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Lumifer comments on How could one (and should one) convert someone from pseudoscience? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Are there any practical consequences of these beliefs? As long as they are not telling cancer patients to skip the therapy and think happy, I don't see any harm. Trying to fix other people's beliefs just because you don't like them seems to be... not a terribly productive thing to do.
Have you looked at a TV screen recently..?
If they really believe that that's the best thing for cancer patients to do, then there's a very real chance that they will do that (or, if the cancer is their own, just skip the therapy themselves). There may be value in trying to improve their thinking in advance, because once they or someone close to them actually has cancer it may be too late. (Because people don't usually make radical changes in their thinking quickly.)
Whether that outweighs the other factors here, I don't know. Especially given how reluctantly people change their minds.
Define "very real". I don't think it's a serious threat -- in such situations a stern talking-to from a doctor is usually more than sufficient. To stick to one's guns in the face of opposition from the mainstream and the authority figures (like doctors) requires considerably more arrogance and intestinal fortitude than most people have. Fanatics, thankfully, are rare.
I'm not sure what country you live in, but from a relative of mine who works in a cancer treatment centre, there are a fairly large number of patients who eschew treatment in favor of herbal remedies for instance. They eventually get treatment when said remedies don't work but the cancer would have gotten worse by then. It's partly false beliefs, wishful thinking or just avoidance of the issue. Do very many people really believe that a herbal treatment is going to cure cancer and the whole medical community is stupid? No, but for many people it gives them enough to pretend that everything is going to be okay and they don't have to worry.
I hope you're right.
Thinking that it's possible for some people to cure cancer via thought does in no way imply that all people who try succeed in that way. The traditional response of a person with a cancer diagnosis is to all things that promise help. Additional beliefs are needed to advice people against mainstream interventions.
Telling the person with cancer to think happy thoughts isn't harmful. It can have positive placebo effects.