Calling of an Angl: Rene Caisse and Essiac Tea--10by Dr. Gary L. Glum |
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CHAPTER TENI don't know all the details of what happened with the tests by the Resperin Corporation. But what was initially supposed to be a six-month study dragged on for a few years. As late as 1981, David Fingard was quoted in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record as saying, "Speaking loosely, we already have evidence of (Essiac) cures, but the evidence is not sufficient to convince the scientific world. But we are getting excellent results." That same newspaper story announced that the results of the government-approved test were expected to be released shortly. "Fingard says he is confident that Essiac does cure, or at least control, cancer in patients, depending on how early in the diagnosis it is given," the newspaper reported. "He also has confidence in it as a preventive. He and his wife have been taking weekly two-ounce doses (twice as much as usually recommended) for the past two years." An accompanying article told the story of a cancer patient, Murray Braun of Kitchener, who was convinced that "he is alive and well today because he refused conventional follow-up cancer treatment three years ago in favor of Essiac, an Indian herbal remedy." After surgery for testicle cancer in 1978, tests revealed "cancer markers" in Braun's blood. He was told at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto that he would have to have four weeks of radiation treatments. "If I had gone through all that, could you imagine what would be left of me now?" Braun told the newspaper. "I'd probably be dead by now " Instead he got accepted into the Essiac test program. After ten days of Essiac, he said, the color returned to his face. After three weeks, the warmth returned to his body. "On Essiac I started feeling really good," Braun said. So good that he took up skiing again. But despite cases like Murray Braun, in 1982 the Canadian government shut down Resperin's tests, calling them "flawed," and accusing Resperin of poor quality control in its experiments. The director of the Canadian Health and Welfare Department's bureau of prescription drugs admitted that there was no concern about Essiac's safety. It was safe, all right. But he was quoted as saying that they "cannot say this is an effective treatment." Patients who were already using Essiac would be allowed to continue using it, in the government's words, "purely on humanitarian grounds." On those same grounds, future patients who could fight their way through the bureaucracy might also be allowed to use Essiac legally. On December 8, 1982, a man named Ed Zalesky of Surrey, B.C., one of the cancer patients who had been treated with Essiac provided by Resperin, expressed his outrage at all the obstacles placed in the way of people who needed Essiac. In a letter to the editor of an Orillia newspaper, he wrote: "My life expectancy in 1977 was from six months to two years maximum. The fact that I'm `clean' (according to our over-worked staff at the Vancouver cancer clinic) and still very much alive I owe in great part to Essiac. I was fortunate enough to be one of the people involved in an Essiac test program conducted by Resperin Corporation." He went on: "I had a terrible time convincing my doctor to submit the short reports required by Resperin to compile test results, let alone to make any commitments. It seems that many doctors refuse to complete the forms, or conveniently `forget' or make them so vague as to be useless. "That Essiac gives relief from suffering in many cases and prolongs life there is no doubt. Why can't the people who administer the cancer funds give it a fair trial? It isn't going to hurt anyone. The medical profession should stop playing 'God' and allow us cancer patients to use the treatment of our choice." He concluded: "I am now three years past my final death sentence, well, working full time and then some, and enjoying life, thanks to this `unproven' compound." (Ed Zalesky was still alive and well five years later in 1987.) When the government was criticizing Resperin's tests, David Fingard told the press that Resperin could even sell Essiac as an herbal tea if they didn't make any claims for its curative powers. But Resperin, he said, wanted Essiac to be officially accepted as a cure. "We don't want to sell it as a tea through stores," he was quoted as saying. "The only way we want to sell it is as a cure." Resperin didn't give up after the government shut down their tests-and apparently Sloan-Kettering remained interested. On May 12, 1983, David Fingard sent a telegram to Dr. Charles Young at Sloan-Kettering, thanking him "for your interest in ascertaining the possibility of Essiac curing cancer. We naturally feel optimistic based on present results. Also delighted with your offer to come to Toronto for a meeting." Five months later, on October 5, 1983, E. Bruce Hendrick, the chief of neurosurgery at The University of Toronto's Hospital For Sick Children, wrote his letter to the Canadian Minister of Health-quoted as the epigraph to this book-saying that Essiac appeared to have benefited children under his care sufficiently to warrant serious scientific testing. Once again, after the latest round of controversy over Essiac, this time sparked by the Homemaker's article in 1977, the authorities did everything in their power to discredit and dismiss Essiac-and yet Essiac just would not disappear and die. Cancer patients continued to speak out in its support. Some physicians who had worked with it were willing to risk censure to push for more research. That's been the story of Essiac for more than sixty years now, ever since those eight physicians signed that first petition to the Canadian government in the 1920s. Rene Caisse could never have dreamed when those first doctors showed up at her front door to arrest her, and then refused to do it after they heard what she had to say, that she had just experienced the perfect metaphor for the next sixty years of Essiac. And so the battle continues. In my case, I had never even heard of Essiac until 1985. When I did first hear of it, I certainly wasn't looking to commit my life to an uphill struggle, any more than Rene Caisse was when she casually asked that woman what had happened to her breast. In 1985, I was devoting all my attention to my thriving chiropractic practice in Los Angeles, where I treat a large roster of patients who include some of the most successful professional athletes in the world. Among my patients are track stars, worldclass weight lifters, both men and women, and members of NFL teams. Previously I had spent five years developing a new technique that offers my patients important benefits in the healing of injured muscles and the relief of pain. I was contracted, for instance, by the Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the largest orthopedic hospitals in southern America, to instruct them in how to implement that technique into the programs of their pain control unit. I was-and am-proud of that work, and happy to be helping people to heal themselves. I feel that I am a success in my chosen career, respected in my field, with a long list of present and former patients who will vouch for my integrity and sincerity in anything I undertake. One day in 1985 a friend of mine introduced me to a woman who was striking in how private she was about herself. My memories of this woman are fresh. Certain phrases and words remain indelibly with me, along with her tones and expressions. She gave the impression of great fragility. Small and raw-boned, she had obviously lost weight. Her appearance was one of delicate survival, a balance between life and disappearance from life. As we got to know each other and she came to trust me and respond to my curiosity, she began to tell me the story of Rene Caisse and Essiac. She had met Rene many years earlier when she had gone to Rene for treatment of her cancer. She had been in remission ever since. She regarded it as a miracle. She and Rene had become close friends. She told me of the life and death struggles Rene had lived through for so long. She talked easily and willingly of Rene Caisse, but of the formula for Essiac, she spoke sparingly and with difficulty. Always, a silent dialog within her seemed to be in progress. Eventually she admitted to me that Rene had left her a copy of the formula. As gently as possible I began trying to persuade her to trust me with it. Rene had freely given it to this woman, who had guarded it with complete inflexibility for years, and now here was someone else, once again, asking that the formula for Essiac be released. I realized that for this woman to pass on the formula was an ultimate act of trust, and also her acknowledgment that she had, in some way, finally made her choice and passed on her role in what would happen to Essiac. It was an agonizing time for all concerned as doubts, suspicions and fears came and went and came again. Our conversations, interrupted by days or weeks of withdrawal and silence by this woman, stretched over almost a year. It was a humbling experience. I learned patience. I learned how to wait. The break came during one of those difficult periods of hiatus. This was the third or fourth time I had been put on hold, and I was braced for the worst. But when the break came, there was no ceremony. Merely an indistinct message on the tape of my answering machine saying: "Come now " I flew to the city where she lives, then anxiously waited in my hotel room for several hours. I had a contract drawn up that defined our responsibilities to each other, and to Rene and her formula, in great detail. But none of that turned out to be wanted or necessary. When I arrived at her home, there was a soft silence for some time. She stirred in her chair and said, "Well, all in God's good time." Then another long silence. Then her eyes, normally a faded blue, were burning. She said, "Gary, there are things better learned by you only when they happen to you." And she handed me a sheet of paper with a list of herbs, typed out, and the instructions for brewing the tea. She didn't feel like visiting, so I rose and left and returned to Los Angeles, with a formula and my belief that what this woman had told me was true. But I had no proof. The first thing I did was brew a batch of Essiac for myself. This woman had told me that its preventive powers were awesome; that Rene had drunk the tea every day of her life. And sure enough, within two days I felt fitter than I had felt before. I had been suffering from chronic bronchitis. The bronchitis disappeared. I have been taking the Essiac ever since. It has done me nothing but good. But that still wouldn't be proof to anyone else. To begin finding that proof, I had only one solid lead: the name of Rene's closest friend, a woman who lived and worked alongside Rene off and on for many years, ever since Rene had cured this woman's mother of cancer in the 1930s. Rene's friend's name was Mary McPherson and she was a native of northern Ontario. That was all I knew I finally tracked down her phone number, and when I did it was in-why was I surprised? -Bracebridge. I called and told her about my conversations with Rene's other friend-though not that I had the formula-and asked if I could meet with Mary in Bracebridge. I could tell that she was suspicious, wary of this stranger, but she agreed to see me. I flew to Toronto and drove the 170 kilometers to Bracebridge in a blizzard. The snow was so thick and heavy that I could barely see the road in front of me. I don't recall seeing another vehicle for the whole journey. As I pulled into Bracebridge for the first time, it was hard to believe that this little country town, surrounded by wooded hills and carpeted in snow, had been the center of such controversy for so many decades. Built near the banks of the Muskoka River, it's a lovely town, clean and well-tended, with rows of victorian houses and big front yards. The population is about 9, 300-with thousands more who visit in the summer to enjoy the area s water sports and outdoors life. The rustic buildings on the main street are occupied with shops and stores. There is one movie theater that shows the latest releases. Bracebridge has the appearance of a solid community that is thriving economically. I drove down Dominion Street, and there was the red brick building, the old British Lion Hotel, where sick people could line up for treatment only if they had a written statement from a doctor stating that they were sure to die-and so were now free to do as they wished. I knew that here in this town were Rene's records, in Mary's care, long secured in boxes and waiting for someone to come for them once more. I knew that Rene had kept every piece of paper-the diagnoses from doctors, correspondence with SloanKettering, with Premier Hepburn, with her thousands of patients, all the newspaper clippings, the parliamentary testimony. Everything. There were said to be records of everyone she had treated, written in copperplate scrawls on yellowed paper. I desperately wanted to see it all. I was consumed with the idea that I wanted the whole truth from Mary. I had to "know it all." At the beginning of our first meeting on that bright, crisp, snowy morning, Mary seemed disillusioned and cynical. She had the same guarded manner I had encountered with Rene's other friend. If I had known then what hell Rene and they had lived through for most of their lives, I would have expected her to turn me away at the door. Mary later told me that there had been so many doctors, lawyers and corporations pursuing the formula that she couldn't take much more of the pressure. She said that she had made a promise to Rene-when Rene was on her death bed-that she would never reveal the formula to anyone, and she said she would never break that promise. I think that was probably Mary's polite way of saying that if getting the formula was what I had in mind, I might as well forget it, just pack up and go home and leave her alone. I promised her that I would not ask her to give me the formula, and she seemed to relax a little. As we talked she told me her own story: At different times in the twenty years or so after Rene cured Mary's mother of cancer, Mary and her husband Cliff had each had cancer, and Rene had cured them both with Essiac. With what she'd seen, there was absolutely no doubt in Mary's mind about the value of Essiac. After Mary became Rene's best friend, she watched Rene go through the hell of threatened arrests, promises of millions of dollars, even death threats from desperate people she had to turn away for lack of proper documentation-and all because Rene wanted to cure a deadly disease and not charge for doing it. We talked for eight hours. I think Mary could see how sincere my interest was. As she reminisced about Rene, she seemed to enjoy herself. Her spirits picked up. "She saw it all," Mary said. "She even had quite a joke with the jailer right across the street from the clinic. Because she was so big, he used to say, `Don't worry, Rene, I'll reenforce the floor. I know you're going to be with me one of these days." Once when some official showed up with a warrant to arrest her, Rene went and put her coat on, then asked him what the charge was. He told her it was giving unauthorized medicine for cancer. "Rene said, `Well, if it's an offense in our great land of Canada to save lives, then I guess I'm guilty and I'm ready to go: And the official tore up the warrant and left. They never did arrest her." The years of the clinic were Rene's happiest years, Mary said. "She was a happy person when she had the clinic. She helped a lot of people and that was always her aim in life: to help people. A lot of our local doctors thought the world of her. They'd drive their own patients in their own cars to be treated by Rene. Dr. Bastedo drove his patients to the clinic. But he got too loud about it, I guess, and the medical association stepped on him. They told him he couldn't do that any more. What was the man to do, eh? That was his life. So he stopped." Mary told me a story about Rene when she was a young nurse that sort of summed it all up for me. "She was attending an expectant mother who was going to give birth in her home. The doctors came and made their examination and left. They said they'd be back at a certain time. This was before most people had telephones. They left Rene in charge and before they came back, the mother's labor quickened. Rene saw that the baby was in the wrong position. The baby had to be turned to save the mother's life. So Rene did it. "Mother and child were resting comfortably when the doctors returned. The doctors were horrified at what she'd done. One of them said, `Don't you know you could have been sued if things had not turned out well?' Rene said, `Yes, but if I hadn't done anything, the girl would have died. Then what?' That's just the way Rene was all her life. She used to laugh about that story and say that everything had a funny side. She said the expressions on those doctors faces were priceless." That night I took Mary to dinner, and I will never forget the look on her face when I recited to her the list of herbs that make up Essiac. She was shocked. Her eyes went the size of silver dollars. For a moment I thought she was going to be outraged. "How did you get that?" she snapped at me. But then she collected herself and sighed, a deep sigh, as if she were relieved, glad that someone she trusted finally had it without her breaking any promises. Later that evening she opened up completely, smiled a lot, confirmed the accuracy of the formula, and finally she said: "I don't know why I'm going to do this, but I trust you and I'm going to let you have the documents that no one has seen since Rene gave them to me." Mary was as good as her word. Over the next few months, I made two more trips to Bracebridge, becoming closer to Mary each time, hearing more of the story, and returning with large suitcases filled with papers.
It took me two weeks just to read all those papers. By the time I was
finished reading, I knew I had more research to do, but I was convinced
beyond a reasonable doubt that Essiac was effective-at the very least for
its pain relief qualities-as a treatment for cancer. I was certain that my
initial faith was backed up with cold, hard fact. Reading those papers the
first time was, for instance, how I learned of Rene's work with Dr.
Charles Brusch. Introduction I 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 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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