Essiac herbal tea review

There is an article in today’s issue of the Daily Record, a newspaper in Scotland, about a woman who says she cured herself of bowel cancer using Essiac as part of the treatment.

Laurie Smith, according to the article, was diagnosed four years ago. Her doctor recommended that she have surgery to remove part of her colon, but she did not want this kind of treatment. She said that she had done a lot of research about the survival rates of people who underwent different kinds of cancer treatments, and she felt it would be better for her to use alternative treatments rather than conventional ones.

She radically changed her diet, eating almost nothing but fresh vegetables and fruit, drank a lot of water and made sure she got a lot of sleep, as well as taking Essiac tincture and vitamin B12, which, she said, was thought to break tumors down. Another positive action she took was to visualize that the cancer cells were being erased by light and love.

This happened four years ago, and Ms. Smith now believes her alternative treatment has cured her.

You can read the entire article online at DailyRecord.co.uk at this link.

This is just a short posting to let you know that I learned something new about Essiac this morning. I was alerted to the fact that there is an online reference to Essiac in an article in Mother Earth News magazine dating back to 1994.

The article, written by one of my fellow British Columbians, is about using herbal and naturopathic remedies to heal a severe allergic reaction to poison ivy. In the article, the author, Deanna Kawatski, tells of attending a community health meeting called to promote an herbal beverage by the name of Can-Aid. The drink was said to have amazing healing properties. It was formulated out of burdock root, Turkish rhubarb, slippery elm and sheep sorrel. According to Ms. Kawatski, the formula was originally called Essiac, and had been used as a cancer treatment since 1922.

“Three people in attendance, including a young woman who had been declared clean of cancer, vouched for its effectiveness,” Ms. Kawatski said.

We have never heard of Can-Aid, but it is not unlikely that someone could have taken the formula for Essiac and used it to create a new herbal tonic by a different name. The fact that this took place practically in my back yard, in the interior of British Columbia, makes this discovery a bit of a serendipity.

If you would like to read the entire article, you can reach it using this link.

You may have seen the recent advice column by Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D. where he was asked about Essiac tea and Flor-Essence. The questioner wanted to know if either product was worthwhile for a person undergoing chemotherapy. Dr. Weil replied with a brief history of Essiac, saying that Renee Caisse who first popularized it later modified the original Essiac recipe, adding additional herbs, and calling it Flor-Essence.

Dr. Weil stated that it was reckless and dangerous to replace chemotherapy and other conventional treatments with either of these herbal teas. He also said there is no clinical evidence that Essiac or Flor-Essence “has any anti-cancer activity.” He went on to say they both can have unpleasant side effects.

Today, a Canadian newspaper, The Vancouver Sun, has published a rebuttal to Dr. Weil from Carmen Tamayo, M.D., the director of research for Flora Manufacturing, the company that makes Flor-Essence. Dr. Tamayo stated that the lack of conclusive clinical evidence either for or against the effectiveness of Flor-Essence was due to the lack of funding necessary to conduct clinical research studies.

In the meantime, he added, consumers have bought more than 8,000,000 bottles or pouches of Flor-Essence within the past 12 years, and they have received less than 10 reports of any adverse reactions. He did note that what Dr. Weil referred to as unpleasant side effects — namely frequent bowel movements and increased urination — were common elements of the cleansing process, and that since Flor-Essence is marketed as a cleansing tonic, and not as a treatment or cure for any disease, the product was simply doing what consumers expected it to do.

Dr. Tamayo concluded by saying that Flora was “committed to funding and participating in accredited, scientific research.”

If the manufacturers of Essiac have responded to Dr. Weill’s column, I would like to know what they had to say also.

The Flora Manufacturing and Distributing company is located near Vancouver in Burnaby, British Columbia.