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
http://la.znet.com/~kwynn/
Still non-commercial after all these years...