Does Essiac Tea Really Cure Cancer?

I came across this video a while back (video link):

Here is the description that came with the video, provided by Barlow Herbal Specialties:

This 1977 interview is from a documentary about Rene Caisse, a Canadian nurse who developed an herbal formula in the 1920s while caring for people with the c-word. 👩‍⚕️

She became known for tea 🫖 called Essiac (her last name spelled backwards) that she used to treat 300 to 600 cancer patients a week.

Rene’s clinic was so busy that some patients waited in ambulances to be treated by her. 🚑

One woman with cancer of the bowel was told by doctors in January that she’d “be gone when the snow melted.”

But after being 3 years of Essiac treatment, her cancer was gone and never returned.

Essiac is a blend of herbs passed to Rene from traditional Indigenous knowledge and refined through decades of hands-on use and observation.

The original formula is a specific combination of herbs traditionally prepared and taken together that includes:

🌿 Burdock root — long used to support the body’s natural cleansing pathways
🌿 Sheep sorrel — traditionally used to support cellular health
🌿 Slippery elm bark — known for its soothing, nutritive properties
🌿 Turkish rhubarb root — historically used to support elimination

My father Max Barlow, founder of Barlow Herbal, worked with Rene during the late 1960’s.

After their work together, he added watercress and blood root to her original four-herb formula and named it Essiac-20.

And it’s been one of our best-selling blends for 50 years.

Here’s a link to purchase our Essiac-20: https://barlowherbal.com/products/essiac-20

Today, a century after her work started, Essiac isn’t a trend. It’s part of a long lineage of traditional herbal knowledge passed down that once existed alongside modern medicine.

Some herbal formulas don’t disappear because they stop working. They disappear because they don’t fit the modern story.

Modern (Western, allopathic, mainstream) medicine has made many amazing breakthroughs. It has also given us many reasons not to trust it, as most of you well know.

So-called “alternative” medicine absolutely includes real cures and treatments with benefits. But there are also plenty of self-interested parties with a vested interest in convincing you that their (often overpriced) treatments work…

Some merely exaggerate the benefits, either out of genuine belief themselves, or wishful thinking coupled with financial interest.

Some are selling snake oil, and they know it.

And some have something real.

How can you tell the difference?