Native American Tea

Reprinted from Natural Land Herbal News, June 29, 1998 with edits by John R. Carter, Sr.

When Canadian Rene Caisse, R.N., was given an ancient Ojibway Indian herbal formula in 1922 made of just four herbs, she had no idea how well the tea made from the herbs would work on her patients. Some of her patients had tried every known conventional medical treatment for serious illnesses before coming to her. When patients started to recover from the likes of inoperable cancer, she refined the formula and called it Essiac¨.

Caisse's formula was the target of intense persecution by the Canadian medical establishment for years, and since she wasn't a licensed doctor, she was forced to close her clinic and signed over the formula to the Resperin Corporation in 1977.

The Resperin Corporation has now made Essiac Tea available in the U.S. Composed of four herbs -- burdock root, slippery elm, sheep sorrell, and Indian rhubarb -- Essiac Tea helps normalize body systems by purifying the blood, promoting cell repair, and aids in effective assimilation and elimination. The synergistic combination of these four herbs have produced amazing anecdotal reports of the tea either eliminating or effectively lessening the ravages of breast cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, psoriasis, underactive thyroid, and epilepsy.

Caisse never touted her formula as a cure-all, but did realize that malignant cells deprive healthy ones of nourishment and she theorized that Essiac set up a resistance in the healthy cells by cutting off food supplies to the diseased cells and causing them to regress. Whatever the actual mechanism, normal cell growth was restored. Because Essiac activates natural defenses, the body does not remain dependent on it after the illness has dissipated.

In recent years, other do-it-yourself counterfeit formulas based on the four herbs have cropped up, but the Resperin distributors state how their strict adherence to Caisse's formula and use of premium organically-grown and herbicide-free herbs combined in the exact ratios cannot be duplicated in the faux tea formulas now being marketed as "Essiac" tea. Essiac tea also contains Inulin, a powerful immune system modulator which attaches to white blood cells to help them function properly.

Essiac Tea is available in most natural health food stores nationwide. For more information on ordering and retail availability in the U.S., call Essiac International at (561) 585-7111, or write to Kevin Maloney, P.O. Box 365, Lake Worth, FL., 33460-0365.

Links to other sources:
Cancer Information & Support International
essiac-herbal.com
Billy Best - the boy who ran away from chemotherapy.
Essiac Resperin Canada