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What People Are Saying

Donald Abrams, MD, Integrative Oncologist, UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine: Kudos to the creators of Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies, an incredibly rich resource for patients trying to navigate the maze of complementary therapies and how to integrate them with standard treatment options.

BCCT is overflowing with invaluable information, easily accessible and visually stunning. The site jumps to the top of my list of recommended resources for people living with and beyond cancer and their caregivers. An amazing encyclopedic compendium of the current state of integrative cancer care!

Lise Alschuler, ND, FABNO, Past President, Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians: BCCT is an exceptional resource. There is certainly no shortage of information about integrative cancer care on the internet. The challenge is to find credible, trustworthy and reliable information. BCCT provides just this, and it doesn’t end there. This site provides informed hope and inspires confidence in individuals diagnosed with cancer as well as in their caregivers. Information is power—the power to make informed choices and to be an active participant in your own treatment experience. BCCT is at the top of my referral list for web-based information on integrative cancer care—a sparkling gem to illuminate your cancer journey.

Jennifer Bires, LICSW, OSW-C, Executive Director, Smith Center for Healing and the Arts: BCCT embodies empowerment and whole-person care. It gives people the ability to educate themselves with the latest research in integrative cancer care. They can use this evidence base to work with their doctors to help steer their treatment plan, improve quality of life and symptom management, and explore treatment options in line with their needs. By having access to up-to-date, trustworthy resources people can take back control of their treatment plan in a way that wasn't available before. This site is an incredible resource for providers and patients alike. I think it’s going to change the way we think about cancer care and the options available to people.

yvonne charles, Executive Director, Charlotte Maxwell Clinic: Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies is a very useful resource for practitioners, cancer patients and caregivers. This thoughtfully designed site is easy to use and offers options for people living with cancer. Charlotte Maxwell Clinic provides free integrative therapies to low-income women with cancer. BCCT will be a valuable resource to our clinic and providers.

Ken Cook, President, EWG: It’s cancer. It’s not passive; you shouldn’t be. But how to engage? You don’t want to be just another patient on the assembly line of conventional cancer treatment, and you can’t afford to waste time on internet trips to Cancer Cure Crazy Town. Start your engagement at the nonprofit Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies web site. No matter what type of cancer you are facing, it is the authoritative online source to inform and empower your search through the maze of conventional and alternative therapies, bringing you the latest advances from the field of integrative oncology, which incorporates the best of both worlds.

James S. Gordon, MD, Founder and Executive Director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), Former Chair of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy: Michael Lerner and Commonweal were there at the beginning, helping to open our eyes to the options for and benefits of integrative cancer care, teaching us to open our minds and hearts to the healing possibilities of the cancer journey.

Now, they are bringing us a much needed, easily accessible, thoughtfully presented update on what people with cancer and those who care for and serve them need to know.

I will share this wonderful resource widely and with great confidence.

Steve Heilig, MPH, Director of Public Health and Education, San Francisco Medical Society: Almost a quarter century ago, Michael Lerner's book Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Approaches to Cancer was published by MIT press, garnering enthusiastic reviews everywhere from the Journal of the American Medical Association to the San Francisco Chronicle (where I reviewed it). Now BCCT arrives to update that landmark book in every way—in terms of vast and complex current content, digital accessibility and much more. 

Patients, clinicians, patient navigators, cancer guides, patient advocates and researchers will find this to be an invaluable resource, one they can trust for both accurate information and compassionate perspectives. I will be urging everyone concerned with integrative cancer care to consult BCCT regularly.

Meg Cadoux Hirshberg, Founder, Anticancer Lifestyle Program: When you receive a diagnosis of cancer—as I have—you quickly find that everyone has an opinion: see this doctor, go to that clinic, buy this supplement, go on this diet. Why? Because it’s what they did, or their Aunt Sally, or they read it somewhere in a magazine. Until now, there has been no reliable online resource for sourcing up-to-date, evidence-based information about the efficacy of the many complementary therapies used to treat cancer. I am grateful to Michael Lerner and the staff at Commonweal for seeing this hole and filling it so ambitiously. For practitioners as well as patients, BCCT is one-stop-shopping for locating the best complementary and integrative resources available to all those who hear, or have to say to others, the words: "You have cancer.”

Wayne Jonas, MD, Executive Director, Samueli Integrative Health Programs: For those with advanced cancer, which is about half of all people who get cancer, very few options other than rather harsh treatments or palliative care are offered. I call it "wack a mole." But the promise from science shows there is so much more. No one understands the need for Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies more than those with cancer. I urge all those touched by cancer—patients, relatives, spouses, friends, physicians, researchers—to drop your egos and get out of our narrow box. We must go beyond.

Rebecca Katz, MS, Founder, Healing Kitchens, LLC, and Director, Commonweal Healing Kitchens Institute: Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies (BCCT) gives you access to the best science-informed, integrative approaches to cancer diagnosis and treatment. Many of the BCCT oncology advisors are legends in the field. Please explore this terrific resource and recommend it to family and friends.

Dwight McKee, MD, Oncology Consultant: BCCT is a rare gift for people with cancer and health professionals interested in integrative oncology. Michael Lerner has been a pioneer in integrative cancer care. His book Choices in Healing (MIT, 2004) laid the groundwork for objective evaluation of integrative cancer therapies. BCCT follows the same path—fearlessly objective, patient-centered, compassionate, with science and analysis carefully separated. BCCT breaks new ground by including "ONCAs"—off-label, overlooked and novel approaches that emerge from within mainstream medicine. It also boldly explores taboo subjects like psychedelic medicines and the role of intuition on the part of both the patient and the physician. BCCT is a necessary resource for anyone with a serious interest in integrating the best of conventional and complementary cancer therapies.

Ralph W. Moss, PhD, Founder and Director, The Moss Reports: Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies is an outstanding resource for patients seeking objective information about both orthodox and non-conventional cancer treatments. Its founder, Michael Lerner, PhD, has played a pivotal role in the evaluation of complementary cancer treatments. Especially through his decades of work as founding director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, and his remarkable book, Choices in Healing, Dr. Lerner has been a lodestar for those seeking guidance through this notoriously difficult and contentious field.

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, Founder, Remen Institute for the Study of Health and Illness and Medical Director, Commonweal Cancer Help Program: BCCT offers something more than the newest and best scientific integrative and alternative approaches to the interface with cancer. Cancer happens to a person, a family, and a community, and is the occasion of profound transformation at all of these levels. No one emerges through the same door they went in. The cancer experience has the potential to enable people to recognize for the first time their unique strengths, their life purpose, the deeper meaning of their past choices, and the direction of their future. It can give them the authority to live from their most authentic values and release previously unseen barriers to their will to live. Usually this aspect of the cancer experience is left to chance. BCCT offers the most innovative and effective ways to further their spiritual transformation and supports people in bringing their whole selves to the experience of cancer. What results is not only their best chance to survive but to emerge more whole, more fully alive, than ever before.

Gretchen Schodde, MN, ARNP, FNP-BC, NC-BC, Integrative Nurse coach, Founder and Executive Director Emerita of Harmony Hill Healing Retreat: BCCT is truly inspiring, pragmatic and of exceptional clinical value for both patients and providers. Harmony Hill’s Cancer Retreat program was inspired by Commonweal’s Cancer Help Program after Bill Moyer’s Healing and the Mind was featured on PBS in 1993. We attended the first “Tradecraft” in 1994. We have served more than 3000 participants in our retreats. All of these attendees would have treasured this BCCT resource. We will be actively promoting its use for those seeking help beyond conventional treatments and mainstream therapies. Dive into this website and immerse into in-depth trustworthy information on integrative oncology resources so needed in this world!

Leanna J. Standish, PhD, ND, LAc, FABNO, School of Naturopathic Medicine and Bastyr Integrative Oncology Research Center at Bastyr University and the School of Public Health at the University of Washington: Finally, patients and doctors have a reliable, up-to-date source of unbiased information about integrative and alternative cancer therapies. The web site is constantly evolving along with this rapidly changing field. Well done.

Toby Symington, Executive director, Lloyd Symington Foundation: For over three decades Michael Lerner has been one of the most influential figures in the field of integrative cancer care. As the executive director of the Lloyd Symington Foundation, I have had the privilege of collaborating with Michael for over 30 years on landmark conferences exploring the most innovative developments in integrative cancer care. For anyone seeking the best mix of allopathic and nonallopathic treatments, Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies is a godsend and an indispensable resource. Commonweal is all about service; for almost 40 years it has served the cancer community with sophisticated programs of the highest quality. BCCT is another superb contribution.

Debu Tripathy, MD, Chair of the Department of Breast Medical Oncology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center: There is no single source of information that can balance the science, art and mystery of cancer and reach for the depths of knowledge to help patients chart their unique path forward. Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies is an amazing synthesis of useful and difficult-to-find descriptions of treatments that span from conventional western to natural or indigenous treatments. The point of view is patient-centered. The language is clear, yet humble. Detailed, yet understandable. We are reminded that in nature, a clear answer is often elusive. Nevertheless, unbiased and factual information is presented in a way to help the patient, their family and friends and their care providers together compose an informed and personalized plan. I encourage all to explore this site, and please, provide feedback as this is a living resource.

Andrew Weil, MD, Founder, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine: Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies is a unique resource for people with cancer and for health professionals. I highly recommend BCCT as an invaluable source of useful information. In addition to honoring skillful use of conventional therapies, it offers objective evaluations of unconventional ones and of many natural products with purported health benefits. I find its analyses and advice to be balanced and thoughtful.

Kathy Komaroff Goodman, Founding Principal, Accord, New York City: I have witnessed my friends—and there have been far too many—sort out their course when given a cancer diagnosis. It has been, even for the most medically sophisticated and spiritually engaged, a somewhat pathless path with fingers crossed: conflicting advice, unpredictable potential hazards, and endless unvetted suggested approaches on random websites. The BCCT is a huge contribution and gives responsible support for patients and doctors. It allows all involved to be brave in the face of fear.

Jan Abruzzo, LCSW, New York City: Bravo! What a fabulous site! I was overwhelmed at first. But I was motivated. I figured out how to find the relevant entries. I go back to BCCT over and over again. Best to take BCCT in bite-size portions. An old friend asked for help for her friend in Japan with cancer. I went to BCCT and found exactly what I needed.