Essiac Essentials

during Sundays and weekends”, the days Rene usually treated cancer patients at her clinic.
    It was a clever move. By using Dr. Banting, the Canadian Medical Association were offering a well-known and respected name, with the promise of formal trials if she would transfer her attention from her human patients in favour of concentrating on animal experiments.
    However, ten years had elapsed since their meeting and there had been no word from him. Rene now had definite reservations about dealing with a medical hierarchy that was predominantly male. Furthermore, she had already carried out extensive animal studies with Essiac, first in her makeshift lab and later with doctors at Christie Street Hospital.
    She decided that, if Essiac were to survive, she had a better chance of keeping it within the reach of every cancer patient if she retained control over it herself, rather than turning it over to the anonimity of a big pharmaceutical company. When the time came, Rene wanted to be in a position to take an active role in the practical administration of the treatment. With or without assistance, she had to prove Essiac on its own merits.
    In 1936 Rene was receiving recognition, which was important to her, for having the courage and willingness to research something new and controversial. She was also totally involved with the treatment of cancer patients at her own clinic and elsewhere. So Rene turned down Dr. Banting’s offer.
    Instead she instigated a series of petitions with the intention of delivering them to the Minister of Health and the Head of the Provincial Government of Ontario in Toronto as proof of support for her work and to authenticate her right to treat patients with the formula.
    In answer to the petitions, the newly re-elected head of the government led her to believe that a Bill representing her right to practise would be presented to the Ontario Legislature as a Private Member’s Bill. Frank Kelly, the Member of Parliament for Muskoka, and Leopold Macaulay, representing a constituency in Toronto, presented the Bill on March 24th 1938. The Chamber was well attended and the surviving cancer patients were well represented in the public gallery. The debate went on all day and made the evening newspaper editions in the city. Rene was correctly quoted as having refused to divulge the Essiac formula until the medical profession formally recognised it and her work.
    Ultimately it all came to nothing. In line with a proposition presented by Harold Kirby (Dr. Faulkner’s successor at the Ministry of Health) as a separate Bill to the Ontario Legislature one week earlier to set up a commission to investigate cancer remedies, the powers representing the medical interest put on sufficient pressure to advise a vote against the Bill. In doing so, they employed the usual delaying tactic of requesting that a committee be set up for further investigation. The government could not act without medical endorsement and the Bill was overturned by three votes.
    For Rene this was the ultimate betrayal of all that she stood and hoped for. She was absolutely devastated and beside herself with anger and frustration. She felt she had been very badly used and deceived by people within the medical profession who had intervened in what she thought would be strictly a parliamentary matter. The Kirby Bill was ratified the following month to become law on June 1st 1938. Under the terms of this Bill, the investigating commission would have to be given the formula which should remain confidential. However, if for any reason it was accidentally divulged, Rene would have no claims in any court of law and could not sue them for breach of confidence.
    From then on she felt continually under threat. If she did not divulge the Essiac formula she would be subject to a fine of between one and five hundred dollars. If she refused to pay she would automatically be liable to thirty days’ imprisonment. She closed the clinic just before June 1st. Thousands of letters poured into the government offices from patients and their relatives, blaming the Health Department for the closing of the clinic and demanding that it be opened again. She was finally persuaded to reopen in August.
    The pressure of the work and stress involved in dealing with a hostile establishment meant that, for her own sake as much as any one else’s, Rene would have to close the clinic for short intervals throughout its active life. This time it had been closed for almost