Dr. Asa Andrew sells health and hope at a steep price. Behind the scenes, however, the man’s practice may not match what he preaches.
Medicine Show
by Brantley Hargrove
Dr. Asa Andrew may be one of the best-known "natural medicine" practitioners in Tennessee, if not the region. Here's but a taste of the cachet he wields in the Bible Belt's buckle with a largely religious consumer base: Dave Ramsey, the wildly popular, faith-based personal finance guru and radio host, has given Dr. Andrew his gold-standard imprimatur.
Dr. Andrew's popular radio call-in show, Dr. Asa On Call, where he dishes "commonsense" medical advice — leavened heavily with an aversion to pharmaceuticals — continues to expand from Nashville's WLAC-1510 AM to small and midsize markets, from Knoxville to Lansing, Mich., to Aurora, Colo. He claims a million listeners. He has appeared on The 700 Club and Good Morning America, and appears Tuesday mornings on Fox 17 as a health correspondent. In 2007, he released his book, Empowering Your Health, which promotes his wellness dogma — and his celebrity.
"For many years, I have been helping people just like you with every kind of health condition such as: migraine headaches, allergies, high cholesterol, arthritis, fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, diabetes, balancing hormones, losing weight, increasing energy, and just plain living the life you were designed to live," Andrew writes on his website, with a motivational speaker's can-do fervor. "I help folks find the best health insurance policy available in America today, which is making healthy lifestyle choices, choosing health."
Like pilgrims, patients travel across the country to his Center for Natural Medicine, across the street from the Belle Meade Shopping Plaza. They often have at least a few things in common. Some suffer from debilitating diseases for which there is no cure. Some seek a path to health using what they believe are "natural" remedies. Most are skeptical of pharmaceuticals, vaccines and all the trappings of "the medical establishment." Or because Dr. Andrew's faith is the cornerstone of his public identity, they're attracted to a provider who openly shares their values.
But patients and former employees — including health-care professionals, middle managers and rank-and-file office workers — tell the Scene that Dr. Andrew's public persona doesn't match the reality of his private practice. They allege, among other things, supplement dilution, price gouging, violating U.S. Customs and Food and Drug Administration guidelines, and insurance fraud. Patients with potentially serious diseases and disorders came to his clinic, they say, and left with advice from a healer whose credentials are shrouded in mystery.
A detailed list of questions outlining these allegations was sent to Dr. Andrew before press time. A week later, Dr. Andrew issued a brief statement through a Los Angeles public-relations firm. "I am deeply troubled by the hurtful, false and misleading allegations that have been presented to me," Dr. Andrew said in the statement — the full text of which runs in the accompanying sidebar — although he did not address many of the specific questions.
"In my opinion," he stated, "they are the work of a few disgruntled former employees with ulterior motives."
Indeed, the charges might be easy to dismiss from a couple of disgruntled ex-workers. But nearly 20 former employees have spoken with the Scene regarding their concerns. So high is personnel turnover at the Center for Natural Medicine that patients who went on a weekly basis say they rarely, if ever, saw the same people working behind the counter. Many former employees who spoke with the Scene say they quit in disgust.
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