Reflections

Unproven Oral Treatments Essiac Dietary supplements and herbal remedies, typically unstudied or disproved, are commonly used by cancer patients. One enduring herbal remedy is Essiac, also marketed as Flor-Essence. Initially used by a Native American healer from South-West Canada, a nurse named Rene Caisse popularized the herbal formulation as a cancer treatment in the 1920s. She named the remedy Essiac, her last name spelled backwards. Initially comprising four herbs, Indian rhubarb (Rheum palmatum), sheepshead sorrel (Rumex acetosa), slippery elm (Ulmus fulva), and burdock root (Arctium lappa), other herbs were added over the years by various dietary supplement manufacturers. Today, there are several different Essiac preparations available online and in health food stores, in tea, pill, and liquid form. (A search on Amazon.com brings up hundreds of entries.) In general, there is a lack of both safety and efficacy data for Essiac and Essiac formulations, and no clinical evidence s...

This article first published in Oncology 2012;26(8):754–758 is an important contribution that debunks the irrational therapies that have unofrtunately become very prominent in the age of the internet. Those who have a Facebook account will also know what I mean. I think this is compulsory reading for everybody so that they can beware charlatans and quack medicines that can cost lives. Remember that even Steve Jobs became a victim of such irrational therapies which may have cost him his life. I will publish this in several sections. References will appear in the last instalment. Cancer Quackery: The Persistent Popularity of Useless, Irrational Alternative’ Treatments by Barrie R Cassileth, Ian R Yarett, Laetrile, a chemically modified form of amygdalin and a naturally occurring substance found mainly in the kernels of apricots, is one of many bogus cancer ‘treatments’ from the 1980s. One of the earliest papers published by one of us (BRC) was entitled ‘After Laetrile, What...