In three cases, "the disease had stabilized." What does this mean? Had the cancer stopped growing? If so, that is highly significant.

What about the four cases where the "cancer was progressing," plus the two cases where the "patient had died"? Why are these counted among the "remainder" rather than among those that "showed no benefit"? Doesn't that mean they did show some benefit, and if so, what were the benefits? The report does not say.

Even a casual analysis of these poorly run trials illustrates the bias that pervades much of the research purporting to be objective and scientific.

Gary Glum, biographer of Rene Caisse, calls the Canadian government report an outright deception. He says that some of the people listed in the report as "dead" were actually alive and well and that a number of them showed up on Caisse's doorstep in 1978, the first year of the study, to thank her profusely for having saved their lives. Glum views the report as one more attempt by Canada's medical orthodoxy to discredit Essiac.

A Los Angeles chiropractor, Glum spent three years researching Caisse's story. In his biography of the nurse, Calling of an Angel (see Resources),9 published in 1988, Glum says he obtained the formula for Essiac from a woman who had achieved total remission of her cancer after treatment by Rene. This woman, according to Glum, was given the Essiac formula in writing by Caisse. The unidentified woman, as Glum tells it, tried to alert the world to the efficacy of Essiac in treating cancer, and in the late 1970s, she took her case as far as the Michigan Superior Court but was then constantly harassed by FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and FDA officials.

Glum says that he later verified the authenticity of the Michigan woman's formula with Mary McPherson, an Ontario woman who was Caisse's close friend. McPherson lived and worked alongside Caisse for many years, after the Bracebridge nurse cured McPherson's mother of cancer in the 1930s. McPherson confirmed by telephone that she did in fact meet with Glum and that his formula was indeed correct, although there were variations that Rene occasionally used.

Glum's critics contend that the formula Glum gives in an instruction sheet accompanying his book is inaccurate. They charge that it is missing at least one key ingredient and is drastically off in the ratios of the various herbs. The critics allege that Glum's version of Essiac is not the true Essiac and that it is potentially harmful to patients.

Glum steadfastly denies this. He points out that he put himself at great personal and legal risk to divulge what he maintains is the correct formula. He asserts that he is the only person in the alternative cancer field who has openly publicized the exact details of a purported cancer cure, unlike others who keep the details of their therapy secret, or proprietary. Thousands of copies of Glum's book were seized and held at the United States-Canada border by Canadian authorities, who say the book is advertising of an unapproved drug. The book was finally allowed into Canada through the strenuous efforts of a high-ranking Canadian politician, yet thousands of confiscated books have still never been released, according to Glum.

Glum says he paid the unidentified woman $120,000 for the Essiac formula and insists that he will never recover the money. He claims that his formula is identical to the Essiac tested by medical researchers in the Soviet Union and China when Resperin officials were attempting to interest the medical establishments there in a cancer cure.