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From: Posted for Dr. Gary L. Glum 1 310-271-9931 Subject: Essiac: a natural herbal alternative cancer treatment Message-ID: <C5A227.G6u@eskimo.com> Date: 10 Apr 93 17:03:41 GMT Organization: -> ESKIMO NORTH (206) For-Ever <- Lines: 983

Poster of this article is doing so as a favor, and is not responsible for it's content and is held harmless for any information in this article (posting). --- * --- This file containes four sections: 1. An Introduction to the book Calling of An Angel by Dr. Gary L. Glum. 2. The Essiac Formula. 3. Address and phone number for more information. 4. An interview with Dr. Glum from "Wildfire" Magazine. --- * --- Section 1. Introduction chapter to a book called ____"Calling of An Angel"____ "The true story of Rene Caisse and an indian herbal medicine called ESSIAC-Nature's cure for cancer." (isbn# 0-9620364-0-4) By Dr. Gary L. Glum. Published by Silent Walker Publishing, Los Angeles (c) Copyright 1988, all rights reserved. Permission to copy, transmit, and share the _introduction_chapter_ has been granted by the author. Dr. Glum can be reached by telephone at 310-271-9931 For further information.

Introduction (to book):

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 herbal formula. She called it Essiac - Cassie spelled backwards - and she brewed the tea herself, alone in the kitchen. Her patients swore by her. They were devoted. Men and women who believed she cured them of cancer told their friends and families, wrote letters to doctors and politicians, swore affidavits, testified before the Canadian parliement and pleaded with Rene Caisse to supply them with more Essiac when they needed it. Some 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 the village of Bracebridge, about 170 kilometers 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 her stories. I'm convinced that Essiac works. It has potent - and preventive - power. It is a gift from nature. I've seen a small part of the evidence with my one eyes, and I've experienced Essiac's power as a healthful tonic in my own life. I suffered from chronic bronchitis until a few years ago when I first heard of Essiac and tried it myself. Within a few days my cough disappeared and it hasn't returned. I still drink the Essiac. It tastes like what it is, an herbal tea. About as plain and mild as any of the other herbal teas from around the world you can buy at any supermarket. I've never felt better. All though Canada and in parts of the United States today there are people of all ages who are absolutely convinced that Essiac saved their lives or the lives of friends and loved ones. But you can't buy it in any supermarket. Claims have been made - since about 1925, in fact - that Essiac is an effective treatment for cancer. So the governments of North America have classified it as a "drug." The Canadian government almost legalized its use by Rene in 1939, and has gone through fits and starts ever since in deciding how to handle the situation. The policy has ranged from threatening to arrest Rene if she didn't close her clinic to promising her publicly - on the record, in the press - that she wouldn't be arrested if she would agree to keep her clinic open, thus quieting the public clamor that arose after the government threatened to shut her down. In the last decade, the Canadian government has classified Essiac as an "experimental drug," and then an "experimental drug that failed to show promise", and today - as Dr. Hendrick's letter shows - the internal battles are still going on in Canada over the future of Essiac. In the U.S., A 1978 class action suit in federal court in Detroit seeking to authorize the importation of Essiac for cancer treatment was defeated by the government. Other than that, the U.S. government hasn't faced that much pressure about Essiac. There are probably high level officials in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration - and the National Cancer Institute - who make life and death decisions about cancer drugs who could honestly say they've never heard of Essiac. I hope they'll take the time to read this book. I don't claim that Essiac is a miraculous panacea, capable of curing all cancers in all people, nor do I believe that. Rene Caisse didn't even believe that. She didn't claim Essiac as a "cure for cancer." Her former patients were the ones who put forward that claim, strenuously and over many decades. What Rene maintained was that Essiac caused regression in some cancerous tumors, the total destruction of others, prolonged life in most cases and - in virtually every case - significantly diminished the pain and suffering of cancer patients. If the testimonials of Rene's former patients, including those sworn under oath, have any credibility at all - and when I present then, I think you'll agree they do - then Essiac's powers as a pain reliever in cancer patients are nothing short of phenomenal. In sixty years of personal accounts, the easing of agony and an increased sense of well-being - often to the point of getting through the day without narcotics - is one of the predominant themes. You hear it over and over again, and always told with a deep sense of gratitude. Rene fought almost her whole adult life against overwhelming odds and under incredible pressures, some of them self-imposed, to establish those simple facts as accepted wisdom. She never gave up her fight. But for one woman many years ago to persuade the medical and legal institutions of North America that a natural treatment for cancer - based on herbs that grow wild - might make more sense than the accepted means of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy...she might as well have been telling them in an earlier century that the earth is round. Remember: Rene was fighting cancer with a natural treatment in an era when the conventional wisdom of the medical establishment denied even that diet might be a factor in causing cancer. It's hard to believe, knowing what we know now - and what has become conventional wisdom - but for generations those doctors who preached dietary causes of cancer were dismissed by most physicians as quacks. So was the medical establishment to make of this woman - who wasn't even a licensed doctor - who preached that a cancer treatment was to be found in plants that grow in the wild? My goal in this book is simple: I want to tell people the story of this ordinary woman's extraordinary life and share the knowledge of Essiac so that people can make their own informed decisions about what its future should be. I don't pretend to have all the answers about how Essiac works, or the final scientific proof that it dose. There are large gaps, as I'll explain, in my own knowledge of this story. Much of it remains a mystery to me, raising deeply intriguing questions which I would love to see answered. But I do know that there is already enough evidence that Essiac has benefited cancer patients in the last 60 years to warrant those controlled clinical studies that some physicians - such as Dr. Hendrick - have advocated for decades. The risk to the public would certianly appear to be minimal. There seems to be universal agreement among the doctors and scientists who have done investigations of Essiac - and the patients who have used it - that Essiac is non-toxic and without harmful side effects. Rene Caisse drank it every day for half a century and some of her family and close friends always made sure they had had their daily cup. Not even Rene Caisse'e worst enemies ever put forward the argument that people were hurt by drinking the tea. This non-toxic nature of Essiac is an important consideration in making it a treatment worthy of serious investigation. Many of the conventional accepted chemotherapy drug actually come with toxic warning labels. One of the commonly administered cancer drugs is the chemical Fluorouracil(5FU). Note this warning on the manufacturer's brochure: "Precautions: Florouracil is a highly toxic drug with a narrow margin of safety. Therefore, patients should be carefully supervised since therapeutic response is unlikely to occur without some evidence of toxicity....Severe hematological toxicity, gastrointestinal hemorrhage and even death may result from the Fluorouracil despite meticulous selection of patients and careful adjustment of dosage." As if that weren't bad enough, the officially accepted "experimental drugs," on which the government and the drug companies lavish huge sums of developmental funds, can be even worse. According to a 1981 Washington Post story, a major American drug company spent significant amounts of money and years of research on a weed from India they hoped would have a beneficial effect on certian forms of leukemia - even though it was known in advance that the weed caused severe liver damage in livestock. And sure enough, when the weed was synthesized into a chemical and given to cancer patients, there were reports that it was helping some people - and killing others. But there was nothing unusual in that. "We knew from the beginning that this caused toxicity in animals," the Post quoted a U.S. Food and Drug Administration official as saying "Almost all investigational cancer drugs as highly toxic." As you read this story and wonder - as I did many, many times while I was researching it - if an herbal compound developed by one one woman could possibly - even possibly - be safer and more effective than the best of what medical science is already bringing us, please keep this quote in mind from that 1981 series of Washington Post articles: "Over the last decade, more than 150 experimental drugs have been given to tens of thousands of cancer patients under the sponsorship of the U.S. Federal Government's National Cancer Institute. Many of these drugs have come from a list of highly toxic industrial chemicals, including pesticides, herbicides and dyes.... those who take them, the experimental drugs - along with leading to hundreds of deaths - have elicited a nightmarish list of serious adverse reactions. including kidney failure, liver failure, heart failure, respiratory distress, destruction of bone marrow so the body can no longer make blood, brain damage, paralysis, seizure, coma and visual hallucinations. "So little is known about many if these chemicals that doctors have found these ironic results: In some cases the experimental drug actually stimulated tumor growth rather than stopped the cancer - and in other tests, doctors and researchers found that the exprimental drug itself caused cancer." Rene Caisse wouldn't have been surprised to read that. Her own feelings about the use of these toxic drugs, after a lifetime spent fighting cancer, were blunt and nasty: "Chemotherapy should be a criminal offense," she told one reporter. Though the medical establishment has not recognized Rene Caisse's herbal treatment for cancer as legitimate, there is more than ample precedent for the approach she was taking. According to a 1987 NOVA documentary on "The Hidden Power Of Plants." aired in the Public Broadcasting System: "Indeed, the history of medicine has been largely the story of plants and the potent chemicals they produce. Around the world, traditional healers, using plant medications, provide health care to eighty percent of the human population - over four billion people." Since the 1950's doctors have been using an alkaloid called vincristine - which comes from a evergreen plant known as the periwinkle - in the treatment of childhood leukemia and other cancers. Digitalis, which comes from the leaves of the foxglove plant, is an important heart medication. According to the NOVA documentary, "Over 25 percent of the drugs in the U.S. still contain plant materials as their principal active ingredients." Throughout history there are countless examples of people discovering the healing properties of nature before science could understand them - or even believe that they existed. South American Indians treated fevers, especially malarial fevers, with an herbal tea made from cinchona bark. Scientists eventually discovered that cinchona bark is nature'a source of quinine. Science didn't discover that vitamin C prevented scurvy. English sailors discovered that without even knowing it. All they knew was that that they'd better take some cirtus fruits - lemons, limes - along with them on long ocean voyages. That's why the English came to be called "limeys." Science didn't even discover vitamin C until 1932. For centuries American Indians treated various aches and pains with an herbal tea made from white willow bark. It must have seemed terribly primitive to the doctors who first heard of it. They were trusting their science the Indians were trusting nature. But eventually science caught up. Today, synthesized and refined white willow bark is the basis for what we might call aspirin. Always, in all cultures, there was what might be called "living proof" of the medicinal value of plants long before there was scientific proof - and acceptance. Living proof, of course, is not acceptable to the scientific community. Not even the testimony of ordinary individuals sworn to oath, meets the rigorous standards of scientific proof. But no matter what happens in the scientific world, living proof will be what passes from person to person and prevents Essiac from dying out altogether in the modern world. Rene Caisse's files are filled with letters from people all over North America testifying to life-saving experiences with Essiac. Almost 400 people showed up at the Canadian Cancer Commission hearings in 1939 prepared to be sworn to oath and state that Essiac saved their lives. Today, all over Canada and in parts of the U.S., there are thousands of people who may not know the first thing about scientific proof, but who may not know that Essiac benefited or even saved them or someone else they love. For science to deny that there is a cause and effect relationship between Essiac and the relief of pain and the regression of cancerous tumors is almost like saying, well, we can see all those great huge billowing clouds of smoke, but we haven't been able to determine with cartainy that there is a fire. While most Americans have never heard of Essiac, the controversy it inspires has raged in Canada since the 1920's, every few years in the public glare of the press, and frequently involving the highest medical, legal, and political circles in Canada. But always that controversy centered on this one woman who lived, most of the time, in the tiny village of Bracebridge, Ontario, Population 9,000 or so. Rene Cassie was an unlikely figure. She was a skilled nurse who didn't crave attention or money. " never had $100.00 I could call my own," she use to laugh with her friends. She didn't charge a fee for her services. She accepted only voluntary contributions - in the form of fruits, vegetables, or eggs, as often as not - from those who could afford to offer them, and she didn't turn away people who couldn't make any payment at all. One man, Ted Hale, was so grateful watching his wife recover from cancer using Essiac that he slipped a $50 bill under a book on a shelf when he came to pick up another bottle from Rene. The next time he arrived at her front door , he says, she grabbed him by the shirt collar, pulled him inside and gave him a piece of her mind. How dare he leave her that much money? She didn't like it one bit. He apologized and asked her if she would accept it as his way of donating for the next people who needed her Essiac and couldn't afford to leave anything at all. She Finally relented on those grounds and kept the money, but Ted Hale still laughs at his own embarrassment when he tells the story ten years later. Rene Cassie lived her own life in modest circumstances while rejecting offers of vast sums of money to reveal her formula. She refused to reveal her formula to people who wanted to help her; she refused to reveal her formula to powerful institutions that demanded it before they would consider legitimizing Essiac. What Rene Cassie wanted was to heal the ill and guarantee the legalization of Essiac for all, yet her intransigent refusal to budge from secrecy about the formula cost her - and us - dearly. She refused to reveal the formula to the Canadian government, the Memorial Sloan-Kittering Center Cancer Center in New York - the world's largest private cancer research center - and the National Cancer Institiute, just to name some of the institutions that wanted the formula at one time or another. She wouldn't give them the formula untill they would admit that Essiac had merit as a treatment for cancer. They refused to admit ant merit until she gave them the formula. There were legitimate arguments made on both sides. Rene was fearful that the medical establishment would either exploit Essiac, charging exorbitant prices to make a fortune and placing it beyond the means of the poor, or discredit it and bury it. The doctors and politicians argued that they couldn't very well accept the legitimacy of a cancer treatment if they didn't even know what was in it. The result was a tragic standoff. We have lost tragic decades of precious research. With hindsight, it can be argued that Rene Cassie should have given the formula to anyone, anywhere, at any time, who wanted to have it for any reason, on the grounds that the more people who have it, the better chance that the truth will come out. That certainly will be the position taken in this book. I am going to release to the public, for the first time, the formula and the procedure for preparing Essiac. I will explain in detail at the end of this book how I will do that, and how anyone who wants that information may have it. I believe that information should be be in the hands of the public. People should have the right to make their own decisions about whether or not they will drink the Essiac tea. People can make it themselves, if they wish, just the way Rene did. The herbs are available for less then $50 from any major herbal distributor in America. There is no mystery about the preparation. It must be done carefully and accurately - as I will explain - but it finally comes down to: Put in so much of this herb, so much of that herb, brew it and drink the tea. The herbs themselves grow in many regions. Rene use to say that enough of the herbs grow in Ontario to supply the whole world. But in revealing the formula, I share one of Rene's deep fears that played an important role in her refusal to release the formula until after the governing bodies of medicine and law would admit that it had merit: Namely, that once the herbs are publicly identified, these inexpensive and widely available plants will be placed on the federal "controlled substances" roster - like some dangerous drug - and suddenly become very difficult - and illegal - to acquire. But there's nothing I can do about that. as always, those decisions are up to the governments. But my decision is to tell the story of how I came into possession of the formula, place it before the public and let the people make up their own minds about what they want to do with it. At least once the formula is in the public domain, the old argument that was used for so long against Rene - we can't do proper scientific studies until we know the formula - will no longer have any validity at all. Sloan-Kettering, for instance, was telling Rene Cassie at least as late as 1975 that they would perform more clinical studies on Essiac, if only they had the formula. Well, now they'll have it. And so will anyone who wants it. Rene Cassie was a sweet woman who gave her best and saw the worst. She was surrounded most of her life with pane and suffering of others. She lived under siege much of the time, with a legion of supporters who saw her as a saint and powerful enemies who wanted her arrested for practicing medicine without a license. She became so fearful and paranoid about arrest that she sometimes had to turn away dying people who were pleading with her to help them. But more often, she found ways to help the people that came to her, even total strangers who had nothing to offer her. She said once about her situation: "I was always just one jump ahead of a policeman. We were right across the street from the town jail and the keeper use to joke that he was saving a cell for me." The blessing of Essiac brought a curse for Rene Cassie: Her life was never her own.

---- end pt1. pt 2 follows, Press Space to Continue

ESSIAC ^^^^^^ o Supplies Needed ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 4 or 5 gallon stainless steel pot 2 gallon stainless steel pot, with lid Stainless steel fine-mesh double strainer Stainless steel funnel Stainless steel spatula 12 or more 16 ounce amber glass bottles with air tight caps (not childproof caps) 2 gallons of sodium-free distilled water

o Essiac Formula ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 6 1/2 cups burdock root - cut ( Arctium Lappa ) 16 oz. sheep sorrel herb - powdered ( Rumex Acetosella ) 1 oz. turkey rhubarb root - powdered ( Rheum Palmatum ) 4 oz. Slippery elm bark - powdered ( Ulmus Fulva )

o Preparation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Mix Essiac formula thoroughly. 2. Bring sodium-free distilled water to a rolling boil in a 5-gallon pot with lid on. (Approximately 30 minutes at sea level.) 3. Stir in 1 cup of Essiac formula. Replace lid and continue boiling for 10 minutes. 4. Turn off stove. Scrape down sides of pot with spatula and stir mixture thoroughly. Replace lid. 5. Allow pot to remain closed for 12 hours; then turn stove to full heat for 20 minutes. 6. Turn off stove. Strain liquid into 3-gallon pot, and clean 5-gallon pot and strainer. Then Strain filtered liquid back into 5-gallon pot. 7. Use funnel to pour hot liquid into bottles immediately, taking care to tighten caps. Allow bottles to cool; then tighten the caps again. 8. Refrigerate. Essiac contains no preservative agents. If mold should develop in the bottle, discard immediately.

CAUTION: All bottles and caps must be sterilized after use if you plan to re-use them for Essiac. Bottle caps must be washed and rinsed thoroughly, and may be cleaned with a 3% solution of food grade hydrogen peroxide in water.

o Directions for use ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Heat four tablespoons [ 2 oz. ] sodium-free distilled water in a stainless steel pot. Add 4 tablespoons of Essiac ( shake bottle first). Mix and drink. Take at bedtime on an empty stomach, at least 2 hours after eating.

---- Pt. 3.

Questions regarding recipe and dosage, information on how to obtain a good source of herbs, to purchase the whole book. or other questions, please contact the author directly. Dr. Gary L. Glum c/o Silent Walker Publishing P.O. Box 92856 Los Angeles, California 90009 Phone 310-271-9931

---- end pt. 2 and 3 - pt. 4 next, Press Space to Continue

This article is from __"Wildfire__Magazine"__ which is published by The Bear Tribe Medicine Society, P.O. Box 9167, Spokane, Washington 99209. Phone 509-233-2042. Reprinted by verbal permission of the publisher. Please call them for a copy of their magazine and information about their other programs.

\\** Essiac: Nature's Cure For Cancer. ** ** An Interview With Dr. Gary L. Glum, ** ** By Elisabeth Robinson. ** ** Wildfire Magazine **\\

Notes In 1988 Dr. Glum Published __"Calling_of_an_Angel"__, the story of Rene Caisse and Essiac. Two years ago he closed his practice and now devotes his time to investigative writing.

Introduction. Rene Caisse was a nurse living in Canada who for a period of almost sixty years treated hundreds of people with a 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 a herbal remedy given her by an Ojibway herbalist. Rene left the hoispital 1922 at age 33, and went to Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada where she began administering Essiac to all 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 they had been given up by the medical profession as untreatable. Rene began gathering the plants and preparing the herbal remedy herself in her own kitchen, in a building lent to her from her parents. She administered Essiac both orally and by injection. In cases where there were there was severe damage to life support organs, her patients died - but they lived longer than the medical profession had predicted, and, more significantly, they lived free of pain. Still others, listed as hopeless and terminal, but without severe damage to life support organs,were cured and lived 35-45 years (many are still living). So startling was the effectiveness of this simple herbal remedy, it could not be ignored, and the Canadian Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Parliament became involved, former friends, and greatful families petitioned Canadian officialdom for Rene's right to administer the remedy to anyone who asked for it without the threat of interference from authorities. Fifty-five thousand signatures were collected on the petition. In 1938, Essiac came within three votes of being legalized by the Ontario government as a remedy for terminal cancer patients. 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 his book through Canadian sources, one a herbalist who knows of Rene Caisse and her work and who has personally made and successfully used Essiac. As I completed conservation 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 by 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 dose open the box, famine, war, plague, disease, pestilence - all the ills of humankind - are released. Then at the last comes hope, as 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 gift 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.

Interview with Dr. Glum. 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 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 ten days to live. She convinced her husband to make a trip to Bridge, Canada where she went to see Rene Caisse. She was treated with a 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 a patient. Mary's mother and her husband 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 last 40 years Rene had 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. ------------------- " Essiac is a non-toxic herbal cure for cancer that's been with us since 1922." ------------------- ER: Why? GG: Because they don't want this information in the hands of the public of the press or any body else. The indeed found out what Essiac was in 1937. The Royal Cancer Commission hearings had then come to the same conclusions that Rene had - that Essiac was a cure for cancer.

ER: What is Essiac exactly? GG: Essiac is a non-toxic herbal cure for cancer that's been here with us since 1922. It's a formula made from very common herbs.

RE: 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? GG: The information is withheld because cancer id the largest revenue producing business in the world, next to the petrochemical business. Money and power suppress this truth. No one has ever sought to cure cancer - only to 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, the Canadian Cancer Society, any of these so-called benefactors to those who have contracted this disease - all of these institutions are involved in the money and power around cancer. These institutions have influence over government and These institutions have influence over the government and regulatory agencies over government such as the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA recommends only allopathic treatment for cancer and other life threatening disease. It dose not approve or make legal alternative treatments of any kind.

ER: You're saying that Essiac is in a position similar to, for example, laetril. GG: Yes, the only reason laetril was stopped - and it couldn't be stopped be stopped any other way - was through the insurance companies. The insurance companies sent down a directive to all allopathic physicians stating that they could not cover them in any malpractice suit in the event they were treating people with any substance not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

ER: In your book you mention that the Brusch Clinic in Massachusetts worked with Rene Caisse and with Essiac, during the early 1960's. 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 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 has come to the conclusion that, in his own words, "Essiac is a cure for cancer, period. All studies done at 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 has his amputated. He was being treated at that time by the Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Farber didn't know how to save him, because no one ever lived with this kind 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 general public.

ER: Why? GG: As I said, money and power.

ER: Do you know whether the remedy is being used or tested anywhere in the U.S. or Canada? GG: Right now Essiac is being used in every state in the United States, it's throughout Canada, into Mexico, it's in Australia, Europe, Asia, and recently, also in Africa. So the message of Essiac is beginning to make its way world wide. But it's still known only on a very limited basis. Of course you also have the problem of herbal companies distributing throughout the world that are substituting yellow dock and curly dock for sheep's sorrel, which is one of the critical ingredients in Essiac. The sheep's sorrel is the herbal ingredient in Essiac that was found to be responsible for the destruction of cancer sells in the body, or their amalgamation where metastasized cancer cells actually return to the original tumor site. That research was done by Dr. Chester Stock 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 & Welfare. The Canadian government then immediately banned that herb for sale and distribution.

ER: Banned A weed like Sheep's sorrel? GG: Yes, sheep's sorrel is just a common weed that grows in abundance throughout North America and into Canada. 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 that banning sheep's sorrel would not be very effective if you could identify it for yourself. GG: Yes, it's just a question of identifying the plant and then harvesting it correctly and drying it properly and then putting it together with the other herbs. Rene would harvest the sheep's sorrel - Rumex acetosella - when it was four to six inches high. She would cut it back and it would grow up again, and she'd cut it back again. She would do this about three times and then let it go to seed. It will grow 14 or 18 inches. She would take the herb cuttings and lay them out at room temperature to dry them. She'd let them 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.

ER: Do you have the formula? it's not in your book. You do mention a video in the book. GG: Yes, I have it. Anyone can get it from me free of charge. We don't sell the video anymore. We simply mail the formula to anyone who asks for it.

ER: Sun Bear told me you had problems getting the book published and distributed. What kind of problems? GG: There wasn't a publishing company that would publish it. No one wanted to run the risk of a wrongful death suit. So I published the book myself. And as soon as I did, the IRS came in and slapped about a half a million dollars in tax liens against me and said, "You know this has nothing to do with taxes. It's all about cancer." They actually started hauling the pallets of books out of my medical practice and confiscating them. I also had thousands of books that were confiscated the Canadian government at customs. I have never received any of those books back. The only ones that I have now are hidden in storage facilities.

ER: That's incredible - why do you think they are so interested in keeping this book out of circulation? 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 & Health Welfare because they say it is "advertising."

ER: Advertising what? The video that you don't sell any more? GG: No, A cure for cancer.

ER: Can you explain what you mean by the publishers' fearing a wrongful death suit? GG: What you're dealing with is giving the people a formula that they can make in the privacy of their own homes without the approval of the AMA or the FDA or anybody else. If any attorney or family member should decide, for whatever reason, that the reason someone else 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 are 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 with Essiac. Many she treated were still there to bury her when she died at she 90. The best that anyone can do is just try to disseminate this 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 make this remedy and 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 generated over fifty-thousand signatures on a petition to allow Rene to continue to use Essiac. The only reason the vote fell short, she found out later, was that the College of Physicians and Surgeons met and said to 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 people's access to Essiac treatments. I know this because I have a copy of the hearing transcripts which I got from Mary McPherson, which is the source of some of the Information that did not get burned when Rene died.

ER: You mentioned that earlier. What exactly was burned? GG: All of her research for that 40-year period of time. All the names, all her clinical data that she had collected. Her files and records.

ER: What about the records of the Brusch Clinic? It seems these would be convincing evidence. 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 whereuopn he delivered to me the only material 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 a 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 lymphpblastic, which is one of the most virulent of all leukemias. He had been on chemotherapy for four years and radiation for three. His mother's only home in life was to find a cure for him. She went every where. She tried every alternative treatment. Her last stop was Dr. Alvazados in Athens, Greece, where her son's white cell count was 186,000. He had few red blood cells and no platelets. He was hemorrhaging to death. So they transfused Toby in Greece and put him on a plane to Alaska where he was given less than 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 was given three days to live. He was in a state of complete deterioation. He was given the Essiac and all the hemorrhaging stopped within 24 hours. Within three months all of his blood tests were normal. I arrived in Alaska later that year and met with 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 any more. We wanted to find out what was 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 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 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 a Publisher's Weekly magazine in a huge two-page ad. We received no responses from any publishing company worldwide, no producers, 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 what he was going to do about. He said nothing. I said, all the information in the book is verifiable. In other words, 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's 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 65,00 phone calls. We said, how sympathetic do you think a parent whose child is dying of 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 towards 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 the 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 ones 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 of 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 the research activities that they so desperately wanted to put together. But Rene had already done clinical trials. She had names and records. she thought the Resperin Coporation was politically powerful and had money enough to get Essiac in to the public sector without compromising her values. Then she found out the Corporation was working closely with the government and administration and the Ministry of Health & Welfare. So now people who were terminally ill and given up as hopeless had to go through a federal bereaucratic maze to get the remedy. By then it was too late. But even when people were cured, that information was not released to the public. Resperin ran research tests in Essiac. One test was conducted 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 being part of the experimental program. Yet he was listed as dead in the research project findings.

ER: It's beginning to sound 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 Essiac is known is by word of mouth and because Essiac is what it is. What will keep Essiac known is its effectiveness. Rene said it years ago. She said, look, if Essiac dosen't have any merit let me put it out there. If it dosen't have merit, it will kill itself. Of course she knew full well if people has 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 preventive. These findings were substantiated by Dr. Albert Schatz at Temple University who discovered the cure for tuberulosis. Rene also found that Essiac would normalize the thyriod gland. My wife was on two grains of thyriod since the sixth grade. After I met her, she started taking Essiac, and she hasn't taken a thyroid since. Rene also found that Essiac would heal stomach ulcers within three or four weeks. She felt that ulcers were a precursor to cancer. Sir Fredrick Banting, the co-discoverer if insulin, wanted to work with Rene. She has clinical cases where a person on insulin discontinued it with the essiac, since no one knew how Essiac would interact with the insulin. Apparently Essiac regulated the pancreas in cases of diabetes mellitus. So these people then became insulin-free. Another thing I've found with Essiac is that I've experienced almost perfect health. As you get older you think, 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 flu. I also worked with the AIDS Project in Los Angeles through their Long Beach and San Pedro districts. They sent 179 patients home to die. They all had pneumocystis carinii and histoplasmosis. Their weight was down to about 100 pounds. Their T-4 cell counts were less then ten. The Project gave me five of these patients. I took them off the AZT and the DDI and put them on Essiac three times a day. Those are the only ones alive today. The other 174 are dead.

ER: That is incredible - but what kind of lives are they leading today? 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 that they were sick. But this information is not being disseminated either, because AIDS is on the horizon as another big money maker. The chairman of the AIDS Project makes over $100,000.00 a year. Even the alternative health care professionals are out there to control, not to cure. Alternative medical practice is just as mercenary and deceptive as the allopathic. No one wants a cure for cancer or AIDS. ----------------------- Nationwide in the water we drink over 2,100 organic and inorganic chemicals have been identified, and 156 of them are pure carcinogens. ------------------------------------- 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 alternative health care. So 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 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 - I'm going to just quote you here and say "cure" - cancer, thyroid conditions, diabetes, AIDS, ulcers... GG: It also cures the common cold. Essiac elevates the immune system. I've been taking an ounce a day for seven years, and in seven years I haven't had a cold, flu, or virus.

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 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 in this country, more available here. Herbals from foreign countries are fumigated and irradiated, so is it a good idea to use the Turkish rhubarb? GG: You can subsitute 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, usally. Sheep's sorrel, Rumex acetosella, is what destroys the cancer cells. The other three herbs are blood purifiers. Essiac elevates the enzyme system and gives all cancer patients and all AIDS patients the enzymes that have been destroyed. Essiac elevates the enzyme system; it elevates the hormone system, which elevates the immune system, so the body can cure its own disease.

ER: What about the quantities? Some herbal are toxic. GG: Even its worst enemy could never lay claim that Essiac had any deletrious 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 in the morning, and two around noontime. That's a high dosage. Rene had the correct herbs and she used as little as one ounce a week. But look at the difference between then and now. The food didn't have carcinogens in it, and neither did the water, nor the air. So that have we done? We've killed the air, killed the water, killed the food. So what's left? 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 D.C. 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 coarse, 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 because I have a responsibility to myself. I know that I've done all I can to disseminate this information and bring it to the people. I was the first person to release this information on Essiac, how to make it, to the general public and say, here it is, here's the formula, here's the story. So now the story is out there and look what's happening -- it's 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. GG: It's been a pleasure. You're opening a Pandora's Box, you know publishing this interview.

ER: I think you're the one who's done that. Would you tell people how to get your book and the information on Essiac? GG: They simply call me in California at 310-271-9931. The book is $35.00. The formula is free.

* * * * * * * * * In july 1991, the Canadian Journal of Herbalism published an article, "Old Ontario Remedies," about Essiac. The article gives specific information on the ingredients of Essiac and includes descriptions of the herbs. Sheep's sorrel, for example, is a folk remedy for tumors. The article also warns of high oxalic acid content in two of the herbs making the remedy unsafe for persons with kidney ailments or arthritic conditions. This article concludes: "Essiac is not a hoax or fraud. To hear experiences described by the patients themselves cannot help but convince observers that dramatic and beneficial changes definitely took place in many but not all those who received the remedy. Allthough the focus on Essiac has been as a cancer treatment. It alleviated and sometimes cured many chronic and degenerative conditions because it cleanses the blood as well as the liver and strengthens the immune system." Write: Ontario Herbalists Association, M.J. Pimentel MH, 7 Alpine Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6P-3R6 for information on obtaining a copy of the july 1991 issue, Vol xii, No iii of the Canadian Journal of Herbalism.

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