Disease Proof

From the January 2006 edition of Dr. Fuhrman's Healthy Times:

Shark cartilage
This is a perfect example of how a good story can sprout a billion dollar industry. After the book Sharks Don't Get Cancer aired on television, showing cancer patients using shark cartilage apparently doing well, millions of cancer sufferers took (expensive) shark cartilage for years, until the first well-designed study followed cancer patients over time and found the shark cartilage had no discernible effect. Since then, manufacturers have stopped claiming that shark cartilage has any beneficial anti-cancer properties.

Essiac tea
Essiac tea is an herbal remedy that was prescribed and promoted for about 50 years by Rene M. Caisse, a Canadian nurse who died in 1978. Shortly before her death, she turned over her "ancient" formula and manufacturing rights to the Resperin Corporation. Essiac tea generally is a mixture of four herbs: burdock root, sheep sorrel, rhubarb root, and slippery elm bark. It was claimed that this secret combination of herbs directly attacks cancer, and that no one knows why many people no longer have cancer after consuming the product. It is said to work "synergistically." Several animal tests using samples of this tea have shown no anti-tumor activity, nor did a review of data on 86 patients performed by the Canadian federal health department during the early 1980s.

Essiac was promoted as a magic cancer cure by the Native American writer Sun Bear, a.k.a. Vincent Laduke, shortly before he died of cancer. Evidently, it didn't work.