Rene Caisse's Battle for a Cure - ESSIAC

Rene Caisse's Battle for a Cure – ESSIAC

By Paul McLennan

Rene Caisse, of Bracebridge, Ontario, was a powerful force in the battle against cancer for many years. Her achievement in that battle continues on and keeps growing through her friends and countless others that she has inspired, long after her death in 1978. Through her courage, determination and resilience in her battle, despite the persecution she suffered from the opposing forces in the medical world, she made a massive contribution to the development of Western Herbalism as we know it today. The legacy Rene Caisse has left behind for us has convinced many, including myself, to fully trust in Herbal Medicine.

While working as a Nurse at the Sisters of Providence Hospital in Haileybury, Ontario, Canada, in 1922, Rene visually examined the breast of a female patient who was about eighty years old. She noticed that her breast was unusually shaped, and asked her why. The elderly lady told her that she was diagnosed with breast cancer by the medical system in Toronto, and subsequently cured by an Indigenous Medicine Man in Northern Ontario, in the 1890's. This "cure" was a herbal decoction, made with 8 different herbs.

Rene asked the old woman for the names of the herbs and wrote them down, just in case she ever got cancer and needed a cure for herself.

In 1924, Rene was informed that her Aunt in Brockville, Ontario had inoperable cancer. Dr Fisher, her Aunt's Doctor, happened to know Rene.

Rene told Dr. Fisher about the woman in the hospital who was cured by the herbal tea, and he agreed to let Rene and her Aunt try the herbal tea as a cancer treatment, under his supervision. Her Aunt had a miraculous recovery, and Dr. Fisher was fascinated with the outcome. He even let Rene treat some of his terminal cancer cases, with much success.

Rene started a laboratory in her mother's basement, where she tested the herbal decoction on mice, under the supervision of Dr. Fisher and other doctors. Rene successfully stopped the growth of human cancer in the mice within 10 days. During this time, she narrowed the formula down to four herbs. For many years, she kept the formula secret, but called it Essiac, her

last name spelled backwards.

In 1926, after Rene treated cancer with Essiac under various doctors in Toronto, eight of those doctors signed a petition to the Canadian Department of National Health and Welfare. The doctors wrote that Essiac “can do no harm and that it relieves pain, will reduce the enlargement and will prolong life in hopeless cases.” The Canadian Department of Health and Welfare ordered two doctors to find Rene Caisse and arrest her for 'practicing medicine without a license'. When the doctors found Rene, she explained that she was working under the observation of nine doctors, and she was not arrested. A similar situation took place later.

At the Christie Street Hospital Laboratories in Toronto, from 1928 to 1930 under the supervision of various doctors, Rene experimented on mice that had been injected with Rous Sarcoma. She treated the mice with Essiac, and they lived longer than mice treated with any other cancer treatment available at the time.

One of Rene's earlier patients had both diabetes and cancer. Rene was hesitant to treat him, fearing the Essiac could have a negative effect on diabetes, but it had the opposite effect, and the patient's diabetes improved before the cancer eventually did. This attracted the attention of Dr. Frederick Banting. Rene said Banting believed Essiac could cure diabetes by normalizing pancreas function, and offered her the research facilities to prove it. Rene declined, as Banting's requirement was that she stop her cancer research to research diabetes.

A doctor from Rene's hometown of Bracebridge sent a terminal bowel cancer patient to Rene for treatment with Essiac. When the patient was cured, he petitioned the Bracebridge Town Council to allow Rene to convert a vacant building, the old British Lion Hotel, into a cancer clinic. The Mayor and Town Council were extremely excited, and the doctor immediately convinced Rene to agree to his proposal. She hung a sign on the front of the building that said “Cancer Clinic”, and opened the clinic in 1935.

Not long after that, Rene's mother fell ill at seventy two years old. The doctors initially thought she had gallstones, but her heart wasn't strong enough for surgery. After more testing, it was determined that Rene's mother had terminal liver cancer, and had days to live.

Rene explained her reaction to the news. “I immediately started treating her with Essiac. I gave it daily for 10 days. When she improved I reduced the treatment to three a week, then to two, then to one. She continued to improve. To make a long story short, my mother completely recovered. She passed away quietly after her 90th birthday... without pain, just a tired heart.”

For eight and a half years, Rene's clinic was a success. She saw three to six hundred cancer patients per week at the cancer clinic, most of them being terminal. Some would come by ambulance, at first, and would even receive treatments in the ambulance. Later, as they improved, they were well enough to drive themselves to the clinic, and walk in. Desperate patients traveled very far to be seen by Rene and get their Essiac. My late friend, “Bill”, visited Rene's clinic many times starting in 1935, when his mother was one of these desperate cancer patients. She had terminal throat cancer, and was progressing quickly. The medical system had given up on her, as they had in most of the cases Rene treated. Through word of mouth, Bill's parents heard of the success of Rene's Essiac, and the opening of Rene's Cancer Clinic.

From taking the Essiac, Bill's mother improved very quickly, and was eventually cured.

Bill explained it to me. “Her throat was swollen to the size of your fists on both sides! So we'd go up to Bracebridge, it was an all day affair. We'd drive up there, and then sit and talk for a few minutes, and then get our case of little brown bottles. At first we paid so much a bottle. Then we weren't allowed to pay anymore, but we could give a donation. Oh, it was so silly, but that's the way it had to be done.” He said the Cancer Clinic was swamped and they were always quickly in and out. Bill's mother passed away many years later, of an unrelated illness.

When Bill told me about this in 2005, I had just met him. I initially thought he was just telling stories, or at least had a good imagination, but after verifying his claims, this became a defining point in my life. It was a major factor that put me on the path of herbal medicine, as at the time I had my doubts.

When news of this potential cancer cure traveled, many medical doctors were skeptical, and visited the Cancer Clinic. Much to their surprise, they found that claims they heard were true. They realized that Essiac really worked!

For example, one disbelieving doctor came from Los Angeles, California, and spent 40 days with Rene Caisse, visiting over 400 patients. Long before that doctor left, she was convinced that Essiac was a viable cancer treatment.

Rene also went to hospitals in Toronto and Chicago to treat terminal patients.

In Chicago, the doctors Rene worked with at the Passavant Hospital reported that Essiac “prolonged life, relieved pain, and broke down abnormal masses of tissue.”

A commission was appointed to decide whether Essiac would be approved to be used as a cancer treatment. The commission wanted Rene to reveal her secret recipe for Essiac. Worried that the recipe would be modified or hidden, she refused to divulge it. Hence, the commission did not approve Essiac, and unfortunately, the Canadian Government forced Rene to close the Cancer Clinic in 1942 “amidst great controversy”(says the plaque on the building).

“I had a nervous breakdown!” Rene explained in an interview. She was exhausted and decided to give up. She still prepared Essiac for some patients, but passed on the recipe for the formula to other long time patients that lived further away, including my friend Bill's mother. Bill's parents had to promise not to reveal the formula to anyone. Many years later, Bill himself would treat cancer patients with Essiac, including his son, his friends and himself.

In 1958, Rene went to the Brusch Medical Center in Cambridge, MA. to work with Dr. Charles Brusch, personal physician to President John F. Kennedy.

Under the supervision of Dr. Brusch, Rene successfully treated thousands of patients with Essiac, many of them terminal. Years later, Dr. Brusch got cancer himself, and used the same recipe to win his own personal battle with it. A fellow doctor later quoted him as saying, “I know Essiac has curing potential. It can lessen the condition of the individual, control it, and it can cure it.” Brusch also told him that after he told others about the cancer curing potential of Essiac and promoting it, he was given two choices by the feds. "Either get hauled off to military prison where he'd never be heard from again or stay quiet!" Dr. Brusch explained. He feared for his safety, and chose to stop endorsing Essiac.

Rene wrote a short book titled “I Was Canada's Cancer Nurse” in 1963. In it, she told the story of how Essiac came to be, and of her successes and persecutions.

From 1973 to 1976, Rene took part in research on animals with Dr. Chester Stock of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute. The results weren't nearly as positive as usual. However, the research seems to be flawed, as Rene was not there in person, and the letters between them show that Dr. Stock was not using the Sheep Sorrel roots. The roots are believed to be the most active ingredient, but Dr. Stock used only the arial parts of the plant. Rene wrote to him at least three times, emphasizing the importance of including the roots in the mixture, and her disappointment in his failure to do so, despite her repeated requests.

The year 1977 was very eventful for Rene. First, Essiac was featured in an article in Homemaker's magazine, titled “Could Essiac Halt Cancer?” Then, in response to guarantees of a nationwide study of Essiac in humans, Rene sold the formula to the Respirin Corporation for one dollar. The guarantees weren't fulfilled, and no human trials were done. Against their agreement, Resperin cut ties with Rene Caisse after purchasing the formula for Essiac,.

In December of 1978, just a few months after her 90th birthday party, which drew 600 people, and being honored at an alternative medicine convention in New York, Rene passed away. She had broken her hip and was hospitalized prior to passing. Today, there are two statues of Rene Caisse. One is in Bracebridge and the other is at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. The college also features the Essiac Botanical Library.

In one of her last interviews, while holding back tears, Rene said, “I've given my life for it, I couldn't give any more than that. God has been good to let me live this long. To see it used... and used by people. If I had listened to the medical world, I would have distributed it to animals, but I wanted it for human beings! I wanted them to have the benefit of it, so I fought for that for 40 years. That's a long time!”

In the beginning, she believed that the medical system would easily accept Essiac as a valid cancer treatment, as she explained, “I had absolute faith that if I could accumulate enough proof of results obtained with different types of cancer, as demanded by the Cancer Society, the medical profession would

eventually be glad to accept Essiac as an approved treatment. I did not know then of an organized effort to keep a cancer cure from being discovered.”

Although her discovery and research of Essiac has not been accepted by the medical system, it has been accepted by Western Herbalism and many others all over the world! Her work has also left undeniable proof for practitioners, as well as the general public, that herbal remedies have the potential to treat cancer, and if herbs can do that, the possibilities are endless!

SOURCES "The Bracebridge Clinic: In The Words of Rene Caisse" https://essiacinfo.org/caisse_pop_5.htm "I Was Canada's Cancer Nurse" by Rene Caisse "The History of Flor Essence Tea" https://www.floressencetea.com/TheHistory-of-Flor-Essence-Tea-a/256.htm "Excerpts from Natural Health Products Report, Vol. 11,2003" http://www.essiac-canada-intl.com/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=30 "Dr Gary Glum and Essiac" https://www.healthfreedom.info/Essiac %20AIDS.htm "Who Owns Essiac" https://www.healthfreedom.info/Who%20Owns %20Essiac.htm "Sheep Sorrel Roots" https://www.essiac-tea.org/Sheep%20Sorrel%20Roots %20Essiac.htm