Hi

I don't know the ingredients in the Medicine Man Tea, but you can compare the ingredients with this Essiac formula below, or make your own Essiac cheaper!

The Essiac tea formula
Here is one story about Essiac:
A woman who worked with Rene, was given a formula with four extra herbs.
Essiac 8: adds; Kelp (2 parts), Red Clover (1 part), Blessed Thistle (1 part), Watercress (0.4 parts). According to reports Rene Caisse experimented with these and other ones but finally settled on the original four herbs.

Essiac Ingredients:

Burdock Root (Arctium lappa)

Sheep Sorrel (Rumex acetosella)

Slippery Elm (Ulmus fulva)

Turkey Rhubarb (Rheum palmatum)
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24 parts chopped Burdock Root (Arctium Lappa)
16 parts fine cut Sheep Sorrel (Rumex Acetosella)
4 parts powdered inner bark of Slippery Elm (Ulmus Rubra)
1 part powdered Rhubarb Root (Rheum Palmatum)
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Here is the other story about Essiac:
Four herb essiac was designed to have one of the herbs injected. If you are taking essiac as a tea and not injecting one of the herbs, it won't be as effective. Eight herb essiac, which is the original essiac formula, was clinically tested and found to have more beneficial results than four herb essiac.

The story of "Essiac" began with Rene Caisse. Caisse was a head nurse in an Ontario hospital, and she heard of an herbal recipe from an elderly female patient. The formula contained eight herbs. It was given to the woman years before by an Ojibway medicine man. The Ojibway medicine man had offered his help because he knew the woman was suffering from breast cancer. The patient recovered from her cancer and it never returned. In 1922, she gave Rene the recipe after Rene expressed her interest in attempting helping others with cancer by administering this herbal formula.

Rene Caisse used this original eight herb recipe two years later on her aunt, who was terminally ill with stomach and liver cancer. She eventually started calling it 'essiac' ('essiac' is her last name spelled backwards). Her aunt recovered and her illness never returned. Caisse and her aunt's doctor, Dr. R.O. Fisher, began experimenting with the herbal tea and conducted some research on essiac with mice. Dr. R.O. Fisher began using essiac with some of his terminally ill patients, and many of his patients improved greatly.

Caisse Began Testing Different Versions of the Essiac Formula

Caisse and the doctor began to vary the formula. One version involved injecting one of the herbs (Sheep Sorrel) while administering the others orally in liquid form. The Ojibway medicine man and his people never injected it; they had simply prepared tea, but Rene had decided to conduct formal research on her formula in hopes that she could improve its efficacy. It was discovered that only one herb could be injected--and only into the muscle. This was a painful procedure for very sick people, and many, due to their emaciated state, had hardly any muscles left that were healthy enough to accept injections. Nonetheless, this partial-injection method of administering essiac was used for several years and there were some success stories that were documented from this procedure. However, there were failures too, and Caisse felt that additional studies were needed.

Rene Caisse and Dr. Charles Brusch Collaborate to Further the Research and Use of Essiac Tea

The eight herb essiac formula has been varied slightly over the years. These changes happened as part of a natural testing process whereby patients were monitored and their results noted. In 1959, Rene Caisse went to the Brusch Medical Clinic in Cambridge, Mass. to join Dr. Charles Armao Brusch, MD. She became partners with Dr. Charles Brusch with the intent of forming the "Rene Caisse Cancer Research Foundation," a charitable foundation which would have the purpose of utilizing this treatment for cancer in humans. Rene was provided with three rooms for her use at the clinic and all her expenses were taken care of. Rene and Charles Brusch remained partners, co-developers and co-owners until her death in 1978 at the age of 91.

Dr. Brusch, a medical doctor of noted background, had developed an interest in other natural forms of healing, his objective always the 'well-being' of the patient. He had set up the first acupuncture clinic to collect research data, and it was operating in his medical clinic when Rene Caisse arrived in 1959. He was the first doctor in the Western hemisphere to initiate a plan similar to Medicare within his clinic for those without money for medical help. He was extremely interested in herbs and their power to heal, which he learned from a long-time friend, a master herbalist from Lathrop, Missouri.

The objective at Dr. Brusch's clinic was to prove the merits of this simple, non-toxic, eight herb formula called essiac. The formula had been used with great success on many terminally ill patients but Dr. Brusch wanted to do even better. They began their research on the essiac using oral treatment only. No other medication was used and the blend of eight herbs brewed as a tea was given on an empty stomach. In the hope of identifying the active ingredient, they experimented with variations of injectable solutions, each vial containing a different herb. This failed to isolate one single herb, proving that effective results are obtained synergistically though the unique combination of the eight herbs in the correct proportions--the essiac formula.

Consequently they returned to using the essiac formula orally. One version of this formula is called "Flor-Essence" in the marketplace. A double blind study was done in which other herbal formulas were used, all of which proved to be inferior to eight herb essiac.

The Results of the Clinical Trials on the Benefits of Eight Herb Essiac Tea

Some of the positive results obtained from the eight herb essiac formulas were:

--cessation of pain

--increased appetite (emaciated patients gained weight)

--improved sleep

--feeling of well-being

--increased energy

--a decrease in depression

--a decrease in anxiety and fear

--a prolongation of life

--a decrease of nodular masses.

Dr. Brusch stated that the mechanism through which the eight herb tea worked was as follows: the essiac tea identified the toxins, gathered them, broke them down, and discharged them.

The Essiac Formula is Tested Further

Through the years some testing was done on essiac at well-known facilities including Sloan Kettering, Northwestern University, and Christie Street Hospital in Toronto, as well as many others. However, as Rene Caisse refused to reveal the full formula, conclusive results remained incomplete. In 1975, she only passed the injectable herb over to Sloan Kettering for testing purposes. They choose to freeze it--the one thing you absolutely cannot do with these herbs--which rendered it useless to test. Rene withdrew the formula from them immediately.

Caisse Did Not Wish to Share The Essiac Formula

In 1977, following a lengthy and in-depth article in a national Canadian magazine, "Homemaker's", a retired chemist named David Fingard was shown the article, and was fascinated to read that Rene Caisse had never given the formula to anyone (other than her partner, with whom she worked). He determined that he would go and see her and talk her into releasing the formula to him. He had never heard of the woman before, even though she lived and worked in the same province, and many stories had been written about her. He admitted this on the "Stayin' Alive" talk radio show, when he was being interviewed by broadcaster Elaine Alexander.

Finegard continued to present his proposal to Caisse, although she kept turning him down. She had already had several offers over the years to disclose the formula, but had always declined, because she believed it would be exploited. Finally, he told both Rene Caisse and Dr. Brusch that he was going to be financially funded by a large Canadian mining corporation, and that he would open five clinics across the country to treat terminally ill cancer patients free of charge, if they would only release the formula to him. Caisse and Dr. Brusch felt that perhaps this was the last chance to get the herbal tea "out" to the people who needed it the most: the "terminal" cancer patients. At the same time, they were wary to reveal the full eight herb essiac formula because they were remained guarded against exploitation.

The Resperin Contract

A contract was drawn up on Oct. 26th, 1977 between Resperin Corporation Limited, David Fingard, and Rene Caisse. The contract provided that Resperin and Caisse would co-operate in the promotion of the Essiac treatment for use throughout the world in alleviation and cure of cancer. Sadly, there was very little compensation in the contract for Rene who had given 56 years of her life to this herbal tea. Dr. Brusch, who was to share any royalty with Caisse, withdrew in this capacity and became only a witness to the signing of the contract. Caisse cautiously passed over a smaller four herb formula that day in 1977, as she already had great doubts about what she had been told. Her doubts proved to be true when nothing seemed to be happening and no clinics were ever opened. To this day, no royalty has ever been paid from this contract to the "Rene Caisse Estate." She gave it away free for 56 years, and has been cheated ever since. Her contract had been breached by Resperin, and technically Caisse reserved the rights to retract her formula, which was a condition stated in the agreement.

Essiac After Rene Caisse

In 1978, Rene Caisse died. Her "hey-day" was from 1924 to 1942, when she closed her cancer clinic, which she had operated for eight years in Bracebridge, Ontario. At that time, the medical powers-that-be formed a "Cancer Commission" which had the power to decree what could be used to treat cancer. Rene feared being charged, even though all around her, including many medical doctors, were completely aware of her outstanding successes. Dr. Brusch continued to work with the essiac formula they had developed together and many of his patients reaped the benefits.

In 1984, Dr. Brusch was interviewed by a long-time radio producer and broadcaster, Elaine Alexander, who broadcast out of Vancouver, Canada. This woman, as the producer of a popular radio talk show, produced a few programs on this herbal tea in the 1970s and had researched it in-depth for many years. In 1984, as a broadcaster, she introduced a new program called "Stayin' Alive." This show was a health-oriented show concerned with informing the listeners of the best in alternate and more natural ways of restoring health. On this show she again reported on this famous, though underrated, story.

The listener response was massive and seven 2-hour programs were produced covering essiac tea in every aspect. Dr. Brusch was interviewed a number of times, as were others of importance to the story. Elaine and Dr. Brusch became friends. He was impressed by her long research of the subject, and her genuine interest. In 1988 they became partners legally and he passed to her a number of the herbal formulas on which he and Rene had worked during the time they were partners and co-owners.

The Eight Herb Essiac Formulas Available

A larger and further developed formula of this herbal tea, now known as "Flor-Essence," emerged in the marketplace in July 1992. This pre-brewed liquid tea contains eight herbs that its makers claim are in perfect proportion for synergistic activity. Originally this tea was only availabe in pre-made form, which made it very expensive to take on a continual basis. Now, the dry herbs are also available, but Flor-Essence is still more expensive than many alternate brands that contain the same eight herbs. However, Flor-Essence is a highly reputable product and many attribute great results to this tea.