Mr. Swanepoel was keenly interested in the oleander plant due to the epidemic of HIV-AIDS in his native country as well as the number of indigent cancer patients who could not afford mainstream treatment options (and which he believed were largely ineffective anyway).  Like several of us in the groups, Mr. Swanepoel began making his own oleander home remedy after the instructions were posted by Ed Hensley "The Father of Oleander Soup" and the first moderator of the Yahoo "Oleandersoup" group.  Unlike the rest of us,  Mr. Swanepoel took things a few steps further and he began searching the Brazilian Rain Forest and his native South Africa for other botanicals to combine with oleander.

After testing various combinations, Mr. Swanepoel settled on two similar botanical supplements which consisted of 80% oleander extract made exactly according to the oleander soup instructions. The first supplement was for HIV/AIDS patients and it added extracts of the agaricus blazei murrill (ABM) mushroom, cats claw, and pau de arco, while the second supplement, intended for cancer, substituted the relatively rare chrysobalanus icaco (red-tipped coco plum) for the pau de arco.  All of the rain forest botanicals added to the oleander have their own histories of successful immune boosting and cancer fighting abilities, some dating back centuries among the indigenous Amazon peoples.  I asked Mr. Swanepoel why he used oleander for 80% or the mix and he confided that, as potent as the other botanicals were, he felt that oleander was by far the most effective botanical he had ever found.

Mr. Swanepoel soon selected a Brazilian manufacturing facility named Takesun do Brasil to make his supplements for him and he also licensed them  to market his supplements around the world.  Takesun is managed (or was) by  a German PhD named George Otto (The Takesun website, a bit rough in the English version, can be found at http://www.agaricus.net - but I do NOT recommend that you buy any of their products at this time!  I will just say that I believe that there are better and more reliable sources and that Mr. Swanepoel Swanepoel agrees and leave it at that.)

Ultimately, the OPC product grew to be quite successful, especially in Dr. Otto's native Germany.  So much so, that two clinic were built which used only the OPC and Agaricus products and Dr. Otto ended up moving back to Germany where plans are in the works for a hospital built around an oleander/agaricus protocol.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, Mr. Swanepoel returned to his native South Africa and made notable progress of his own - first getting the government to embrace the use of his oleander supplements for HIV and cancer and then getting it accepted by various doctors and clinics as well as gaining some support at the university level.  Over the past three years, he and I have kept in touch and he has tole me many times of the success his supplements have had in helping HIV and cancer patients, but I have too admit that I was somewhat remiss in digging a bit deeper and finding out the true scope of the success until the first part of this year when I asked Mr. Swanepoel how the patients in South Africa were faring and he reported back:

"Everything still ok here and cancer patients as well as HIV patients on the oleander mix are doing well.  The medical doctor in Cape Town who is using the mix for all his cancer patients has continued to have good results. The oncologist where he sends his patients to (a woman) was so impressed with the results that she is now using it herself for prevention.

  . . to date, the only patients that did NOT make it on the oleander mix were three patients with very advanced cancer that had metastasized to the liver and who had been on intensive chemo treatments. In my opinion, the effect of the chemo on the and liver and heart eventually led to failure of those organs."

Needless to say, I was very impressed with the news, but after thinking about it, I started to wonder "3 patients out of how many did not make it"?  So, to try to get a better perspective I asked Mr. Swanepoel in a follow up message and the response I received astounded me!  Just when I thought I could not possibly be even more impressed with oleander, based on my research and first hand experience with oleander users including friends and members of my own family, I got this incredible message from Mr. Swanepoel:

"Hi Tony,

"Approximately 350 HIV/AIDS patients have used it and about 80 cancer patients on a regular basis. Of the cancer patients, 5 arrived when they had about a week to 10 days to live and they were too weak to keep the mix down. They died without really being able to try the mix. 3 (the ones I mentioned to you) died of liver and heart failure. All the others are still alive, some now for nearly three years. One breast cancer patient who was given a few months to live eventually became the patient of the oncologist who is now also using the mix. She was declared free of cancer by the oncologist approximately 1 year ago and is still doing well. Others used it for a few months until their cancers were gone and we have not heard from them again. One patient with a festering hole of 1cm diameter on his nose (about half a cm deep) have been using it for three months after doctors were unable to cure the tumor with radiation. The hole is now half the size and not festering anymore. It should be healed in about 3 - 6 months. The doctor in Cape Town whose own wife had metastasized cancer to the bones, is now cancer free. She has been on overseas trips and lives a normal life."

Unfortunately, I do not have time to keep track of all the patients. They just collect the mix from me and phone me from time to time to say that they are doing well. It also seems to help for asthma, male impotence and diabetes. One advanced MS patient have now used it for 2 months and is reporting that it seems to help for the pain in her legs. All the distribution is happening by word of mouth and I don't advertise at all. I have had orders from the UK from people who had heard about the successes in South Africa. A documentary maker there was filming the progress of his wife on a weekly basis but, unfortunately, she was one of the liver complications. He still believes very firmly that the mix gave his wife an extra 5 months of high quality life."

I was almost dumbfounded to hear such news.  100% success on HIV and almost the same for cancers?  I knew that in my own experience and research oleander was almost always successful, but I had never really seen numbers like that before!  If I had not known Mr. Swanepoel for years now and know his character and accomplishments I would have doubted such numbers myself - and I am maybe the number one oleander fan in the galaxy!

The numbers Mr. Swanepoel quote, mirror the results I am familiar with from around the world and in my own family, friends and health forum - especially those who combine a good diet and lifestyle and do not depend on oleander alone.  For years, it has pretty much been used as a stand alone product.  Mr. Swanepoel, like myself, has recommended cleansing and de-toxing along with a very healthy diet and lifestyle to go along with the oleander.  I take it a step further and recommend that other immune boosting and cancer fighting supplements also be used - not because I have any doubts in the magical powers of oleander, but because I think the more weapons in your arsenal, the more likely you are to win the battle and the war.

Yesterday, before preparing this installment, I sent Mr. Swanepoel an email yesterday asking him for the very latest results so I could include them here.  I received his reply only a few hours ago:

" Tony -

Since my last update to you when the total number of HIV/AIDS patients were about 350 and the total number of cancer patients were about 80, I have given the new mix to an additional 130 people with advanced AIDS and to a further 15 people with cancer. The people with AIDS, without exception, are doing fine and mostly resume their normal activities after 6 - 8 weeks. The son of the senior nurse at the clinic where I am doing my research was a case with advanced AIDS, badly swollen legs and barely walking with the aid of crutches. After 4 weeks, he does not need the crutches anymore and his mother reports that he is now singing in the morning. There are many similar cases and I have no doubt that the oleander mix can control HIV/AIDS better than the antiretrovirals.

. . . .  Two of the cancer patients who were in remission had recurrences of small tumours (but not in the same place as before). Against my advice, they had both stopped using the mix after their doctors had declared them clear of any tumours. As I mentioned to you before, I believe the cancer will always return UNLESS one changes the things that caused the cancer in the first place. The oleander and all other successful treatments allow one the breathing space to give effect to such changes.

At present I distribute about 70 - 80 bottles of the Sutherlandia OPC mix per month. This is without any advertising or other promotions - strictly word of mouth. I believe this will not be happening unless people are finding that it works . . . My experience is that those who try the mix without going that route are also the ones who are willing to change their lifestyles (especially diet) and they are the one who pull through. The problem comes AFTER the cancer has been cured and a few are lured back into their old ways - with predictable results.

Two months ago, Mr. Swanepoel began a double blind placebo controlled clinical trial of the Sutherlandia OPC supplement in conjunction with a South African AIDS clinic.  In an upcoming installment in this series I will be reporting the results.  As a hint to what those might be - they were so successful midway through the trial that a manufacturing company approached Mr. Swanepoel and promised immediately began an initial run of 50,000 bottles of the extract, with projected monthly minimum production runs of 10,000 bottles thereafter - a far cry from the 75-80 bottles once distributed by word of mouth. As a result of the large scale production, costs of the supplement were actually reduced from $99 for one month's supply (500ml) of extract, to $60 of extract, including shipping worldwide.

For those who would like to know a bit more about the South Africa "Cancer Bush", you can find a wealth of information at http://www.sutherlandia.org

And that concludes this installment in the oleander series.  Perhaps now, many of you can understand why I am so impressed with oleander!

Live long, live healthy, live happy!

Tony Isaacs

To read part 1 of the series "An Amazing Discovery in Turkey" click here
To read part 2 of the series "The Father of Oleander Soup" click here
To read part 3 of the series "The History of the Oleander Plant click here