Caisse Tea - The Natural Cure for Cancer? (Part 4)

Once Rene Caisse felt she had enough data, she took her case notes to Dr. Frederick Banting who was world famous for his discovery of insulin. After reading her notes and examining pictures and x-rays of cancers she had treated, he said: “Miss Caisse, I will not say you have a cure for cancer. But you have more evidence of a beneficial treatment for cancer than anyone in the world.”

Potential As A Cure for Diabetes?
Dr. Banting also reviewed the case of another cancer patient whose diabetes disappeared during her course of Essiac treatment. He concluded that the herbs had seemingly stimulated the pancreatic gland into normal function. This would indicate the tea's value in treating diabetes as well.

Another prominent physician who voiced his support for the efficacy of her treatments included Dr. Charles Brusch, former physician to President John F. Kennedy, who revealed in a notarized statement in 1990 that he had cured his own lower bowel cancer with Essiac alone.

Essiac and the Medical Industry
Rene Caisse went on to treat thousands of cancer patients, accepting no payment from them. In spite of continuous persecution and threats of arrest, she had faith that she could accumulate enough proof of the effectiveness of her tea that ultimately the medical profession would have to accept Essiac as an approved treatment. It was not to be so. Some people cynically believe that there was too much money involved and at stake in official cancer research to allow an obscure nurse to discover an inexpensive, effective treatment.

Attempts at Some Official Acceptance
In 1938, a bill was presented to the Ontario parliament to allow Rene Caisse to treat cancer patients without the constant threat of arrest she had been subjected to. Presented was a petition signed by over 55,000 supporters, including doctors, patients and their families. The bill failed passage by 3 votes. Soon after this, there followed the creation of the Royal Cancer Commission that employed the somewhat surprising tactics of suppressing the then considerable evidence of the efficacy of Essiac. Instead, they firmly favored their own orthodox cancer treatments of surgery and radiation. (To suggest there was duplicity involved in these decisions is not within the aim and scope of this article.)

Nurse Caisse refused to sign over her formula to authorities without receiving their assurance that the research would not be shelved. It seems she feared that the monopolistic medical industry would either try to discredit it or use it for enormous financial gain. She offered to reveal the exact formula only if medical authorities would first admit its merit to prevent it from being buried.

She also refused to sell the formula and benefit financially from it, feeling that it should be offered freely to anyone whom it could benefit just as it had been shared by the Ojibway medicine man. She fought the remainder of her life, unsuccessfully, for recognition by the medical industry that this tea was a safe and effective treatment for even most advanced cancers that she had documented so many hundreds of times over so many years.

Rene Caisse continued to treat cancer patients successfully, and secretly, from her home for the next thirty years. She used the herbal tea herself until she died at the age of 90 in 1978. She finally sold the rights to her formula for $1 in the hopes that the tea would be developed and made easily and inexpensively available to the public. It is now offered by companies under the name of Essiac or Caisse Tea and the success stories continue.

(Part 5 of this series continues next week.)