In 1937, Rene Caisse was busy healing cancer patients with doses of Essiac and had agreed to the Canadian government’s demands that a) she treat only patients who brought with them a written cancer diagnosis from their doctor; and b) she did not charge them.
In this year too, the Canadian legislature passed the Kirby Bill, advertised as a way of getting the truth about Essiac and other alternative cancer treatments then being used and to penalize “false claims”. It authorized a “Royal Cancer Commission” that would hold hearings and Rene was invited to testify. In 1939, she and 387 of her happy patients attended and were treated with dishonesty and contempt. But Rene spoke right back to these people:
- “In other words, if the patient lives, you take the credit for radium, but if the patient dies, radium has nothing to do with it.”
- “…Every case was given up by the medical profession before I even took it.”
- “She was dying when she came to me. She weighed about 83 pounds … burned deeply with radium. You could hear her breathing through a big hole in her chest, to the bone … and she was given up by Dr. Richards …I took her out of pity and she lived for two or three years …”.
Private Years
Her replies and statements were ignored and the Kirby bill stood as a jail threat if she continued her work. After this fiasco, with her clinic officially closed, Rene disappeared from public view for about 20 years. She was 52 now and felt discouraged and worn down. She quietly continued to treat some patients and the Kirby bill was not enforced, though she lived in fear that it would be. During these quiet years, she married (though he died after one year), did oil painting, and wrote articles about how cancer will reappear if the body is not cleaned out (which Essiac does), and about pesticides, preservatives, and nuclear testing.
In 1958, aged 70, she treated people again though her clinic was still officially closed. She talked a government person sent to arrest her out of doing that; she converted a number of sceptical reporters sent to interview her and they wrote a positive and widely-read article.
Research With Dr. Brusch
In 1959 she went to Cambridge MA where one Dr. Brusch had a medical clinic. He was researching herbs and had a funding arrangement for those of his patients who were short on money. So he and Rene were on the same page and they became partners in research and Essiac use for the rest of her life. They extended their work from he four-herb formula Rene had been using to an eight-herb formula that retained the first four and added four more. They tried to isolate a single active ingredient, but found that all eight herbs worked synergistically, potentiating each other, which made it crucial that the correct herbs were combined correctly.
The Formula Revealed
Until 1977, she and Dr. Brusch were the only people who knew the formula but in that year, aged 89, she finally revealed it to one Dr. Fingard. He had read that article written by the sceptical reporters that she had converted and he came to see her. His company, Resperin, took over the manufacture and sale of Essiac. Rene died the following year after a fall that broke her hip.
Essiac Banned
Although Dr. Fingard proceeded with Essiac tests, peer pressure in the scientific world prevented doctors from participating. The Canadian government shut the testing down and banned Essiac except for those already taking it. In 1995, Dr. Fingard’s company disbanded, transferring the Essiac rights to the Canadian government which now exports it worldwide, describing it as “an herbal formula which helps support the immune system”.
This is exactly the situation that Rene feared and refused to facilitate. She knew that once a government or medical association got the Essiac formula, they would use it to make money rather than cure cancer. Since those organizations obviously did not want cancer cured, she didn’t trust them to formulate Essiac properly.
Some Belated Credit
In 2002, a statue of Rene was unveiled in the small town of Bracebridge, Ontario, where she lived much of her life. Canada now claims her as a “success story”. The site that sells Essiac does mention her, saying that she “discovered” Essiac in 1922. It mentions her clinic, conveniently omitting the fact that this same government shut it down.
Actually, the Ojibwa Indians discovered the Essiac formula and shared it as a cure for cancer with the elderly woman who was Rene’s hospital patient. Rene then ran with it, curing many thousands of cancer patients. Her initial doctor support evaporated as the government and cancer industry pushed doctors to reject Essiac, so support came only from her happy patients and for her 90th birthday there was a huge festive party in tribute to her lifetime’s work. For Rene, that party and the decades of generous gifts she received from her patients and their families must surely have made up for much of the official hostility.
Have You Used Essiac?
Personally, I have not used the Essiac available now. Since it is provided by the same government that shut Rene’s clinic down, I haven’t trusted that it is formulated as Rene did in her kitchen and therefore I’d be wasting time and money on it. If anyone reading this has had success with it, I’d love to hear from you. Please use the form below to send me a message and I will respond promptly.
Sources:
Calling of an Angel: the True Story of Rene Caisse and an Indian Herbal Medicine called Essiac, Dr. Gary L. Glum, Silent Walker Publishing, Los Angeles, 1988
http://www.essiac-canada-intl.com/ This is the site that sells Essiac.