A US clinic has issued legal threats to health bloggers in the United Kingdom over their criticisms of its treatments.

The Burzynski Clinic in Houston uses antineoplaston treatments, which it says on its website “are based on the natural biochemical defense system of our body, capable of combating cancer without harming the healthy cells.”

The clinic was the subject of an article in the Observer newspaper on 20 November (www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2011/nov/20/a-family-gripped-by-cancer), written by Luke Bainbridge, a founding editor of Observer Music Monthly, which described a fundraising campaign by Mr Bainbridge to send his 4 year old niece, who has a glioma, to the clinic for treatment. Mr Bainbridge said that fundraising efforts were required for a “pioneering treatment at the Burzynski Clinic in Texas . . . The estimated cost is £200 000 [€235 000; $315 000]. It is not available in this country, it is new and there …