Bastyr U. carves niche in alternative health care

On a foggy fall night down a University District alley, four students unloaded corpses from a blue van and passed them through a window into a makeshift dissection laboratory.

Student Walter Crinnion remembers that night in 1981 as if it were a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. He was helping prepare a lesson in basic anatomy at the fledgling naturopathic school that would become Bastyr University. Although doing nothing wrong, Bastyr did not want to draw attention to the donated cadavers after critics dismissed the founders as oddballs and lobbied against the school's efforts to join the state college system.

Today, staff members who once worked from a converted broom closet in Seattle can wander the university's 50-acre, wooded Kenmore campus, which is nestled within a waterfront park. Faculty landed $1.1 million in federal research grants this year and are helping advise the U.S. government on how to spend Medicare dollars.

This fall, the school announced plans to open a branch campus in California that eventually could double the student enrollment of 1,200. Leaders at Bastyr, already the largest and arguably most prestigious naturopathic school in the country, now talk about becoming a "world destination point" for alternative medicine.

Twenty-five years after opening, Bastyr is booming, fueled, in part, by growing consumer demand for alternative medicine and a rapid rise in available federal-grant money for research.

But as it grows, new challenges are emerging.

Conventional universities that once took pains to distance themselves from alternative medicine are now claiming a piece of the federal-grant pie, forcing Bastyr to fight or form partnerships with mainstream players to keep its niche. At the same time, critics are questioning Bastyr's science and ties to the booming dietary-supplement industry, and the school's own rigorous research has proved that at least one previously cherished alternative "cure" has no measurable effect.

Still, the private university has flourished in a state with some of the most liberal alternative-medicine regulations in the country.

Bastyr has become "very successful" nationally among the handful of alternative-medicine schools competing for grants and conducting research, said Richard Nahin, a senior adviser at the National Institutes of Health's Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Part of that success can be attributed to partnerships the school has formed with conventional schools such as the University of Washington, he said.

"I think the Northwest is philosophically attuned to natural medicine," said Joe Pizzorno Jr., the co-founder and driving force behind Bastyr, and its president for the first 22 years. He cites the region's natural beauty, outdoor lifestyle, independence of thought and even the number of medicinal plants that grow wild.

The 56-year-old naturopath leans over the deck of his Seattle home and points. Dandelions for use in herbal tinctures to help clean the liver. Stinging nettle for its antihistamine properties. Rose hip for Vitamin C and flavonoids. Saint Johnswort for depression.

Herb garden

Hundreds of herbs grow in Bastyr's distinctive herb garden. Tended by students, the herbs are clustered according to body functions: those that affect the heart, the cardiovascular system, the endocrine system and the female reproductive system. They are a central part of Bastyr's curriculum, which specializes in naturopathy, a system of medicine that emphasizes the importance of patients' total health and uses herbs to treat specific ailments.

The garden aside, Bastyr's campus looks much like any other institution of higher learning. Concrete columns mark the entrance while soberly institutional buildings lend the former St. Thomas Catholic seminary a conservative feel.

During one recent class, students peered through microscopes to identify and assess herbs. Students also use a nutritional kitchen and laboratory with a self-contained ventilation system to study HIV and other potentially contagious viruses.

Beyond the Kenmore campus, the school runs a Wallingford clinic that tallies 35,000 patient visits each year. Called the Bastyr Center for Natural Health, the clinic is a training ground for students completing academic and residency requirements.

At the clinic's Chinese herbal dispensary, a supervisor pulls down glass jars filled with cicada husks, dried worms, magnesium and dozens of other exotic remedies. He carefully measures and mixes prescriptions that patients use to make tea or tinctures.

The naturopathy course begins with two years of fairly conventional anatomy, dissection and science before a final two years that includes clinical training and classes in homeopathy, physical medicine, Native American medicine and herbal medicine. This is followed by residency programs.

The average age of students is 32, and most already have completed an undergraduate degree at a conventional university. Graduate-degree programs cost $16,000 to $18,000 a year and attract students nationwide.

Nearly 80 percent of students in major programs are women, as are about 70 percent of patients who visit the Wallingford clinic.

"One of the things that differentiates natural medicine from conventional medicine is that we are more of a nurturing medicine," Pizzorno said. "Women have traditionally been nurturers in our culture."

Once they have completed degrees, students can apply for state licenses. Most naturopaths set up private practices and earn $35,000 to $100,000 annually.

Lifestyle and herbs

Pizzorno, with a chemistry degree from California's Harvey Mudd College, was conducting research at the UW's School of Medicine and trying to find a cure for arthritis when a friend, who had suffered arthritis since her teenage years, made a remarkable recovery after visiting a naturopath.

Dumbfounded, Pizzorno visited the naturopath's clinic in 1971.

"In a few days, I saw these medically incurable diseases being cured by this fellow, using just lifestyle and herbs," Pizzorno said. "I became enamored with the whole thing."

The idea of bringing Eastern-rooted medicine to the West is not new to this generation. There were perhaps two dozen schools of alternative medicine throughout the country in the 1920s, but big strides in conventional medicine all but wiped them out.

By the 1970s, Seattle was home to the last significant naturopathic school in the country, the National College of Naturopathic Medicine. Pizzorno decided to attend. There he met renowned naturopathic healer John Bastyr, who died in 1995. When the National College moved to Portland in 1978, Pizzorno and three others decided to open their own school and name it after their mentor.

That year Bastyr opened in space — including the broom closet — rented from Seattle Central Community College. A plan to affiliate the school with the community-college system collapsed after medical and UW academic opponents successfully lobbied the state against it. Without government subsidies, tuition costs were more than double what students had expected.

"They told us they thought the school was going to fold because of the lack of funding," said Dean Howell, who was one of 31 students in that first-year class.

Remarkably, no students pulled out. Classmates included a former university chemistry lecturer, a flight attendant and a jazz pianist back from a seven-year spiritual journey in Asia, said Howell, who runs an alternative-therapy clinic in Bellevue.

Pizzorno's first goal at the new school was to get state accreditation to boost the school's credibility and enable students to get loans. But in the early 1980s, a leery college-accrediting agency changed the accreditation rules in a way that excluded Bastyr.

Under pressure from a sympathetic public and then-Gov. Booth Gardner, the agency relented; Bastyr was accredited in 1989. Since then, the Portland college and naturopathic schools in Arizona and Connecticut have been accredited. More success followed for Bastyr. Demand for alternative treatments increased after changes to state insurance laws in the 1990s allowed more patients to get reimbursed.

In 1993, Pizzorno was appointed to a federal advisory panel on dietary supplements, helping establish a stronger national presence for the university. Pizzorno later served on a White House commission that helped develop an alternative-medicine policy, and earlier this year, he and another naturopath were appointed to the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee, charged with advising what medical services should be covered by Medicare.

In 1996, King County signed a contract with Bastyr to open a Kent clinic that was the nation's first government-run clinic offering alternative medicine alongside conventional cures.

Bastyr's rapid growth reflects the increasing demand for alternative therapies. In the past two years alone, the number of licensed naturopaths in this state jumped from 515 to 642, while acupuncturists went from 708 to 801 in just the past year. That compares with 14,500 medical doctors.

"Naturopaths are being looked at more and more as primary-care providers," said Holly Rawnsley, the naturopathic-program manager for the state Department of Health. "It's a growing profession."

'Wonderful secret'

Many patients say part of the appeal of visiting a naturopath is the amount of time and care given. A consultation often takes more than an hour and delves deep into the patient's diet, lifestyle and emotions. Many consider it a much more personal experience than visiting a medical doctor.

"The whole thing about Bastyr is that they acknowledge my life," said Joel Davis, one of the hundreds of HIV/AIDS patients who visit the Wallingford clinic each year. Davis uses natural therapies to help mitigate the effects of AZT and other conventional drugs.

Davis, who has lived with HIV for 20 years, visits Bastyr for consultations and acupuncture and to soak in peat baths, a therapy he believes helps bolster his immune system.

"If you have to have HIV, Seattle is the place to have it," Davis said. "Bastyr is a novelty in this country. It's one-stop shopping for CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) care. Unfortunately, it's a wonderful secret."

It's a secret that even UW medical students are discovering. Over the past few years, Bastyr and the UW have shared grants and knowledge. Some UW medical students attend summer classes at Bastyr, while others are involved in an alternative-medicine focus group.

"The reality is that we are getting engaged in a topic that is of great interest to patients," said Dr. John Coombs, an associate dean at the UW School of Medicine.

Congress established its alternative-medicine office within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) 11 years ago, with an annual budget of $2 million. That has grown more than 50-fold, to $114 million this year. Most of the money is handed out for research and trials.

"We are trying to find out what is safe, what is effective, and for what conditions," said Anita Greene, a spokeswoman for the NIH alternative-medicine center.

Bastyr began searching for a natural cure for AIDS in 1988 with the Healing AIDS Research Project. The study helped launch one of the school's specialties: HIV/AIDS treatment and research. It also helped land Bastyr its first NIH grant of $840,000 in 1994 for a second study tracking 1,700 HIV/AIDS patients. That study found some patients benefited from using alternative therapies in conjunction with conventional drugs.

But the competition for NIH money is getting fiercer.

"Conventional schools have more capacity, more talent and more infrastructure," said Jane Guiltinan, a clinical professor at Bastyr. "Some of them saw the CAM budget get huge and said, 'Wow, this is a place to get grant funding.' "

There are other challenges. A recent study Bastyr helped complete showed that children with colds get no measurable benefit from taking the herb Echinacea, calling into question earlier theories.

And Bastyr still attracts its share of critics. Some watchdog groups composed of conservative doctors — including Quackwatch and the National Council Against Health Fraud — have tried to block the appointment of Pizzorno and others to federal advisory agencies, though with little success. Stephen Barrett, a retired Pennsylvania psychiatrist who runs Quackwatch, said one of his concerns is that Bastyr influences students against immunization.

But Bastyr President Tom Shepherd, who ran mainstream hospitals for 28 years before taking over from Pizzorno, said the school has no position on immunization. "I have sat in on the classes on immunization, and they did present both sides of the issue," he said.

Such criticisms haven't slowed Bastyr. By 1999, student numbers had hit 1,000.

In the next few years, Shepherd said he hopes to raise $14 million to buy the Kenmore campus, which is still leased from the Catholic Archdiocese.

Owning the campus would allow Bastyr to begin construction on a new academic and research building, and to provide on-campus housing for 326 students by 2020.

The university also is scouting eight possible locations for a branch campus in California, after that state passed a law in September that made it the 13th in the country to license naturopaths.

Shepherd said he sees a day soon when the campus will attract people from all over the world for special training, seminars and summits on natural medicine.

"All the pieces are in place," he said.

Nick Perry: 206-515-5639 or nperry@seattletimes.com