About |
Best Answer For Cancer is a 501C3 to improve the quality of life and treatment of cancer patients with a holistic platform, targeted cancer therapies, and a patient-centered approach. Best Answer for Cancer Foundation (BAFC) believes the best standard of cancer care is one that provides the best quality of life during treatment and the best outlook for a long, vital life.
Our vision is a world where the patient comes first – where cancer treatment is patient-centered as opposed to physician-centered. Where the whole person is considered and not just the tumor. Where the phrase ‘first do no harms’ is taken literally and so the first step in cancer treatment is to target just the cancer and not the patient. The treatment should not be worse than the disease.
We are a hybrid organization of doctors and patients working to shift the cancer paradigm from a one-size-fits-all disease-based approach to a patient-centered, integrative medical approach. We support integrative oncology that addresses the disease while considering the uniqueness of each patient. We wish to empower physicians and patients to adopt the newer, more successful paradigm. We believe the best answer for cancer is an approach that destroys the cancer while enhancing the overall health of the patient.
Most of those who collaborate with BAFC are themselves cancer survivors. Life has shown us what survivors have in common and how to thrive while surviving. We, and the doctors who work with us, are dedicated to making the “cancer experience” a positive passage in your life. We help patients with information about targeted and integrative treatments, fundraising for expenses, building their support network using the Patient/Survivor Center, and information about how to strengthen their immune systems and vital body organs in order to experience “thriving while surviving.”
The physician membership arm of BAFC includes our annual conferences and the International Organization of Integrative Cancer Physicians (IOICP) through which members share and access information with doctors around the world.
Rachel Best and Annie Brandt did not know each other in 2004, but they had something big in common. They both had cancer and they both decided that they were not going to use conventional treatment, due to their mutual desire to maintain a high quality-of-life while killing the cancer. Rachel had a recurrence of ovarian cancer and Annie had advanced-stage metastatic breast cancer. According to the conventional doctors, neither one of them had a good prognosis.
Even though they were located a half country apart – Rachel in San Diego, CA, and Annie in Austin, TX – they followed the same path. Both of them employed integrative techniques, and both chose Insulin Potentiation Targeted Low Dose (IPTLD) as their targeted cancer therapy. The two women met, and began to collaborate on the creation of a foundation. In October 2004, Rachel filed the documents with the National Heritage Foundation to create the project called The Elka Best Foundation, named after her mother, who died of breast cancer in 1980.
In March of 2006, Rachel died from an infection she caught in the hospital as the result of a routine operation. Annie Brandt took over as Executive Director and set about founding a formal 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization called Best Answer for Cancer Foundation (BAFC).
In 2011, BAFC was accepted into the Integrative Medicine Consortium (IMC). Its vision is to make integrative medicine the standard of care. Through annual conferences, BAFC educates 300+ physicians, nurses, and staff to provide the latest integrative cancer therapies to improve patient outcomes and care.