couple of follow up questions. Um, one, even though the. Conditioning regimen is non myeloablative. It still is risky. Um, so you, you necessarily wouldn't necessarily wanna run out and sign up for it as soon as you are diagnosed. So the question is, uh, who is the ideal patient and what does that patient profile look like?
Samantha: And then which autoimmune disorders has HSCT been successful in reversing?
Dr. Burt: So let me take the last one first. All your points are true and excellent points and good to bring out to the audience, but in everyday miracles, I talk about five diseases and you'll see the patients with phenomenal results. Multiple sclerosis, systemic sclerosis, which is colloquially called scleroderma, CIDP, chronic Inflammatory Deming polyneuropathy, neuromyelitis optica, NMO, or Dex Disease and [00:21:00] Crohn's Disease. And so, you know, those are diseases I brought out in there and with great results, I myself. have the time to continue that. I just spoke at the Mayo Clinic in Florida where they used my protocol for scleroderma with great results, and I'm glad to give 'em my protocol for MS as well. It's not about people having to come to me. I want it available locally for people.
Dr. Burt: Now is consent. Informed consent. People aren't getting that true informed consent. They need to be given the option of transplant, but in that true informed consent, they have to tell 'em there is a small risk. You can die during the procedure of transplant. It's about 0.5% or less with a non-myeloablative regimen. It'll vary by center experience and it'll vary by the regimen you use and it'll vary by patient selection. But now most centers using non myeloid ablative and everybody in Europe has switched virtually to my regimen, non myeloid ablative. It's less than 0.5%, 0.4, 0.2, and we can make it even less, but you can [00:22:00] never do this and make it a hundred percent zero.
Dr. Burt: And so people really have to be informed, but also as a physician because of that. You're not gonna offer it to someone that has a mild ms. who should get it are people who are having relapses despite, you know, mild to moderately effective DMTs, or people who at presentation, the neurologist wants to put on a highly effective DMT like Ocrevus. Those are the people that should be offered HSCT, but they're not given the information that they have that option. They need to get the caveat about the risk. The highest risk would be an infection while the immune system resets, which is a window of about seven days. Uh, that's really the highest risk of where you can get a problem from this. But, you know, if you. very, very good at preventing it. Uh, I did lose a patient from that. It was because it turned out that the water supply in the hospital was contaminated with legionella and it was discovered in the shower and in the sink water, [00:23:00] and that's what happened. So, you know, you, you can, hospitals are dangerous places. Uh, you don't wanna be in a unless you have to. And so, you know, bad things can happen, but you can keep that risk very, very low. But you can't make it zero. And the thing you wanna be is very honest with patients. I actually emphasize the risks of it very hard when I first meet the patient. , I want someone to be really informed and I'd rather inform them of a, of more toxicity and more risks than they could suffer. Uh, especially the risk of, of death, which can happen, but it's very limited, to my surprise, when I do this, the only people ever get mad at me is the people I don't offer transplant to. The reason they get mad is they think I have this special thing over here that I won't give them, but I won't give it to 'em because either they're late progressive and it won't help 'em, and I don't want 'em to take the risk. I don't want 'em to waste the money, the time or the risks of the complications. Uh, or they have another underlying disease that would, uh, contraindicate doing [00:24:00] it. So those are the reasons we, I, I won't do it. But, um, you know, that has been my surprise and pretty much everybody that gets this is so grateful
Samantha: From reading their stories in the book, it really sounded like these are patients, especially with Ms who are still alive, but their disease has stolen from them, everything that makes their life worth living. So that very small chance of death 0.05% to them is entirely worth the risk of potentially having their lives restored to them, their function restored to them, their ability to parent, their ability to go back to work, their ability to walk their without assistance, um, and exercise and do all of the things that they, that they wanna do and live life.
Samantha: So that chance that life is worth that very small risk of, of dying, considering the conditions that continued life would, uh, would [00:25:00] be for them.
Dr. Burt: And you're absolutely right, and that's called informed consent. And people aren't getting the options, which is part of informed consent. Once they have that option, then they need to be told all the bad things and emphasize hard to make sure they hear it and understand it. And that's still their wish. And uh, for the vast majority of people, this is what they want.
Dr. Burt: If we could get to 'em sooner, uh, we could have a much better efficacy and help a lot more people. And so you must wonder, well, why is that?
Dr. Burt: Why doesn't that happen? And it's because of that frustration that I actually wrote the book Everyday Miracles. To, to tell people from the bottom up so they can start being aware. And what, there are two reasons why this, despite its success, doesn't become mainstream. Although there's centers around the world doing it. I've talked around the world, they're using my protocols and we're helping people. Now it's becoming kind of [00:26:00] standard therapy, but it's still not offered to a lot of people when it could help 'em. And the reason for that is the people that had the basic knowledge to do this came out of the field of hematology or cancer, or both. Those people don't understand autoimmune diseases. They weren't trained in 'em. They don't understand ms. need a neurologist. And in fact, in in the field of neurologists, you have neurologists that specialize just on ms. So a regular neurologist would refer to that neurology specialist for this to really work.
Dr. Burt: And those neurologists don't know transplant. So it's kind of a voodoo thing out there. And they're not used to people being in the hospital for the, Two to three weeks needed for the transplant, where they're used to treating as an outpatient, their medications. So that's kind of how they do things.
Dr. Burt: Transplanters on the other hand. Don't know ms, they don't know the right selection of patients. They have a little trouble changing from the myeloablative regimens that destroy your bone marrow. If you don't get a stem cell, you're to replace a bone marrow, you're [00:27:00] gonna die. Uh, they to switching to a non myeloablative regimen where you don't even have to give the stem cells, you give it 'cause you recover faster. So that's one of the big problems and that's one of the problems of translationally. Based medicine that crosses divisions or departments. You're always encouraged to do that 'cause you can advance things. But once you do it, you run into the obstacle that you have. These experts in these different divisions or departments that have become so sub-specialized.
Dr. Burt: They have to, to possess that knowledge, you have to become a specialist, but then they don't bridge that gap. You, I myself have, but to get others to do it. So in the field of transplant, I've always argued you need a hematologist that gives up cancer and just focus on autoimmune disease or a particular autoimmune disease such as multiple sclerosis or systemic sclerosis to really make it work and work well.
Dr. Burt: And that just doesn't happen. Uh, people are, are kind of committed, so much energy and there's money and, and professional activity flowing in their area of cancer That [00:28:00] to. Make that flip is difficult for them. are some people who have done it, but it is difficult. Our system, you get blinders on, you get set in a certain track there.
Dr. Burt: For instance, there is no institute at the NIH, uh uh, national Institute of Autoimmune Disease, NA for instance. There should be, if there was, they could help fund people around the country on doing, focusing just on autoimmune diseases and focusing on cellular therapies for it, which would be a big advance.
Dr. Burt: The other thing that holds this back is there's no money in it. So there's no drug company. These are your own cells, and I never did it to patent it or to make money in it. nobody gets any money except just the patient care you're doing to take care of the patient. if in every field, this is in oncology too and in hematology, but especially, let's look at neurology for ms. The neurologists are always being told about this new drug. There's like [00:29:00] 17 drugs out there for MS and there's new ones turning out all the time they're run The drug companies run 'em, have neurologists at great centers, run 'em, and then their names are on it. They get their academic accolades for being on the drug company trial because the be sooner their name, especially if they're first author, and then the direct company pays for 'em to go around and talk about it, and they do. And then the drug companies pay for advertisements on every venue, television, including news programs. A large percentage of the money that goes into news programs, whether it's M-S-N-B-C or Fox News, is derived from drug advertising, which pays really big salaries. To their star broadcasters who make many tens of millions of dollars a year. of course, it's, it's greasing the system. But they do it in newspapers. They do it in print, they do it on YouTube. They, they advertise. So basically you got, and then you, you've got this law that came about in the [00:30:00] 1980s called the By Dole Act. It was by, was a by, was a Democratic Senator from Indiana Dole was a Republican senator from Kansas.
Dr. Burt: It was good intention. What they said is that when the NIH funds research at a university. That the university, if the research looks good, the university can claim intellectual property rights. Not the researcher but the university. So the university, what happens is your tax dollars fund research, but research is like gold mining.
Dr. Burt: I mean, most time you get nothing, you spend a lot of time, money, you get nothing. But if the researcher hits a gold mine, the university will then, license it to a drug company and return for five to 8% of the profits as well as benchmarks. So when they do phase one, they get a million. When they do phase two, they get a couple million on and on and on. So the universities are invested in this and what's [00:31:00] happened in our society is we have merged universities, the National Institutes of Health, that also gets money from it, and drug companies sharing profits. And so the universities as well as hospitals. 'cause if the hospital doesn't have a university, you do that. The hospital claims that intellectual property, right? So they get money. So you've got the system now entirely focused towards drug company development. these drugs are very expensive. They bring in a lot of money. And then. More and more doctors are becoming employees of organizations, whether it's an HMO or a hospital or whatever, and they, they pay you by RVs, which means you're paid by the amount of, by the amount of money you bill. So you have drugs out there like Ocrevus for ms. It's $60,000 in infusion, which is done as an outpatient over a few hours. They give it again two weeks later. So that's [00:32:00] $120,000 for a few hours outpatient, and then every six months for $60,000. That's an insane amount of money, but everybody wins within the collaborating group, the university, the hospital, the physicians who loses is the patient.
Dr. Burt: Now, if you have really good insurance, they pay for it, but the, the society loses as a whole for paying that kind of money. the problem, so what I've done, I. It's like in the old days there is no patent. I don't want any royalties, just do it to help people. But the money that lubricates the system is now absent in that approach.
Dr. Burt: And it's my voice against hundreds and hundreds and thousands of doctors that are sent out there and drug company money to talk about and teach people about these new drugs who they ran a study on. So it kind of gets drowned out. So it's up to the patients to understand that and to get that information out there. Now the frightening, frightening thing for me, 'cause I've seen it change in my own lifetime. [00:33:00] Before the 1980s, we would develop things and the universities didn't get any money out of it. And you know, it's, we would just do it for the good of humanity and society. And it was society's taxpayer dollars for the most part that went into the research we're doing. now I. The universities the money. So you have the universities and the drug company and the NIH. They get money out of it that are all on the same money train. And that is really hard to overcome when you have these phenomenal results. But they're not on the money train, for instance, Ocrevus. All it does is slow progression it and you stay on the drug until you have purely neurodegenerative disease. Whereas if you get the right subset of patients and you treat 'em with HSCT, you actually reverse the disease and they're free for very long periods of times. The majority for [00:34:00] decades without evidence of disease and marked improvement with no further treatments, you would think it would take off.
Dr. Burt: And if you look at quality of life on all these drugs, they do not improve quality of life. They're very expensive. They don't improve quality of life 'cause they only slow progression. You still have symptoms. You're paying a lot of money. You're inconvenienced, even if the drug, even if your insurance paying, you aren't getting these treatments, you have side effects from treatments. Their quality of life does not improve with transplant, it markedly improves 'cause you get a one-time treatment, you're free of doctors, you're free of the system, and symptoms are better. So your quality of life is markedly better. So you'd think everybody would be talking about this and my patients used to say to me, you know, uh, you know, why doesn't anybody talk about it?
Dr. Burt: And I would always say, well, you know, medicine's very conservative field. I've gotta prove it. Which I did years in animal work and then phase one, phase two, phase three, um, but it never took off. So the patients would say it's drug companies. And I was hesitant because, you know, I'm not thinking that way and I know no drug companies out there saying anything [00:35:00] bad about me or anything like that. But as I began to read and investigate, I realized it's the laws in our system that have changed, that have facilitated this to go forward, that everybody just clicks into. So. An important thing that's missing in our healthcare. And it's because of the OLE Act and because drug companies are allowed to advertise. What? And they, they, and pacs, that's the other thing. So drug companies can give money to a pac, political action committee and they can give as much money as they want. And the, the, the Supreme Court said that's legal 'cause you don't want to impinge on the freedom of speech of a company. In the old days though, that used to be called corruption because what a drug company does is they give money to a pack and then a PAC supports the campaign through advertising for a politician that supports the policy, the drug company. If they disagree and they [00:36:00] say like, we're gonna get rid of the by do act, the pack will support their opponent and viciously like a wolf pack, attack the politician and destroy him. So now the politicians are greased to keep the money flowing 'cause they need their job keep them in power through the current system.
Dr. Burt: What we need is to stop funding pacs, letting companies fund them. What you have is a few companies or a few very powerful people influencing, in fact indirectly, if you will, bribing people their profit instead of the good of society. Now they'll argue that's not the case, we're just giving information. But if you look at all these drug covering adver advertisements, you know, people using the drug are all smiley and happy, and the one's not using it, guilt's put on 'em. and like what? companies used to do. And finally we said cigarettes can't be advertised. Well, when I started in my career, drug [00:37:00] companies couldn't advertise.
Dr. Burt: It was much better. That should be made illegal. That was made legal in the 1980s too. And these pacs are influencing the outcome of election with unlimited money from companies or very wealthy individuals are going against the interests of people and healthcare. So that needs to change and the ole act needs to change, you know, uh, that's the system that transplant for MS is up against despite being so helpful and so effective and why nobody moves into it. so it was kind of a wake up for me. And in fact in my new book called Kill Switch, which by the way has a forward by the Vatican, really bring that out in the last chapter and bring it home. 'cause I don't really bring that home, the everyday miracles because I want people to, you know, in the last chapter, I, I barely mentioned it, but I want people to understand how this therapy can help. But those are the two major things that have limited it. So it's really weird. When I started this, [00:38:00] you know, I had all this worry, maybe it's not gonna work and so forth. You don't know until you do it. And I spent 30 years doing it and it's really worked wonderful. But. It doesn't take off. And the reason is the system has changed, so the money doesn't go with it.
Dr. Burt: Now, nobody gets up and says, I'm, I'm gonna do this for money. That doesn't happen. It's just such an overpowering, indirect influence from the top down that that's what's going on. So, you know, if you're charging $60,000 in infusion every six months for a drug, you know, it's, it's not in the administrators that are looking over you that get a lot of money or in your clinic's interest to send them early to a transplant.
Samantha: Right.
Dr. Burt: Now, does, does anybody wake up and say that's what they're doing? No, what they're constantly bombarded with is. You know, this is the way we have to do it through drug companies. And in fact, because I have no [00:39:00] patent or license, you know, you can say it's not FDA approved, which it isn't, but that's because, and so then you can say, oh, it's, uh, voodoo work.
Dr. Burt: But no, that's not true. It's not FDA approved because that process means you're gonna get a drug or license to sell it, and you have a monopoly.
Samantha: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burt: That's the reason, that's the FDA approval process. I went ahead. I didn't need to, I sent it to the FDA. And, and did it with an F-D-A-I-N-D, even though I was never gonna get anything out of it.
Dr. Burt: No drug company would ever do that. Why would a drug company do a study that at the end of the day, anybody can do and sell and they can't get any money, they won't do it. Well, I did it, it worked. And we get nothing out of it. We've asked for no, IND never would. It's your own cells. Why would we want to a monopoly on that?
Dr. Burt: Or intellectual property rights. So, uh, but the problem is then compare. And that's the way it used to be before the OLE Act, but now because of the Act. The [00:40:00] money and the system has changed and it's not in the best interests of our society even. And people aren't recognizing that. So in Killswitch, I bring that out to make people recognize it, to start them to understand, because I didn't recognize it. were telling me it's a drug company fault. And I'm like, no, that's not true. Drug companies have their own problems and stuff. But as I read and studied, I realized there is, but it's not the drug company per se. It's our laws that were done with good intention. But this is the unin unintended consequence of money like water flowing around a, a rock for the benefit of the system.
Dr. Burt: That now is a merger of education. That is universities and hospitals with the NIH, with drug companies all on the same money train. So what I do isn't on that money train and that's the problem. That's why it's important that it come out and people understand. And it also means you'll see in Kill switch, I hope it'll galvanize [00:41:00] people to, to change the system actually in kill switch, besides the Vatican doing a forward, a forward's done by who I've come to know very well, former US congressman and senator from Illinois, Mark Kirk.
Dr. Burt: And they both do it great forward. And in there he talks about how we gotta bring this to the attention of the political system and bring about, uh, these changes. Because in the old days, if you invested in a company and the company succeeded, you got profit. If you invested in the company failed, you lost your money, you took the risk, you got the award.
Dr. Burt: Now the American taxpayer, without their knowledge, are investing in all this, that drug companies do, but all they, they don't get anything out of it except a very high bill at the end of the day. And if you don't have excellent insurance, you can't afford it.
Samantha: Right.
Dr. Burt: And so the system needs. To be recognized for where good intentions have gone wrong and changed.
Dr. Burt: So believe me, I never wanted to say what I've just said. I just wanted to do good work to help people. But when you do [00:42:00] that and then you realize, well, people aren't doing this, what is the issue? Well, the truth is, whenever there's a problem, follow the money. And the
Samantha: Yeah.
Dr. Burt: is due to these laws
Samantha: Right in, in the book, you say directly you list pharma drug companies under, um, these are, these entities are not the problem. But I was gonna push back on that because what you've just described is a system where they're the people who are in charge of making drugs and ostensibly finding cures.
Samantha: They're disincentivized from finding cures. Because once you cure a patient of, for example, you use these drugs that, uh, are very inexpensive, um, because their patent has run out. The, then you, you administer those to the patient stem cells, their own stem cells. You can't charge people for, you can charge 'em for the time, I guess, and the [00:43:00] care, but you're not going to make a profit as a pharmaceutical company off of people's own cells.
Samantha: And then there's a cure. So essentially what your procedure is doing is robbing all of those pharmaceutical companies of the potential profits that they would have from administering these. Sometimes I think one, one, the biggest figure in the book was $90,000 a year for these patients who, because if you, if patients are chronically ill, they are dependent on the.
Samantha: Drug care, uh, the care of the system and dependent on these drugs. And if they go to you for, uh, an actual cure that restores them well, then all of those profits are gone. So there's not a lot of incentive for companies to develop cures,
Dr. Burt: , Let me tell you again why this system's gone bad. I. The reason they developed Ocrevus, 'cause physicians, neurologists started using rituximab.
Dr. Burt: A drug developed for lymphomas like B-cell, [00:44:00] CL, L, and they started to use it in MS and found that they were getting, you know, results that seemed reasonable or good at first, and they started publishing little papers about that. So along comes drug company says, oh good, if rituximab works by bin, binding this receptor on B cells, we'll just come up with our own antibody that binds that receptor and we'll do the study and patent it and get a monopoly.
Dr. Burt: And that's how Ocrevus came about. basically you can pay $60,000 in infusion for Ocrevus, or you can pay a few thousand dollars for a drug that no longer has a patent, and therefore any generic company can make. And the price has really dropped to a few thousand dollars. But people in America won't do that.
Dr. Burt: They'll only give this $60,000 drug instead of like a $4,000 drug. one of the reasons is, you know, the lawyers protect them because this drug is FDA approved for ms. Rituximab is [00:45:00] not. Well, why wouldn't anybody approve Rituximab for MS? Is because of a drug company ran the expensive study to do it, which by the way is what I did for nothing. If the drug company did that, they couldn't monopolize it. 'cause there's no patent on it. It's expired. Anybody can then start making it and selling it so it's not in their interest. Why would they do that? So what happened? And it won't happen in America, neurologists in America will not take Ocrevus and do a randomized trial comparing it to rituximab. 4,000 infusion infused the same times, one's 60,000. Okay, they're not gonna do that. France did it and it found rituximab was equally effective. stop in reverse, but slowing progression of diseases. Ocrevus equally the same. So in America, in one year, you're talking $180,000 versus $12,000, and they're equally effective in the French study.
Dr. Burt: And it was because of Rituximab that [00:46:00] Ocrevus was developed. That's the corruption that has come into our system. It was never, nobody designed it for that to happen, but that's what's going on, that has to change eventually. It's already affecting many people, but eventually this system cannot afford this.
Dr. Burt: . I.
Samantha: Yeah.
Dr. Burt: And that's what I bring out in Kill Switch. And it's, it, it, our system some good intended laws that have become twisted and, and, uh, it's not in the benefit of society. Our impatience. On the other hand, you do want advances to go forward as rapidly as possible. And certainly financial reward for doing that helps it to go forward.
Dr. Burt: So those are the things. So everyday miracles really important to what you can, can be done for autoimmune disease and understanding the problems. Kill switch really takes it home to really understand those problems better in a, in a different approach, it's really gonna [00:47:00] open your mind in a whole different way.
Dr. Burt: I know my mind has opened, 'cause I always used to just tell patients for decades, oh, it's medicine's conservative. We have to prove our way. And I fundamentally believe that. But after we proved it and it doesn't change, I've realized. You know, when there's a problem, it's like it was reported, you know, uh, for, uh, Nixon's Watergate, uh, to Woodward.
Dr. Burt: You know, follow the money. You have to follow the money, and then you see where the problem is.
Samantha: And if a patient is interested or, or somebody's interested for friend, family member in receiving the treatment, um, do they go to their doctor? Do they need to find a second opinion? If their doctor says that's what you said, you called it voodoo medicine, is the accusation that you're hearing, where do they go?
Dr. Burt: Well, I use that term. I think now it's accepted more and more. 'cause so many people are doing it or if they can't get it in America, they'll go overseas to do it. And a lot of Europeans are doing it and there's more [00:48:00] and more, there are now thousands and thousands of publications on this, all supporting it as a treatment from multiple universities and hospitals around the world.
Dr. Burt: So times have changed. That's back when I first started that type of, uh, of comparison. So I think now it's accepted as you know, but. Still, a lot of people don't know and they're not informed about it. But if you're interested, just contact scripts in La Jolla, California, because I do have, uh, a nurse and a coordinator who will help screen, uh, because you're always screened first to see if it's worth your time, effort, and also expense to come out to be evaluated or it's not.
Dr. Burt: So that's how it works. Eventually a person emails you and the necessary information is requested and so forth the usual secured lines. 'cause, you know, patient information has to be on a secured system.
Samantha: Right. Well, thank you so much for your time today, um, for discussing your work, and I [00:49:00] really appreciate all of the light that you've been able to shed not only on these treatments, but also on the medical system and these flaws of these compartmentalized departments and the way that pharma and the whole system is set up and some of this policy.
Samantha: Hopefully we can see some change on these things in the next few years.
Samantha: One final question that I ask all our guests is, who is one person, a alive or dead real or fictional, who you believe exemplifies the very best of being human?
Dr. Burt: My wife. Yeah.
Samantha: What is your
Dr. Burt: I've devoted so much of my time to this, and so I've been absent so much. takes incredible understanding and, uh, a belief in humanity and in doing good overriding, [00:50:00] uh, you know, personal desires. So I'll just leave it at that.
Samantha: s Very self-sacrificing.
Dr. Burt: Yeah, she has been.
Samantha: Excellent. Well, where can people find your work and uh, by the books and access?
Dr. Burt: uh, Amazon has it, Barnes and Nobles has have it. There's probably other bookstores that do, but definitely you can go online and, and buy it. Uh, from, and, you know, I don't know all of them. Those are just two examples. There are probably several others, but you, you can get 'em online, whether it's Everyday miracles are kill switch.
Dr. Burt: I definitely recommend if you like everyday miracles, read, kill, switch, I think you're gonna like it even more. they're both. Give you the good, but they also point out the bad as we need to, uh, because life is both good and bad and you, you have to change as to go along to maximize the good and to help people, and they bring that out.
Dr. Burt: I, this may be a trilogy with [00:51:00] a third book. I already know the name of the title, but for now I've gotta focus on getting my IPS studies going for a LS. And hopefully if my animal models are right, I can, and if lightning will hit the same place twice, I can really make an impact in that disease. We will see, if not, at least I tried and followed my passion, which is what I told Dr.
Dr. Burt: Neh at the NIH long time ago when I was a fellow wanting to do this in autoimmune disease. Thank
Samantha: Well, thank you so much.
If this episode raised questions or sparked thoughts you'd like to explore further, I'd love to continue the conversation with you over on Substack at Brave new us.substack.com. Your comments and insights there helped to build the kind of thoughtful community the show was made for to support brave us.
Please take a moment to rate and review the podcast wherever you listen. Or become a paid subscriber on Substack. Your support makes it possible to keep bringing you these ad free episodes. [00:52:00] Thank you for listening and being part of the journey into what it means to be human in the age of biotechnology.