Sunday, May 2, 2010

Essiac: Nature's Cure for Cancer

Note: While this article states that Essiac has been in use since 1922 - in actuality it has been in use for many hundreds of years by the Native community of this country. - Two Feathers

An Interview with Dr Gary Glum by Elisabeth Robinson.

This is the story of a woman named Rene Caisse. For more than 50 years until her death in 1978 at the age of 90, she treated thousands of cancer patients, most of them written off by doctors as terminally ill, with her own secret formula. She called it Essiac - Caisse spelt backwards - and she brewed the tea herself, alone in her kitchen. Her patients swore by her. Men and women who believed she cured them of cancer, told their friends and families, wrote letters to politicians, swore affidavits, testified before the Canadian Parliament and pleaded with Rene to supply them with more Essiac. Husbands and wives of patients who died, wrote Rene letters thanking her profoundly for making life easier - free of pain- and longer for their loved ones. Her funeral in Bracebridge, about 170 km north of Toronto, was attended by hundreds of people including former patients Rene had treated for terminal cancer as far back as the 1930's and who were still on their feet to bury her and tell their stories.

The controversy Essiac inspires raged in Canada since the 1920's every few years in the public glare of the press, involving the highest medical, legal and political circles in Canada. But always that controversy centered on this one woman in the tiny village of Bracebridge, pop 9,000 or so. Rene Caisse was an unlikely public figure. She was a skilled nurse who didn't crave attention or money. "I never had $100 I could call my own" she used to laugh. She didn't charge a fee. She accepted only voluntary contributions - fruits, vegetables or eggs as often as not - from those who could afford them, and she didn't turn away people who couldn't make any payment at all.

The mayor of Bracebridge, Jim Lang, gave me a friendly greeting, said he was happy that someone was looking into the story of Rene Caisse, and got right to the point: She cured people that were given up on by doctors - totally given up on. They said, "You're going to die and there is nothing we can do about it. And then they went to Rene and 20 years later they were still walking. I know that for a fact because I knew Rene for probably 25 years."

She refused to reveal the formula to the Canadian government, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York - the world's largest private cancer research centre - and the National Cancer Institute, just to name some of the institutions that wanted the formula at one time or another. She wouldn't give them the formula until they would admit that Essiac had merit as a treatment for cancer. They refused to admit any merit until she gave them the formula. There were legitimate arguments made on both sides. The result was a tragic standoff.

This book tells the incredible story of Rene Caisse and her lifetime battle to bring forth Essiac, and reveals for the first time publicly how to acquire the formula to prepare Essiac in the privacy of your own home.


Dr. Charles Brusch M.D./personal physician to the late President John F Kennedy Calling of an Angel 233pp ISBN 0-9620364-0-4 $35.00 Silent Walker Publishing PO Box 92856 Los Angeles California 90009 2130271-9931


Rene Caisse was a nurse living in Canada who for a period of almost sixty years treated hundreds of people with an herbal remedy she called Essiac. She discovered this remedy through a patient in the hospital where she worked who had been cured of cancer. The patient had used an herbal remedy given her by an Ojibway herbalist.

Rene left the hospital in 1922 at age 33, and went to Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada where she began administering Essiac to all who came to her. The majority of those whom she treated came on referral with letters from their physicians certifying they had incurable or terminal forms of cancer and that they had been given up by the medical profession as untreatable.



The story of Rene Caisse, her life, her work, and the effectiveness of the remedy she named Essiac, is told in a book Sun Bear received Calling of an Angel by Dr Gary L. Glum of Los Angeles. After reading the book and finding it to be informative, well documented and moving, I decided to interview Dr Glum. I verified the basic information in this book through Canadian sources, one an herbalist who knows of Rene Caisse and her work and who has personally made and successfully used Essiac.

As I completed my second conversation with Dr Glum, he said, "You're opening a Pandora's Box here, publishing this interview about Essiac." I disagreed, but began thinking about Pandora's "box". In the story of Pandora most well-known today, she is sent to the gods to curse humanity for offending them.

Pandora is given a "box" or container with instructions not to open it, which the gods know she will disobey. When Pandora does open the box, famine, war, plague, disease, pestilence --- all the ills of humanity --- are released. Then at the last comes hope, an antidote to despair.

But according to Barbara Walker's Encyclopedia, Pandora --- whose name means "all giving" was originally an image for Mother Earth. She had, not a box, but a honey vase like the Cornucopia from which flowed all life and creativity, as well as death and rebirth --- Earth's gifts to her children. Because we are natural beings in a natural world, it seems appropriate that a simple remedy composed of four common herbs, gifts of Earth, would suggest so much promise for us today.


Elisabeth Robinson: To begin with, Dr Glum, can you tell us a little about how you became interested in the story you tell in Calling of an Angel, and how you learned about Rene Caisse and her work?

Dr Gary Glum: A personal friend of mine knew this woman, whose name I have promised not to reveal, who was living in Detroit, Michigan. Twenty years ago she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer in a Detroit hospital; where she was eventually given up as incurable and terminal. She was given about ten days to live.

She convinced her husband to make a trip to Bracebridge, Canada where she went to see Rene Caisse. She was treated with the herbal remedy developed by Rene --- Essiac --- and in a short time she didn't have a cancer cell in her body. So after that time this woman began dedicating her life to disseminating information about Essiac in the United States. When I met her, she was the only person in possession of the original herbal formula who would relinquish it. I got the formula for Essiac from her.

That's how it began. When I started, all I had was a piece of paper. I thought, what am I going to do with this? I decided, the best way to go would be to find the information behind Essiac and put it in book form and bring it to the world.

I learned about Rene Caisse from Mary McPherson who was a very close personal friend of Rene's, not only a friend but also a patient. Mary's mother and her husband were also patients. They were all treated for cancer and cured by Rene.

Mary worked with Rene beginning in the 1930's and she had in her possession all the documents that had to do with Essiac over the 40 years Rene administered it. All the documents Rene had were destroyed by the Canadian Ministry of Health & Welfare at the time of her death in 1978. They burned all that information in fifty five gallon drums behind her home.

ER: Why?


ER: What is Essiac exactly?

GG: Essiac is a non-toxic herbal cure for cancer that's been in use with us since 1922. It's a formula made from four very common herbs.

ER: I would guess that virtually every person in the U.S. today has been touched by cancer, either personally or through a loved one. If this information is true, and the effectiveness of this remedy is actually medically documented, many lives could be saved. Why do you think the information on Essiac is not more widely known?


No-one has ever sought to cure cancer - only control it. I mean, the research institutes, federal governments, pharmaceutical companies, anybody that has a vested interest in the health care of cancer, including the American Cancer Society, any of these stalled benefactors to those who have contracted the disease - all of these institutes are involved in the money and power around cancer.

These institutions have influence over government and regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration.. The FDA recommends only allopathic treatments for cancer and other life threatening diseases. It does not approve nor make legal alternative treatments of any kind.

ER: You're saying the Essiac is in a position similar to, for example, laetril.


ER: In your book you mention that the Brusch Clinic in Massachusetts worked with Rene Caisse and with Essiac, during the 1960s. Is this clinic still doing research with Essiac?

GG: Dr Charles A Brusch is not practicing at this time. He was a personal physician to the late President John F Kennedy. Dr. Brusch worked with Rene Caisse from 1959 to 1962. He worked with thousands of cancer patients. He also worked with the Presidential Cancer Commission, with others like Dr Armand Hammer, the American Cancer Society, and the National Cancer Institute.

Dr Brusch presented his findings after ten years of research. He had come to the conclusion that "Essiac is a cure for cancer, period." All studies done at laboratories in the United States and Canada support this conclusion.

Whereupon the Federal Government issued a gag order and said, "You've got one of two choices, either you keep quiet about this or we'll haul you off to military prison and you'll never be heard of again," so we never heard another word out of him.

Brusch's Essiac patients included Ted Kennedy's son who had a sarcoma in his leg, and who had his leg amputated. He was being treated at the time by the Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Farber didn't know how to save him, because no-one had ever lived with this type of sarcoma. So what he did was go to Dr. Brusch and say, how are we going to save Ted Kennedy's son? And Dr. Brusch made the suggestion to put him on Essiac, and after they did, he didn't have a cancer cell in his body. But all this information has been hidden from the public.

ER: Why?

GG: As I said, money and power.

ER: Do you know whether the remedy is being used or tested anywhere today in the U.S. or Canada?

GG: Right now Essiac is being used in every state in the United States, it's throughout Canada and into Mexico, its in Australia, Europe, Asia, and, recently, also in Africa. And the message of Essiac is beginning to make it's way worldwide. But it's still known on a very limited basis.

Of course now you also have the problem of herbal distributing companies throughout the world that are substituting ...low dock and curly dock for sheep's sorrel, which is one of the crucial ingredients in Essiac.

The sheep's sorrel is the herbal ingredient in Essiac that was found to be responsible for the destruction of cancer cells in the body, or their amalgamation where ...astasized cancer cells actually return to the original tumor site.

That research was done by Dr Chester at Sloan-Kettering in New York for over a three year period. But when they gathered that information, they withheld it from the general public - yet they gave it to the Canadian Ministry of Health and Welfare. The Canadian government then immediately banned the herb for sale and distribution.

ER: Banned a common weed like sheep's sorrel?

GG: Yes, sheep's sorrel is just a common weed that grows in abundance throughout North America. Just a common weed. (Note: After this interview was completed, Wildfire learned from an herbalist in Canada that the Canadian government has recently banned St John's Wort, also a common weed frequently used by herbalists.)

ER: Well, it seems banning sheep's sorrel would not be very effective if you could identify it for yourself.


Rene would harvest the sheep's sorrel -Rumex acetosella- when it was four to six inches high. She cut it back and would let it grow up again, and she'd cut it back again. She would do that about three times and then she would let it go to seed. It will grow to about 14 or 18 inches.

She would take the herb cuttings home and lay them out at room temperature to dry them. She let the cuttings sit there for three or four days before she'd begin turning the herbs. Then she'd turn them every two days until they were properly dry, which took about ten days to two weeks. It takes about a bushel of harvested sheep's sorrel to produce one pound of the dried powdered herb which is used in the formula.






GG: Money and power, as I've said. Cancer is the largest revenue producing business in the world next to the petrochemical business. In Canada the book is being held up by the Ministry of Health & Welfare because they say it is "advertising."

ER: Advertising what? The video you don't sell any more?

GG: No, a cure for cancer.


GG: What you're dealing with is giving people a formula that they can make and use in the privacy of their own homes without the approval of the AMA or FDA or anybody else. If an attorney or any family member should decide, for whatever reason, that the reason someone expired was from the use of Essiac, then you are putting yourself up for a wrongful death suit. The contention is that if it isn't approved by the Food and Drug Administration, there's no legality in using it when you're dealing with a life threatening disease.

When Rene Caisse set up her clinical trials in Canada to test Essiac, she was given government permission to treat terminally ill cancer patients who had been given up for hopeless by the medical profession. That was one criteria. Secondly, this was all to be certified by a pathology report. And third, she could not charge anything for her services. She agreed to all these criteria and proceeded to treat people with Essiac. Many she treated were still here 35 years later to bury her when she died at age 90.

The best that anyone can do is try to disseminate this information to the public and let people make their own choices. That's all you can do. And just say, look, if you feel that Essiac has value in your life and the lives of your loved ones, you have the right to use it in the privacy of your own home and without anyone's approval.

You know, in 1937 Essiac came within three votes of being legalized as a treatment for cancer. People had garnered over fiftyfive thousand signatures on a petition to allow Rene to continue to use Essiac. The only reason the vote fell short, she found out years later, was that the College of Physicians and Surgeons met and said to the Parliament, if you don't respond to the political pressure and legalize Essiac, then we'll take a sincere look and give this woman a fair hearing. So Parliament didn't legalize Essiac.

So following the Royal Cancer Commission hearings Rene was allowed to continue her practice but only within the criteria I mentioned before, which allowed the Ministry of Health & Welfare to restrict peoples access to Essiac treatments.

I know this because I have a copy of the hearing transcripts which I got from Mary McPherson, which is some of the information that didn't get burned when Rene died.

ER: You mentioned earlier. What exactly was burned?

GG: All her research for that 40 year period of time. All the names, all her clinical data that she had collected. All her files.


GG: As far as I know all that material has been destroyed also. I knew that Rene had worked with Dr Brusch from 1959 to 1962, so I went to Dr Brusch's home in Cambridge, Massachusetts whereupon he delivered me the only materials he had left in his files on Essiac. One of those files was his own personal file where he had treated and cured his own cancer with Essiac. I have his personal records.

All the information in my book is verified by a sheet of paper with a signature and date on it, and those sheets and signatures are all originals. They are not copies.

ER: Have you had any personal experiences with Essiac?

GG: Yes, I can give you an example. He was a twelve year old boy named Toby Wood. He had acute lymphoblastic, which is one of the most virulent of all leukemias.


Her last stop was Dr Alvados in Athens, Greece where her son's white blood cell count was 186,000. He had no red blood cells or platelets. He was hemorrhaging to death. So they transfused Toby in Greece, and put him on a plane to Alaska where he was given five days to live.

I met his mother's sister in Los Angeles while I was putting the book together and she asked if there was any credibility here. We sat down and talked. She then borrowed the money for a flight to Anchorage, and delivered a bottle of Essiac. By the time she got there Toby had three days to live. He was in a state of complete deterioration. He was given the Essiac and all the hemorrhaging stopped within 24 hours. Within three months all his blood tests were normal. I arrived in Alaska later that year and met him.

Toby Wood did die, and we finally found a pathologist who would do an exhaustive autopsy. We knew that he didn't have leukemia anymore. We wanted to find out the cause of death. It took four months to get the report back. The pathologist autopsied the brain, testicles, and all life support organs, including the bone marrow. No blast cells were found in any life support organ. There were a few stray cells in the testicles and the brain. Cause of death was damage to the myocardial sac of the heart, a result of the chemotherapy.

This was the first report anywhere in medical history of anyone surviving lymphoblastic leukemia. That information was taken to AP and UPI but they said it was not newsworthy.

Our information on Essiac has been sent around the world twice through Publishers Weekly magazine in a huge two page ad. We received no responses at all from any publishing company worldwide, no producers, no directors throughout the United States, no talk show programs, none of that. We can't access the media. In fact we talked to Philip Scheffler, producer of 60 Minutes. He read the book and we called him to ask him what he was going to do about it. He said, nothing. I said all the information in the book is verifiable. In other words it's the truth. I said if you're 60 minutes why don't you expose me and Essiac as a fraud. He said. nope, can't do it.

We took it to Joe Donally who is the executive news producer for ABC in New York. We said why not give it to Peter Jennings, Geraldo Rivera, Ted Koppel, one of those? He said, nope. We asked why not? He said because his phone lines would be invaded with 65,000 phone calls. We said, how sympathetic do you think a parent whose child is dying from leukemia would be to your 65,000 phone calls. He went on to say he's got a mortgage on his house and he's looking forward to retirement.

So that's the problem. No one wants this information disseminated. And it's not just the media, either. It includes the herbal companies who are now substituting curly dock for sheep's sorrel. So people are getting the wrong ingredients for Essiac, not to mention the five or six other formulas that are circulating which are different from the one I send out. These false formulas are being disseminated. There is a disinformation campaign going on here, somehow.

ER: Has this disinformation campaign started just since your book has been out?

GG: Previous to my book, none of this information was available to the general public at all. The public had no information outside a few assorted articles. Certainly the Essiac formula was not available to the general public at all. All that information was held by the Resperin Corporation in Toronto, Canada, which supposedly is a private institution.

However, they work hand in glove with the Canadian Ministry of Health & Welfare, who works directly with the American Food and Drug Administration and the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. The Essiac formula was never given to anyone by Resperin.

ER: Did the Resperin Corporation do any research on Essiac?

GG: They've done research since 1978 when the formula was relinquished to them by Rene for the purchase price of one dollar. As soon as they got the formula, they told Rene they had no further use for her. She had been under the distinct impression from the Ministry of Health & Welfare and the Resperin Corporation that she was to lead research activities that they so desperately wanted to put together.


So now people who were terminally ill given up as hopeless had to go through a federal bureaucratic maze to get the remedy. By then, for most of these people, it was too late. But even when people were cured, that information was not released to the public.

Resperin ran research tests on Essiac. One test was done in Northern Canada and the documents were falsified. For example, one man was listed as dead who a few months later knocked on Rene's door and said, "You know I want to thank you for the Essiac and for being part of this experimental program. Yet he was listed as dead in the research findings.

ER: It's beginning to seem amazing to me that any information at all about this remedy has survived the "conspiracy of silence" or outright destruction of records and so on.

GG: The only reason Essiac is known to the public is by word of mouth and because Essiac is what it is. What will keep Essiac known is it's effectiveness. Rene said it years ago. She said, look, if Essiac doesn't have any merit let me put it out there. If it doesn't have any merit it will kill itself. Of course she knew full well if people had the correct herbs, the remedy would stand on its own.. And that is exactly what Essiac has done over this period of time that we've been disseminating the information.

Rene also found that Essiac was a strong preventative. These findings were substantiated by Dr Albert Schatz at Temple University who discovered the cure for tuberculosis.

Rene also found that Essiac would normalise the thyroid gland. My wife was on two grains of thyroid since the sixth grade. After I met her, she started taking Essiac, and she hasn't taken a grain of thyroid since.

Rene also found that Essiac would heal stomach ulcers within three to four weeks. She felt that ulcers were a precursor to cancer.

Sir Frederick Banting, the co-discoverer of insulin, wanted to work with Rene. She had clinical cases where a person on insulin discontinued it with the Essiac, since no one knew how Essiac interacted with the insulin. Apparently Essiac regulated the pancreas in cases of diabetes mellitus. So these people then came insulin free.

Another thing I've found with Essiac is that I've experienced almost perfect health. As you get older you think, well, I'm forty now, these things happen. Well, these things don't have to happen. Since I've taken Essiac, I've experienced almost perfect health. It's amazing. I sleep like a baby, have all kinds of energy, and no sickness, not even a cold or the flu.



GG: They're exercising three times a day, eating three meals a day. Their weight is back to normal. For all intents and purposes you wouldn't know they had a sick day in their lives. But this information is not being disseminated either, because AIDS is on the horizon as another big moneymaker. The chairman of the AIDS Project in Los Angeles makes over $100,000 a year.


The alternative people are also in it for the money. What you're finding with Essiac is that it is not even allowed into the arenas of the alternative health care. So really what you've got out here is people continually perpetrating these lies against mankind. For money. For money and power. It's that simple.

Really once you think about it, the only reason we don't have solar power is that no one's figured out a way to sell Exxon the sun. It's true. If they could, you'd have solar power. You know you'd have it.

ER: So, in your own personal experience, this herbal remedy works to "cure" cancer, thyroid conditions, diabetes, AIDS, ulcers...


ER: And all of this from a simple Native herbal remedy?

GG: Yes. Although Rene did alter it. She altered it with Turkish Rhubarb root -rheum palmatum . Turkish rhubarb root has a 5,000 year history. It actually came up from India into China and then was taken by the British.

ER: Turkish rhubarb root is not native to this country, nor available here. Herbs from foreign countries are fumigated and irradiated, so is it a good idea to use the Turkish rhubarb root?

GG: You can substitute ordinary rhubarb root. The other two ingredients are burdock root -arctium lappa - and the inner bark of the slippery elm -ulmus fulva . They are easy to obtain, usually. Sheep's sorrel -rumex acetosella is what destroys the cancer cells. The other three herbs are blood purifiers.


ER: What about quantities?

GG: Even its worst enemy could never lay claim that Essiac had any deleterious side effects whatever. You can take Essiac safely, through all the clinical trials that have been done, up to six ounces a day. That's two ounces in the evening, two at midday and two in the morning. That's a high dosage. Rene had the correct herbs and she used as little as one ounce a week.


Nationwide, in the water we drink, over 2,100 organic and inorganic chemicals have been identified, and 156 of them are pure carcinogens. Of those, if you have a tumor, 26 are tumor promoting , so they make the tumor larger. But of course this information is not available to the public either. Those figures are from tests conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency which have never been distributed to the public.

ER: How did you get the information?

GG: From a Ralph Nader organization out of Washington DC. The media has not disseminated this information. Another problem is that very few people read books any more. We can only hope they'll read Calling of an Angel . Of course the problem right now is people getting the right herbs.

ER: Anything you'd like to add before we close this interview?

GG: I would like to say that I didn't do all this research because I feel I have a responsibility to other people. I did it because I have a responsibility to myself. I know that I've done all I can do to disseminate this information to the people.

I was the first person to release this information to the public and say, here it is, here's the formula, here's the story. So now the story is out there and look what is happening - its getting killed through a disinformation campaign. I mean Harvard, Temple, Tufts, Northwestern University, Chicago - all these institutions have tested Essiac with the right stuff, and they all came to the same conclusions as Rene Caisse. But all that information has been buried.

ER: Gary, it's been very interesting to speak with you.


ER: I think you're the one who's done that.

Dr Gary L. Glum, until some years ago, was a chiropractor with offices in Los Angeles California. His clients included well known professional athletic teams and Olympic teams.

In 1988 Dr Glum published Calling of an Angel, the story of Rene Caisse and Essiac. Some years ago he closed his practice and now devotes his time to investigative writing.

The official formula is provided below. Please note that Essiac is not distributed or sold through this site or through East West Network. For distributors, please check Essiac in Search Engines and verify correct ingredients.

Subject: Essiac Ingredients

MESSAGE: The Essiac ingredients are available in proper quantities.

1 lb 5oz - Burdock Root c/s (6 1/2 cups)

1 lb - Sheep Sorrel Lvs., Pwd

4 oz - Slippery Elm Bark, Pwd

1 oz - Turkish Rhubarb Root, Pwd

Makes 10 -two gallon batches

Also available 12 x 16 Amber Glass bottles with caps  - They hold first 2 gall batch



2-3 gallon stainless steel pots with lids
1 - strainer
1 - stainless or wooden spatula
1 - funnel
1 - timer (optional) New amber glass bottles with caps.

You will need:
8 oz Measuring cup of Essiac from mixed materials
2 gallons distilled water

Bring to a hard boil (Takes about 30 minutes) The lid is on all the time (Except while stirring). Put in Essiac Herbs - Stir - Boil. Boil hard for 10 mins (Adjust flame as needed). Turn off stove - let sit for 6 hours. After 6 hours stir thoroughly, let sit for 6 more hours. After the last 6 hours, turn heat on and bring to boil. At boiling point turn off the heat, strain into pot #2 - Clean pot #1 - strain back into pot #1. Immediately pour into bottles and put the caps on (12 x 16 oz bottles). Must be bottled hot. Store in a dark cabinet.

