Essiac Essentials

commissioners, investigators, scientific researchers and, of course, the patients themselves.
    This chapter identifies the principal characters, examining their contribution to Essiac as we know it today. It also includes important personal testimonies about Essiac from patients, both past and present.
     
    The Principal Characters
     
    Dr. R.O. Fisher:
    He was one of the doctors in Toronto with whom Rene was working as a nurse before she began to use the herbs. He supervised her while she was treating her aunt with the tea and was instrumental in helping her to experiment with and to refine the recipe, making it more effective.
     
    Dr. J.A. McInnes:
    He was very supportive of Rene’s work and introduced her to Dr. Banting. He was a frequent visitor to the Bracebridge Clinic and occasionally helped by examining some of her patients.
     
    Dr. Benjamin Leslie Guyatt :
    He met Rene in 1936 and was responsible for getting the Chicago study underway. He was very impressed with her work and often visited the Bracebridge clinic to examine and observe the patients. Rene invited him to be an observer at the Sub-Committee hearing in Bracebridge in February 1939. He was the only medical doctor who was willing to testify on her behalf at the July hearing in Toronto.
     
    Dr. Emma Carson:
    She was a retired physician who came from California to visit the clinic in Bracebridge in the summer of 1937. Originally intending to visit for a day, she stayed for a month, keeping meticulous daily notes and became the only doctor to provide a detailed account of how Rene worked to maintain the clinic. She interviewed several hundred patients, many of whom declared themselves returned to normal health.
    “As I seriously and compassionately surveyed that extraordinary assembly of afflicted people and visually compared them with the most prominent and distinguished clinics I have ever witnessed either in this (USA) or foreign countries, I vividly realised that I had never before seen or been in any manner associated with such a remarkably cheerful and sympathetic clinic, regardless of size, location or number of persons; or attended a more peaceful, sympathetic clinic anywhere. ”
     
    Dr. Richard Leonardo:
    A coroner from Rochester, NY, who was a cancer specialist and wrote several books on the subject. He came into the Bracebridge Clinic out of curiosity while he was holidaying in Muskoka. At first he was very sceptical but after a day and a half observing the patients he was definitely impressed. Three years later he wrote a letter to the Cancer Commission refuting his earlier statements saying that he did not believe that Essiac had actually helped the patients.
     
    Jim Kennedy:
    He was a businessman from Buffalo, NY, who offered one million dollars cash to Rene in 1937, plus access to a new building for the clinic. Those patients who did not have the means would be treated there without charge. The offer was made in November 1937 followed by a personal letter to Rene from Jim Kennedy in February 1938, making the offer conditional on the Private Members Bill being passed in Parliament the following March. The Bill failed and nothing more came of the offer.
     
    Ralph Daigh:
    He was the vice-president and editorial director of Fawcett Publications in New York and was responsible for introducing Rene to Dr. Brusch.
     
    Dr Charles Brusch:
    He was a medical doctor who was treating his patients with vitamin and mineral supplements as early as the 1950s.
    Rene cooperated with him briefly from May 1959 until June 1960, working with him at The Brusch Medical Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, using Essiac in a trial involving eight human subjects and a number of mice injected with human carcinoma. The animal trials were the most immediately successful and caught the attention of the researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute in New York. When Rene refused to give them the formula because they would not guarantee her any recognition for the work she had done, they took measures to ensure that the trials would be closed down by cutting off the supply of research material and resources.
    There is no record of any further correspondence between Rene and Dr Brusch until a letter headed ‘Brusch Medical Center’ and dated September 21st 1976.
     
    “Dear Rene,
    I am sorry if seemingly I have failed to communicate with you. I say seemingly purposely because I felt quite positive I had answered all the letters I received from you.
    As