Essaic Tea History Timeline

Native American Roots

The Ojibwa Indian medicine men first brewed a 4 herbs together to make a tea to cure various aliments, they call it a Holy Tea and it was part of their treatment regimen.

In 1922, a Canadian nurse, Rene Caisse was attending a woman who claimed that her breast cancer was cured by a North American Indian shaman during the late 1800's using a herbal remedy. The shaman (or medicine man) told her to drink this mixture because it was a Holy tea that would purify her body and place it back in balance with the Great Spirit. She consumed the tea two times a day until she felt better and believed that her body was in harmony with the Great Spirit.

The woman claimed that the tea was a cancer tea, a tea that it would cure cancer, and gave the recipe for the tea to Rene Caisse hoping that Caisse would use it to help other people..

Caisse Renamed the Tea

Nurse Caisse, as she was known in her clinic in Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada, perfected the formula and then renamed it Essiac, her name spelled backwards. Caisse's original Essiac Tea formula is a combination of 4 herbs: Greater Burdock Root, Slippery Elm Inner Bark, Sheep Sorrel, and Indian or Turkish Rhubarb Root.

Testing of Essiac Tea

In February of 1959, Rene Caisse was 70 years old and what could arguably be the most important phase in the development of Essiac.

Ralph Daigh, editorial director and VP of Fawcett Publications, had researched over 10 years of cures and medical papers surrounding Rene Caisse, her patients and the success of Essiac. His goal was to get his good friend, Dr. Charles Brusch, interested in helping Rene Caisse get mainstream approval through his intervention as one of the most prestigious doctors and scientists in America, in his role as personal physician to then, President John F. Kennedy.

Dr. Brusch invited Rene Caisse to come to Cambridge and work with him and his director of Research, Dr. Charles McClure at the Brusch Medical Research Center, as she accepted and arrived in May of 1959.

Distrust For the Medical Establishment

In the beginning the doors were open to Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital where they were provided mice for testing. At the same time the National Cancer Institute were also interested in testing Essiac. When both of these hospitals requested the formula for Essiac, Rene refused to submit her formula as she had spent much of her time in Canada fighting with the powers of the Medical establishment there. She was just too worn out to continue fighting the establishment in America as well.

Dr. Brusch was a newcomer to the field of herbal medicine and over the years he had established a close relationship with Elmer Grove, a master herbalist, widely regarded as the foremost authority on the subject. What they discovered through extensive experimentation on human patients was that adding more Essiac tea ingredients/more herbs (called potentiators) to Essiac’s original core formula, thus the Essiac remedy became even more effective, and this was the birth of the 8 herb improved formula.

The Paulhus Family Receives the 8 Herb Formula

In 1984 Dr. Brusch was to give Essiac his ultimate vote of confidence by treating his own cancer with Essiac alone. In a statement made in 1990 Dr. Brusch stated that he had in fact cured his own cancer with just Essiac and "I have taken Essiac every day since my diagnosis (1984) and my recent examination has given me a clean bill of health. I remained a partner of Rene Caisse until her death in 1978 and was the only person who has her complete trust and to whom she confided her knowledge and "know how" of what she named Essiac."

In January of 1992, Dr. Brusch entrusted the 8 herb formula to the Paulhus Family from Newburyport, Ma. As reported in a declaration by George Brankey, Attorney & personal friend of Dr. Charles Brusch, states "Dr. Brusch entrusted the formula to the Paulhus Family so they could ensure the accuracy and properly manage the formula to make the proper eight herb Essiac available commercially."

Herbal Balance for Life Joins With The Paulhus Family

The principals of Herbal Balance became interested in Essiac in 2006. The events that had taken place to family members and friends suffering and dying from Cancer and other ailments caused the principals to research Essiac for commercial applications.

The corporate name Herbal Balance stems from the original Indian Shaman who gave the Canadian woman this formula to use which cured her breast cancer. He explained this “holy cancer tea” would purify her body and place it back in balance with the Great Spirit” and thus the name Herbal Balance For Life, Inc. came to be.

Our goal was to find the most effective form of Essiac and our search led us to the Paulhus Family. The Paulhus Family continues to blend and pack the eight herb formula and make it available to consumers in a plastic bag with detailed instructions.

We explained to the Paulhus Family that our history of sales and marketing was mainstream, conventional retailers, mail order sellers and the like. We wanted to take this history of Essiac and move it to the 21st century, eliminating the necessity of brewing a tea, measuring, storing in the fridge and make it simple and convenient by converting the formula to an easy to swallow soft gel. Now Essiac doesn´t need to go into the fridge, you can take it when you travel and there is no bad taste, just a simple soft gel and you can protect your body against toxins and free radicals and strengthen your immune system to help fight off illness & disease. The health benefits of Essiac are not only for cancer sufferers but for people with AIDS, Diabetes, arthritis and there are virtually no side effects of Essiac and you will find it priced very affordable.

We are licensed by the Paulhus Family to use the formula to make Essiac in soft gels and even in the old fashion powder formula. We manufacture Essiac to FDA standards as put forth a by GMP requirement, which means we make the product safe from bacteria, heavy metals and it is done robotically with no human hands touching the product all done in clean room facilities governed by these Federal Standards.