Once upon a time, I ran a little informational site I called
Greenrey's Study.
The year was 1998. The topic was essiac tea, and my mother's
use of it four years earlier to fight cancer.
Over time, the little informational site came to be known as
Aaron's essiac Pages, and included an account of my family's
experience with essiac; the recipe my mother used; a history
of the tea based upon limited information available at the
time; and something else...
The little informational site, which was entirely non-
commercial, had a bulletin board. I called it the "essiac
Discussion Board", making fun of the arguments at the time
over Resperin Corp.'s Essiac (TM) and generic forms of the
tea, simply called "essiac."
When I first started that little site, it was pretty much
the only NON-COMMERCIAL essiac site on the Web. Now there
are dozens. In the beginning, recipes were hard to come by.
Today, there are several variations. Information regarding
the history of essiac was sketchy and incomplete. Now
google.com gives us instant access to numerous accounts of
the Canadian nurse, Rene Caisse.
After a while, I felt it was time to close up shop. I felt
that since there was a virtual explosion of essiac
information online, my site had served its purpose, and I
could move on to other, less painful, endeavors. I assure
you, running a bulletin board dedicated to an "unproved"
treatment - often the last resort of desperate human beings
- proved emotionally trying. People I never met, but grew
quite fond of, died. Even though they all pursued different
regimens, and I read many anecdotal accounts of improved
appetites, less pain, even spontaneous remission... I
couldn't get past the ones who died. I felt that I had let
them down somehow.
But it's not about me. I should never have let it be about
my feelings.
The bottom line is, I still have faith in the recipe my
mother used.
She is, after all, alive today - ten years later - and
has never had a remission. When she was preparing to die,
she never used any treatment other than a home-brew
version of essiac.
And so I have made the decision to republish the recipe she
used. Out of respect for the privacy of my family, I will
not, however, be republishing the rest of the information I
used to maintain.
But there is one more thing... Though I can never hope to
recreate what made the original "essiac Discussion Board"
unique, I have recreated, at least, the template for it. The
new Essiac Discussion Board is now available on my home
page. And I have opened it by reposting a recent medical
"hit piece", a Reuters Health article that condemns essiac
in passing ,without ever detailing why.
I know that essiac has both supporters and critics,
believers and debunkers. I hope that my site can prove
useful to those researching and discussing the tea honestly.
Regards,
Kevan Wynn la.znet.com~kwynnOpen ↗ Still non-commercial
after all these years...