Calling of an Angl: Rene Caisse and Essiac Tea--3by Dr. Gary L. Glum |
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CHAPTER THREEProbably not even Rene could have imagined the fight that she would live through in 1938. She was in the newspapers regularly all year. In small ways and large, tens of thousands of people involved themselves in her cause. At one point, Ontario Prime Minister Mitchell Hepburn received yet another petition on Rene's behalf-this one with 55,000 signatures. Hundreds of people a week were showing up at her clinic, most of them desperately ill. Her former patients were still spreading the word about their treatments. To understand the phenomenon that Rene had become in Canada, it's necessary to understand what her patients were going around telling people. A woman named E.A. Tarzwell from Milton, Ontario read about Rene in a newspaper that published a letter from one of Rene's patients, James Summerwill,a notary public in Sprucedale, Ontario. Mrs. Tarzwell wrote directly to Mr. Summerwill to find out more. These were strangers corresponding about matters of life and death, and there was no reluctance, no equivocation, in what Mr. Summerwill wrote back to Mrs. Tarzwell, based on his own experience. "As we have passed through the ordeal which you are now experiencing," he wrote to her, "our sincere sympathy is yours. But let me assure you that you have no cause to worry over more than the actual suffering of your husband, providing that the trouble is not too much advanced, if he is taking Miss Caisse's treatment and follows her instructions completely." He told of his case. He was suffering from "the most malignant type of cancer known." Dr. Faulkner, Premier Hepburris Minister of Health in the previous cabinet, had personally told him that Dr. Faulkner had never heard of anyone being cured of Mr. Summerwill's type of cancer. Mr. Summerwill's doctors told him that surgery was the only hope. He refused the surgery and got his doctor to write the necessary consent letter to allow Rene to treat him. "I took 28 treatments in all, weekly, 1 treatment until the last 2 which was 1 treatment semi-weekly. My cancer was in the left groin. From the 5th treatment I could notice a slight improvement at the end of each week, which gave me a little encouragement, and I persevered and gained very slowly but surely. I took my last treatment 24th June, 1936, and have been feeling fine ever since and able to look after my work from that time. But of course I had to take things easy for quite a while in order not to put too much strain on the parts that had been afflicted."
Mr. Summerwill concluded his letter: "At this time there is not the least
sign of a return of the trouble. I take the time and trouble to answer a
very large number of letters along the same line as yours for the reason
that I would like everyone suffering that terrible affliction to receive
at least relief and a 90% chance of a cure." Try to imagine, fifty years later, the kind of public sensation that was caused by all sorts of testimonials like that published in newspapers and with similar letters pouring into the offices of legislators and Premier Hepburn. The son of Ontario's Senator Marshall was telling all his friends that this nurse in Bracebridge was curing cancer. One legislator wrote to Rene on January 22, 1938, to offer any legislative help he could give-and to ask for three bottles of Essiac. A woman named Eva Stephens wrote Premier Hepburn a long and articulate letter explaining how Rene Caisse had cured her when the doctors had failed. In passing, she mentioned: "I was in Miss Caisse's clinic the other day when a lady was discharged fully cured from cancer of the breast and even our medical doctors can find no trace of cancer. I wish you could have talked to that lady." Rene herself wasn't mincing any words in her correspondence with the politically powerful. On February 14, 1938, she gave Premier Hepburn a piece of her mind. After bluntly pointing out that her endorsement had helped his campaign the previous fall, she took him to task for denying to the Toronto Daily Star that he had promised to put a bill through the legislature granting her a special license to practice. "When I told you that the Medical Assocation was very powerful," she wrote, "your answer to me was, `they are not as strong as our legislature: Now, if you have found out that the Medical Profession is more powerful than you thought it was, and have found that your hands are tied and that you cannot keep your promise to me, would it not have been more manly or more kindly to have admitted that you were unable to keep your promise, than to publicly deny having made it, making me out untruthful?" Hepburn relented. The Toronto newspapers later reported that he had arranged for Rene's special bill to be introduced in the legislature a week later. Accompanied by a list of names of more than 200 former patients who swore they had benefited from Essiac, the bill, if passed, would grant that: "Rene Caisse be authorized to practice medicine in the Province of Ontario in the treatment of cancer in all its forms and of human ailments and conditions resulting therefrom." In response, the organized medical opposition lowered the boom. After the 1937 election, Dr. Faulkner had left his post as Minister of Health and been replaced by Harold Kirby. At the beginning of March, the "Kirby Bill" was introduced in the legislature. The Kirby Bill was advertised to the public as a way of getting to the truth about Rene's treatment, and a handful of other controversial cancer treatments then in use in Canada. To protect the public and discover if any of these treatments had merit, the Kirby Bill would authorize the establishment of a Royal Cancer Commission to investigate all possible cancer cures. Rene, of course, would be allowed to offer evidence to the Royal Cancer Commission, to be composed of respected members of the Canadian College of Physicians and Surgeons. If her evidence were persuasive, the Cancer Commission would legalize Essiac. But there was a catch. The formulas for all treatments investigated would have to be turned over to the Cancer Commission. Anyone refusing to divulge their formula could be fined $100 to $500 the first time they were caught treating a patient; and $500 to $2,500 the second time, and for each subsequent offense. Failure to pay the fine could result in 30 days to six months in jail. Harsh measures, indeed. According to the Kirby Bill, the members of the Cancer Commission would be required to maintain the confidentiality of the formula for any cancer treatment. But there were no penalties attached to their failure to do so. Rene told friends that if the Kirby Bill passed and she turned over the formula, every secretary and doctor who got hold of it could-and probably would-do whatever they pleased with it, with no fear of punishment. She was outraged at this obvious insult to her: Dismissing any possibility the Cancer Commission would keep her formula secret, Rene told the press: "The people of Ontario will be paying a group of men to develop something that was developed and discovered 15 years ago. I have developed and proven a cure right here in Bracebridge, and I am running a clinic where hundreds of cancer sufferers are being treated and helped. Why then should I be asked to give my formula over to a group of doctors who never did anything to earn it?" The press reported that 28,000 signatures were now on a petition that would soon be submitted to parliament in support of Rene's bill. "I would certainly welcome any committee sent here by the government," Rene told reporters. But if the Kirby Bill passed, she threatened, she would have no choice but to leave the country. "If the Ontario legislature can pass a law to put me in jail for six months for helping suffering people, I will close my clinic and go to the United States. I shall not buck such opposition." On March 10, 1938, Rene's threat made headlines in the Toronto newspapers. Meanwhile Rene's backers were lobbying with fever. But these were not, for the most part, powerful and well-connected people. One of their main weapons had to be the letters they wrote to the people who were. Within days of the introduction of the Kirby Bill, Rene's backers organized a massive campaign of letters to legislators and potential witnesses for Essiac. On March 11, Mrs. D.A. Heimbecker of Bracebridge wrote that she couldn't make it to Toronto as a delegate but wanted to add her letter to the campaign. "I had two operations about seven years ago for cancer," she wrote to one of the women who was organizing the lobbying ef fort. "After a few years the trouble came back. My Dr. couldn't help me, so I just lived thinking I would have to die in a few years. So last summer I heard of Miss Rene Caisse of Bracebridge. I came here last October 12, 1937, and after I had my third treatment I knew that she could help me. I am still taking treatments but I know that I am cured. But a few more treatments wouldn't hurt. I certainly feel like a new person thanks to Miss Rene Caisse for my health." On March 14, Mrs. John Thornbury wrote her simple statement to the same organizer: An X-ray had indicated that she needed an operation, but she was too weak. "I was so weak I was not able to walk alone. My husband had to carry me for months and I could not eat anything and could not even keep a drink down. I started to go up to Miss Caisse for treatments in July and now I am feeling fine and have a good appetite and can do a good lot of my own work and I know I have sure been benefited by Miss Caisse's treatments. And I think I can say I am almost cured. Yours truly." On March 15, a woman named Ann Mitchell from Milford Bay, Ontario wrote her "To whom it may concern" contribution. In a long and vivid letter, she told a horrifying story of one cancer after another being removed by surgery and treated with radium. But they kept coming back. Finally when the cancer returned again, she refused radium. "I was so burned and sick from this I decided to give Miss Caisse a trial and I am only sorry I didn't go sooner as I would have saved a good bit of suffering and expense." Rene treated Ann Mitchell from March to July, 1937. She gained 20 pounds and returned to normal health. Describing her experiences at Rene's clinic, she wrote: "From week to week I've seen great changes in many poor sick people. If anything I could say or do to help Miss Caisse I'd certainly be glad to do it." Rene's supporters gathered piles of letters like this, from people all over Canada, many of them total strangers to each other who had no way of knowing what others were writing, who had nothing to gain by their statements, and who all told similar stories. Not even the most skeptical-or hostile-legislator could dismiss Rene out of hand with this kind of record compiled. In the third week of March, the Private Bills committee of the Ontario legislature considered the bill that would authorize Rene Caisse to treat cancer patients with Essiac. The petition with 55,000 signatures was presented to them. Fifty of Rene's patients watched from the visitor's gallery. The debate was fierce. J. Frank Kelly, the MP from the Bracebridge area and an ardent backer of Rene's, argued that she had been "hounded around the country for years like a criminal. I'm not claiming that Miss Caisse has a cancer cure. But I know people who were sick and are well today, and I know that their illness was diagnosed as cancer by the medical profession. Even if she hasn't a cure for cancer but can prolong life, she should get some consideration. Even Sir Frederick Banting does not pretend to be able to cure diabetes with insulin, but he can prolong life and relieve suffering." "But isn't she carrying on now?" a committee member named L.M. Frost asked. "Yes, she's carrying on but without fee and without recognition. I don't know whether the committee wants to go so far as to make her a doctor but she should get some sort of recognition. Give her a chance to carry on helping people." Rene's lawyer, John Carrick, claimed that "patients and their relatives are reporting that doctors are refusing to give her diagnoses of cancer, and that a cabal has been organized by the medical profession against her." Some MP's shouted "Untrue" and "Shame." At that, one of Rene's patients stood up and yelled out: "My mother was a cancer patient, yet three doctors refused to give her a written diagnosis for Miss Caisse, though they gave it to my mother verbally." The patients in the gallery cheered and applauded, prompting Speaker David Croll to threaten to have them removed. John Carrick then read the case of James Summerwill, the notary public who claimed to have been cured of lymphosarcoma, into the record and said, "I have many patients here willing to speak to the committee if they are wanted."
Speaker Croll declined that opportunity. "The government is setting up a
board to deal with these reported cures," he said, referring to the Cancer
Commission to be established if the Kirby Bill passed. Dr. M.T Armstrong, the MP from Parry Sound, spoke in suport of the bill. "I don't know whether it's a cure or not," he said, "but I certainly have seen people who have been helped by her. I've talked to practically every medical doctor in the legislature , and there isn't one who's against her." Another MP from Toronto, W A. Summerville, said that hed heard from all sorts of people who claimed to have been helped by Rene Caisse. "We want to help suffering humanity. What Miss Caisse wants is protection. This committee should do something to protect her."
Then William Duckworth added: "She should be helped. The Minister (of
Health) says that the Health Department has not interfered with Miss
Caisse. Well, I say that heads of the department change. They may be gone
in two or three years." A man named T E Stevenson, whose wife had been treated by Rene, was allowed to speak. He said that his wife had not been cured but her pain had been diminished. He made an impassioned plea for the bill. "Why hold this woman up? You worit do any harm by passing this bill and it's inhuman to stop it. Let her go for the sake of humanity, even if she can only give relief from pain. Then at least cancer sufferers can die in peace without the aid of opiates, which is all the medical profession can give them." Then Rene spoke. She charged that doctors were having the clamps put on them so that they would not give diagnoses to people who wanted to be treated by Rene. "The fact that I can get any results at all should be accepted as a great thing," she said. "When I had success, I thought the doctors would welcome me with open arms. I didn't anticipate antagonism from the profession. I expected cooperation and I have every respect for the profession." She declared that she would give her formula to the world without any thought of gain "if I knew that it would be given to humanity in the same way. I have never asked a patient for one cent. I have been glad to have donations of $1 or $2 but I have never asked a patient if they had money. I treated them whether they had it or not." She said that she would happily submit her formula to any investigating commission, on one condition: That the medical profession would admit that Essiac had merit, based on the results she had already obtained. Then she welcomed any sort of investigation of her work. "My clinic is wide open to any investigation at all times." According to newspaper accounts, when the time for a vote came, there was confusion and many voices speaking at once and a flood of motions to the chairman. Then the chairman recognized a motion that "the bill be not reported," and a show of hands indicated a narrow margin in favor of rejecting the bill. The newspapers reported that Rene's bill had been defeated by three votes. Rene's hometown paper, the Bracebridge Gazette, gave this account on March 31, 1938: "Miss Rene Caisse got kind of turned down by a Parliamentary Committee last week. They put it off on the grounds that a bill covering all such cases is to be introduced, but they did promise that she would not be molested while working as she has been. "It is difficult to understand the tyrannical treatment Miss Caisse has received. She has been treating people with cancerous growths for fifteen years. In recent years the town of Bracebridge gave her the use of The British Lion, a good brick hotel building. "There she has treated hundreds of cancer sufferers. Many of these came to her in such condition that there was no possible hope of restoration, but even they had their last days practically free from pain. "Others who were not so bad, but some of them very bad, have gone away to all appearances cured. At the meeting of a Parliamentary Committee many of these cured persons were present. So enthusiastic was their demonstration in favor of Miss Caisse that officers threatened to clear the room. "On the other hand among the hundreds who have been treated by Miss Caisse there has never been noted an instance where her treatment has harmed a patient. It is common knowledge that cancers have been cured, at least temporarily, by radium and the knife but those have failed in many times the proportion in which they have succeeded. "When therefore it is an undisputed fact that Miss Caisse's treatment has never done harm and has so often done good, even to the saving of life, it is difficult to realize the mentality of those who would put obstacles in her way. "Miss Caisse is not strong and has worked very hard under a very great strain. She will be away from her clinic for a month for absolute rest, leaving no address." Within days the legislature passed the Kirby Bill into law, and thus began one of the strangest-even bizarre-phases of Rene's battles with the Canadian government. Reduced to its simplest terms, Rene would announce to the press that, because of the Kirby Bill, she was closing her clinic. The press and the public would flock to Kirby's door. Kirby would say no, the law wasn't being enforced, she should open her clinic. Rene would open the clinic. Then someone would frighten her that Kirby was coming after her. Shed close the clinic. The press and the public would...And so it went for the better part of the next two years. Rene fired first at the end of March. After a few weeks of rest and under heavy pressure from patients and supporters, she announced-to front page headlines-that she would reopen on April 30. Four weeks later, days before the Kirby Bill went into effect, she announced she was closing again. The Bracebridge Gazette reported that her announcement caused "widespread regret in Muskoka and elsewhere....The general opinion in Muskoka is that this statute is arbitrary and unfair. The general feeling here is that the sole test of her treatment should be `Does it cure?' and that if it cures it should be nobody's business `how' or `why' it cures....The probable result of the new legislation will be that Miss Caisse's treatment will be given in the United States and not in Ontario. How do Muskoka cancer sufferers like this prospect?" Harold Kirby felt enough heat from those people that he called in the press. "KIRBY DENIES NURSE FORCED TO SHUT CLINIC," said the front page headline in the Toronto Globe and Mail. "Replies to Protest." Then he gave reporters a copy of the letter he had written to Rene's lawyer. The Cancer Commission, he said in the letter, will have the authority, after imishing its investigation, to compel Rene to turn over her formula. In the meantime: "It should be made clear to everyone that nothing in this Act prevents Miss Caisse from carrying on with her clinic as she has been doing in the past." Rene was in the same position now, he said, that she was before the passing of the bill. Nonsense, snapped Rene. Dr. Noble of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, she told reporters, had informed her that they were going to demand her formula if she kept the clinic open. "I regret with all my heart closing my cancer clinic here at Bracebridge. I have battled with the medical profession but when it comes to fighting the law of the Province it is too much for me."
The Huntsville Forester later described the scene when the patients at
Rene's clinic were notified of the closing: "Tears began to flow down the
cheeks of dozens of cancer victims, who had been receiving benefit from
their treatment with Miss Caisse, and whose last hope apparently vanished
with the announcement of the closing of the clinic. One patient is
reported to have fainted, while others, in complete dejection, had to be
assisted to their motor cars. Miss Caisse herself was so overcome that she
had to leave the scene." The story reported that a contingent of these patients and their friends and families went straight to the offices of the area s mayors, who in turn fired off angry telegrams to Premier Hepburn. The angry letters poured into Kirby's and Hepburn's offices. Typical of what Kirby heard from the public was this, dated May 30,1938, from Mr. J.M. Andercheck of Timmons, Ontario: "It has been a very severe blow to me as well as to many of the suf ferers to hear that Miss Caisse was forced to close her clinic. I think it is a great injustice to the hundreds of sufferers from the dreadful disease whom Miss Caisse has so greatly benefited. "My wife was one of her patients for the last 3 months and has gained in health and confidence and was looking forward to regaining her health again. "She is only 34 years of age and a mother of a 3-year-old child. It seems such a pity to take away the opportunity from a person her age to regain her health and happiness to which every person is entitled to. And leave nothing but despair." Those who were devastated by the closing of the clinic poured out their feelings in letters to Rene. In one that conveys beautifully the feelings of those who had been treated with Essiac, William Giles wrote: "Your tragic message received. As I sit here, I am picturing the crowds of sad, pathetic faces whose only hope in life was through Miss Caisse. "What a Godsend you were to us all. Whatever will we do without you girls. Just sit back to brood and die in despair. You were helping us so much & now there seems to be no other way out of our difficulties. However, where jealous, covetous doctors have made this Rich Blessing impossible for Canadians, we trust & hope that your wonderful services will continue on to help, encourage & cure our sister nation, the Americans. We often wonder at it all but I doubt if we shall ever quite understand....You made things so nice & easy for us. We can never forget you. Goodbye with love and every good wish." Rene's supporters were quickly organizing their counterattack. On May 30, one of them sent out a mass mailing to all of Rene s patients: "We may find it necessary to take a delegation to Queen's Park, in which case we would have to have as large a crowd as possible. We are depending on you to join us." That same day Premier Hepburn sent a telegram to the mayor of Huntsville, Ontario: "This government has taken no action whatsoever to interfere in any way with operation of Miss Caisse's clinic.... Would suggest that representations be made to her urging her to continue treatment of those who have confidence in her formula." Three days later, on June 2, Hepburn wrote directly to Rene. In a two-page letter he gently encouraged her to keep the clinic open and urged her to turn over the formula, if the Cancer Commission requested it. "You have read the statement which was issued to the press," the Premier wrote. "It should be clear to you that no action has been taken by the Government to close your clinic." The next day's headlines said that Rene was "reassured" by Premier Hepburn's statements and that the clinic would reopen. But Rene denied the accuracy of those reports. She said that the clinic would remain closed. On June 3, 1938, the Toronto Evening Telegram reported that "she could not possibly see her way clear to continue treating her many patients while the law of the province places her in such a position that she cannot be free to carry on her work." There was a flood of telegrams to Hepburn and Kirby. More petitions were circulated and signed. Angry Ontario newspapers editorialized on Rene's behalf. Typical of the editorials was this in the Orangeville Banner: "Miss Caisse is liable to a penalty if she refuses to disclose her formula. On the other hand members of the Commission and their clerks are protected by the Act, even if they disclose the formula inadvertently or deliberately. It is a piece of unfair, one-sided legislation, quite unworthy of a deliberative body representing the people of Ontario. "It is difficult to retain one's respect for a Legislature that placed such an unfair and one-sided Act on the statute books of this province. Under the circumstances it is not surprising that Miss Caisse has decided to close her clinic and seek in the United States the freedom that is denied her in her own province." On June 16, the Toronto Evening Telegram reported that Hepburn and Kirby had been "besieged with letters from patients who have beeen deprived of their treatments." That same day there was another announcement that the clinic would reopen. Then on June 20, the Toronto newspapers reported that Kirby had repudiated his negotiations with Rene's lawyers and the clinic would remain closed. There was another public outcry. On June 23, the Toronto Evening Telegram reported the story of "a Toronto woman with fear in her eyes" who "begs" the Telegram: "Please do what you can to get the clinic re-opened. It means my life." According to the Evening Telegram, the woman had a medical diagnosis of inoperable cancer of the stomach. She told the paper that two months earlier, out of desperation, she had gone to the Caisse clinic. "Three treatments, one a week, improved me tremendously," the paper quoted her as saying. "I felt like a dif ferent person, and my doctor expressed amazement and said he wouldn't have believed it possible." She told the paper that she was "terribly, terribly anxious to continue these treatments." But when she phoned Bracebridge for an appointment, "Miss Caisse said she was afraid to re-open. I cannot understand for the life of me-and it means my lifewhy the government cannot let doctors diagnose cancer cases, have Miss Caisse treat them, and judge her discovery by cures. That should be proof enough. While they're making a political football out of this what is going to happen to people like me? Our time is-limited." The Evening Telegram described this unnamed woman as the "wife of a man in a responsible business position, of comfortable means. When she finished telling her own story, she described for the paper her encounters with some of Rene s other patients: "A little old lady had a bunch of violets in her hand. She said she had picked them herself for Miss Caisse-she who had cancer of the stomach and could not walk when she first went to her for treatments. There was another woman of 28, from Capreol, mother of three small children. She had been twice operated on for cancer of the throat and her vocal chords had been cut, so that she could speak only in a whisper. She whispered to me: `I've gained 13 pounds since coming here, and the pain has gone from my throat.' I wonder what that poor thing is doing with her treatments cut off." The paper said that this woman did not blame Rene Caisse for closing her clinic. "She should get credit for it, and should be allowed herself to prove its value," the woman was quoted as saying. "She treats poor and rich alike without question. Some are so poor that they can pay nothing. I saw a countryman with a dozen eggs in payment for a treatment. Everybody gives her what they can afford." The woman's grown son was quoted speaking bitterly of the Kirby Bill: "Kirby says if they disprove her formula in the medical laboratory, they still can't prevent her operating a clinic," the son said. "What it amounts to, then, is that somebody wants the formula. It's not for the protection of the public, because, according to his own statement, she can run a clinic anyway. If you had seen my mother before the treatments Miss Caisse gave her, you would know there was something in her discovery. Somebody's trying to get it-and get the credit for it." The story ended by noting: "At Queeri s Park, warm denial is reiterated that Miss Caisse has any reason `to be afraid' to continue her clinic. `If Miss Caisse were half as humane as she claims to be, her clinic would be open today,' Mr. Kirby declared." On June 28, the Toronto Daily Star reported that the Minister of Health had been visited by a delegation of 80 to 90 of Rene's patients and had agreed to join in with them to seek an interpretation of the Kirby Bill from the Attorney General. After those meetings with Kirby, the leader of the deputation, EF Stevenson, wrote Rene a colorful letter telling her what it was like negotiating with the government. With refreshing insight, he described the deputation's experiences: "It seems as though the medical association have the government hog-tied. From Monday to Friday we never missed a day at Queeri s Park and I thought we were getting places with Kirby and Conant until Hepburn came into the argument, and just try to get him to put anything in writing. All we could get was Kirby's statement in the press that he would frown on a Commission that would ask for a formula before they investigated the past and present treatments. "Honestly I believe we can make them carry on the investigation your way by keeping Kirby's memory refreshed with his own statements on the subject. It is a cinch we have them worried and with the Docs hammering at them also, I doubt if the Commission is named for some time, maybe not this year. I would like to see them named right away, then we would know how they intended to carry on their investigations. "I believe we met Hepburn on one of those days when he wasn't feeling so good, he acted like he had a bad night. Even Kirby seemed disgusted with the way he acted, as when Hepburn walked out on us, Kirby said he would get in touch with you. But still insisted he couldn't, without Hepburn's consent, give us in writing any assurance that the Commission would carry on their duties in a certain way or that you would not be fined if you did not turn over your formula, if they should ask for it before they investigated your past treatments. "But verbally they both were very emphatic that the government would see to it that you would be fairly dealt with. Their whole argument has always been that the Bill was there and they did not have the authority to change it but they would assure us that they had no intention of letting any medical association run the government. Hepburn nearly went through the roof when I said that the Docs were all powerful. "Again I would ask you to open your clinic and let the opposition come to you, even if you do get fined once. We can surely raise a hundred for the first one, but again I say I believe the government are ready to play ball with you. All I can ask is that you be a good Canuck and open your clinic so we can have them coming to you instead of you appealing to them. And dori t let them worry you, everything is going to be O.K." But Rene wasrit reassured. Her attitude was that the law was the law and if the government wanted her to open her clinic, they should change the law. The clinic remained closed. On July 14, the Bracebridge Gazette editorialized: "We predict that if some sufferer who desires Miss Caisse's aid should die while the clinic is closed, there will be a veritable roar of bitter condemnation by the general public in these parts and the target of that condemnation will not be Miss Caisse." Two weeks later, newspapers throughout Ontario reported that Rene had finally yielded to please of her patients and would reopen on August S. She and the government had fought each other to a draw in the first round. The Kirby Bill was still the law; but the government had promised publicly not to enforce it for the time being. Both sides were now gearing up for the next round of the battle: The investigation by the newly formed Royal Cancer Commission. Introduction I 1 I 2 I 3 I 4I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I 14 All of the events and characters depicted in this book are non-fictional
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