Bastyr tackles cancer with help from winemaker

Budge Brown has been fuming about breast cancer since his wife, Arlene, lost her battle with the disease in 2005.

Now he’s on a mission to get some revenge, and Bastyr University is feeling the effects.

It isn’t such a bad thing. Brown’s way of taking action was to purchase a wine label called Cleavage Creek, which he uses to support breast-cancer research in areas that traditionally receive little funding.

“It’s time for people with breast cancer to have viable options beyond killer drugs and treatments,” he said. “Filling the body full of poisons and hoping the cancer goes away just isn’t good enough.”

Brown, a self-made businessman and farmer, recently pledged $40,000 from his wine label as seed money for Bastyr’s new Integrated Oncology Research Clinic, expected to open in early 2009.

The aim of this new center is to provide comprehensive care for cancer patients during each stage of their experience, from diagnosis and treatment decisions to restoring the immune system.

Naturopathic and Chinese medicine will be used to compliment more conventional forms of treatment like radiation and chemotherapy.

It’s all part of an integrated approach that utilizes acupuncture, homeopathy, and lifestyle changes, as well as botanical and natural medicines – all standard fare for those who subscribe to holistic-health practices.

The idea is to get people’s bodies back into harmony, according to Bastyr Oncology Clinic Director Dr. Leanna Standish.

“Our goal is to make sure they don’t ever get cancer again once they’re treated,” she said. “We want disease-free survivors.”

Standish suggests the Bastyr campus is an ideal setting for cancer patients to receive treatment.

“It’s a great place to heal,” she said. “There are great trails, and they can eat a vegetable-based diet after chemotheraphy and radiation. A lot of people don’t know how to do that. We’ll show them in our cafeteria.”

Bastyr’s Oncology Clinic will partner with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to monitor patients’ recovery and determine how well integrated-treatment methods work.

“Nobody else in the world is going to be tracking outcomes in the way we’ll be set up to do from Day One,” Standish said. “It’s extremely important in this day and age when we have what seems like an epidemic of cancer.”

Bastyr has already been at the forefront when it comes to researching alternative cancer treatments.

The school received a $792,000 grant in 2006 from the National Institute of Health to study how turkey tail mushrooms can stimulate the immune system during therapy.

Bastyr has also examined how acupuncture can lessen the effects of chemotherapy-induced nausea, as well as how the nutritional supplement glutamine can repair nerve damage.

Researchers at the school are also looking in to whether tumeric helps radiation treatments work better.

“I think they’re really on to a great thing,” Brown said. “We want to continue to be a part of it.

“I like their homeopathic approach to medicine. It’s working toward a complete program of recovery that doesn’t have any side effects.”

Cleavage Creek Cellars, based out of Napa, Calif., offers eight varietals, and donates 10 percent of its gross proceeds to research that Brown considers “cutting edge.”

Each wine has a unique label that features a different breast-cancer survivor, whose story appears on the company’s web site (www.cleavagecreek.com).

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