METHUSELAH ARCHIVE PRACTITIONERS / RENE M. CAISSE

Rene M. Caisse

individual · Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada
lived:d. 1978
active:1922–1978
type:individual
role:promoter
location:Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada
eventual status:quietly_faded
FINANCIAL CONFLICTS
Caisse did not charge patients a fee at her Bracebridge clinic and accepted donations rather than payment, but in 1977 she signed over exclusive commercial rights to her Essiac formula to Resperin Corporation Limited. Several companies now produce and market Essiac-like products. Separately, Michael D. Miller (doing business as Natural Heritage Enterprises) was the subject of a proposed 2000 FTC settlement after the agency alleged inadequately substantiated disease-treatment claims for Essiac Tea.
INTERVENTIONS PROMOTED
NOTES

Rene M. Caisse was a Canadian nurse who, according to the National Cancer Institute’s own institutional history of the product, obtained a four-herb tea formula in 1922 from a patient who said an Ontario Ojibwa medicine man had given it to her, and who credited it with curing her own breast cancer. Caisse began giving the tea to cancer patients and, in 1934, opened a clinic on Dominion Street in Bracebridge, Ontario, that operated until 1942 and treated cancer patients without charging fees, accepting only donations. She continued providing Essiac to patients into the late 1970s. In 1977 she transferred exclusive commercial rights to the formula to Resperin Corporation Limited. She died in 1978, per her published biography Clinic of Hope: The Story of Rene Caisse and Essiac. That transfer moved the formula from a donation-funded personal practice into corporate ownership. Today, several companies produce and market Essiac-like products.