In another thread, RfM poster "SusieQ#1" asks:
"What is the value of praying?
"Facebook often has posts asking for people to pray for a variety of things usually concerning personal health issues, or the loss of a family member, or for a cause, etc.
"Are people really praying? And what does that mean?
"I've often wondered what praying to a deity is all about.
The older I become, the more I ask: WHY?
"Is there any scientific proof that pray can result in positive results? What if someone is praying for something horrible to happen?
"What are your personal experiences and thoughts on the subject of prayer?"
{"What is the Value of Praying"," by "SusieQ#1," on "Recovery from Mormonism" discussion board, 2 December 2016,
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1911465,1911465#msg-1911465)
It's best to place one's reliance on the evidence of science rather than on religion's feeble hope and a prayer. In other words, beware of urgings from other (no matter how sincere) to look up the Magical Heaven Request Line that supposedly offers productive praying in behalf of those who supposedly would benefit from it.
Let's bring it home:
For instance, for all you ex-TBMs here, can you say "Mormon Temple Prayer Circle," repeated three times, while standing around the secret altar as you clasp the hand and lean your elbow on shoulder of the that fellow participant next to you?
At least as an avowed atheist, I know the facts when I see them--or, in this case, when don't hear them.
I tried calling Atheist Dial-a-Prayer and nobody answered.
_____
Below is a scientific overview of the underwhelming claims of better healing through the wonder of heaven-appealing--covering an array of highly suspect claims from those who swear by prayer.
The following is from "Healing Prayer (HP) & Distant Healing (DH)," by Robert Todd Carroll, with subheads added for easier reading:
Part 1
A. Defining "Prayer" Terms
"'Healing' or 'intercessory prayer' is the expression used to describe the process of asking God, some spirit, or some mysterious “energy” to intervene and alter the natural course of some process affecting one’s own or another’s health.
B. Popularity of Prayer
"Praying for the recovery of the sick or injured is widely practiced. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), prayer is the most commonly used 'alternative medicine' in the U.S. According to a survey of more than 31,000 adults conducted as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2002 National Health Interview Survey. NIH considers prayer a 'mind-body therapy,' a category that also includes biofeedback, meditation, guided imagery, hypnosis and deep breathing exercises.
C. Government Research on the Various Purposes of Prayer
"From 2000-2004, the federal government contributed $2.3 million in financing for prayer research (Source: Carey). The NIH survey found that 55 percent of Americans have used 'prayer for health reasons,' 52 percent 'prayed for their own health,' 31 percent had asked others to pray for their health, 23 percent had prayed for health in a prayer group, and 5 percent had used a healing ritual (source: 'Washington Times').
D. Declining Popularity of Prayer
"Prayer may be on the decline, however. The National Institutes of Health reported in May 2004 that according to a survey about 43 percent of adults say they've used prayer for their own health (down 9 percent) and 24 percent said they prayed for the health of others. The later survey also found that prayer topped the list of most popular alternative therapies.
E. Prayer as the Initial Go-To Response to Illness or Accident
"Prayer is often a devout person's natural first reaction when learning that they, a family member, or a friend is ill or has been in an accident (source: 'Religious Tolerance').
F. Prayer as Another Form of Psychokinesis
"Our concern in this course is prayer as a type of psychokinesis (PK). Thus, we are not going to evaluate the scientific studies that are concerned with the effects of such practices as routine praying or meditating on the health and wellbeing of the individual practitioner. Our concern is only with those studies that have tried to determine whether praying for others has any effect on the health of those who are prayed for.
G. Problems with "Disant-Healing" and Psychokinesis Studies
"The history of distant healing studies shares much in common with the history of the PK studies. Many studies are too small to justify drawing conclusions from them; many are poorly designed or controlled; statistical formulas are misused; data have been massaged after the studies are completed; some of the studies have looked for correlations of prayer to so many factors that it was inevitable that they would find some statistically significant relations in their data just by chance (Texas sharpshooter fallacy); and replication has been a major problem. Nevertheless, several studies are worth examining to explore their methodologies and learn what, if anything, is known or is likely to be discovered by further research into distant healing.
H. Problematic Religious Claims that Intercessory Prayer is Effective
"It has been taught for centuries by clergy of many faiths that intercessory prayer works. Many people are convinced that their prayers have been answered. It seemed to some researchers that it would be a simple matter to set up an experiment and see if our intuitions match reality.
"However, certain problems immediately emerge: how do you measure a dose of prayer and how do you control for all those prayers people are praying for the whole world, for their friends, or for their family? Can you overdose on prayer? Is there such a thing as a fatal dose of prayer. The dose seems doomed to be rather subjective and there has to be some sort of assumption that cross-over prayers will cancel each other out. Also, it is assumed that prayer is never harmful. Is this assumption justified?
I. The Shortcomings of Prayer Studies
". . . [In] 1988, Dr. Randolph Byrd published the results of his double-blind randomized control study on healing prayer with cardiac patients. In his article, he mentions three previous scientific/medical studies on the efficacy of prayer: (1.) Francis Galton’s 1872 article 'Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer.' Galton looked at the effects of prayer in the clergy on British sovereigns and found no salutary effects.
He chose this subject because the Anglican clergy pray for their sovereigns on a daily basis.
"Unfortunately, Galton found: 'The sovereigns are literally the shortest lived of all who have the advantage of affluence. The prayer has therefore no efficacy, unless the very questionable hypothesis be raised, that the conditions of royal life may naturally be yet more fatal, and that their influence is partly, though incompletely, neutralised by the effects of public prayers.'
". . . In C.R. Joyce and R.M. Welldon’s 1965 study of rheumatics, the prayer group fared better in the first half, 'but in the second half the control group did better' (source: 'The Efficacy of Prayer: A Double-Blind Clinical Trial,' 'Journal of Chronic Disease,' 18:367-377, 1965).
". . . And in 1969, P. J. Collipp's findings regarding prayer and leukemia "did not reach significance" (source: 'The Efficacy of Prayer: A Triple Blind Study,' 'Medical Times,' 97:201-204, 1969). Pfrom Posner]
J. Byrd's Questionable Prayer Study
"It took Dr. [Randolph C.] Byrd, a cardiologist, five years to get his study published! 'Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population' was published in the 'Southern Medical Journal' (81, no. 7, pp. 826-829). Byrd claimed he had evidence that coronary patients benefited from blind, distant intercessory prayer.
"Byrd endeavored to answer these questions: (1) 'Does intercessory prayer (IP) to the Judeo-Christian God have any effect on a CCU patient’s medical condition and recovery?' (2) 'How are these effects manifested, if present?'
"The study took place between August 1982 and May 1983, when 393 patients signed informed consent papers upon admission to the San Francisco General Hospital CCU, and were entered into a double-blind, randomized study. (The remaining 57 patients admitted during this period cited various reasons for refusing to participate).
"A computer-generated list randomly assigned patients to either the IP or the control group, and neither they, nor the CCU doctors and staff, nor Randolph Byrd were aware of which patients were assigned to which group. (see Posner)
"Intercessors chosen to pray for the IP-group patients were '"born again" Christians (according to the Gospel of John 3:3) with an active Christian life, as manifested by daily devotional prayer and active Christian fellowship with a local church.' Each IP patient 'was assigned to three to seven intercessors. . . . The [IP] was done outside of the hospital daily until the patient was discharged . . . each intercessor was asked to pray daily for a rapid recovery and for prevention of complications and death.'
"The IP group consisted of 192 patients and the control group of 201. Analyses revealed no significant statistical differences between the health of the two groups upon admission. 'Thus it was concluded that the two groups were statistically inseparable and that results from the analysis of the effects of [IP] would be valid.' The mean age of the IP patients was two years younger than that of the control patients, a difference deemed statistically insignificant.
"The most striking flaw in this study's methodology is one forthrightly acknowledged by Byrd. 'It was assumed that some of the patients in both groups would be prayed for by people not associated with the study; this was not controlled for. . . . Therefore, 'pure' groups were not attained in this study.' In other words, the focus of the study - prayer - was 'not controlled for,' except that three to seven intercessors were assigned to pray daily for each patient in the IP group, and none was assigned to the controls. Thus, although unlikely, it is nevertheless theoretically possible that the control group received as many prayers as did the IP group, if not more. (Posner)
"So, the main thing being studied couldn’t be controlled for. Interesting. The good news:
"'[I]n the IP group, 5 percent fewer patients needed diuretics, 7 percent fewer needed antibiotics, 6 percent fewer needed respiratory intubation and/or ventilation, 6 percent fewer developed congestive heart failure, 5 percent fewer developed pneumonia, and 5 percent fewer suffered cardiopulmonary arrest.'
"The bad news:
"' . . . [N]o significant differences were found among the other twenty categories, including mortality, despite explicit prayers "for prevention of . . . death.'
"Byrd devised 26 categories and found significant positive differences in the IP group in 6 categories (23% of his categories). Seventy-seven percent of his categories found no improvement in the IP group. Was this just coincidence or does prayer work for some complications but not others?
"In any case, the Byrd study has not been replicated. One study that tried, the Harris study (see below), might seem to replicate Byrd’s findings, but we'll see that the Harris study was fatally flawed. Recently, Herbert Benson published the results of his randomized, double-blind study of the effects of healing prayer on cardiac patients (see below). He failed to find any significant difference in the IP group.
K. Unimpressive, Manipulated, Incomplete and Suppressed Distance-Healing Prayer Results on Patients with AIDS
". . . [In] 1998, [t]he Sicher/Targ et al. study [was conducted, entitled]: 'A Randomized Double-Blind Study of the Effect of Distant Healing in a Population With Advanced AIDS--Report of a Small Scale Study. (source: 'The 'Western Journal of Medicine.' December 1998. by Fred Sicher, Elisabeth Targ, Dan Moore II, and Helene S. Smith).
"It appears to be an extremely well-designed double-blind, controlled study. However, Sicher and his associates, at Targ’s urging, changed the goal of the study and had a statistician mine the data after it had been completed. The original goal was to see if prayer could lower the death rate for AIDS patients. Since only one of the patients in the study died, there was nothing to report on that count. The published study, however, claimed that the aim was to measure prayer against a long list of symptoms--along the lines of the Byrd and Harris studies. A researcher (Sicher) familiar with each participant's medical records went through the data after the original study was completed to determine which patients had which symptoms. It was a bit of a fluke that Sicher and Targ’s deception was exposed by Po Bronson in 'Wired' magazine.
"The 1998 study was designed to be a follow-up to a 1995 study of 20 patients with AIDS, 10 of whom were prayed for by psychic healers. Four of the patients died, a result consistent with chance, but all four were in the control group, a stat that appeared anomalous enough to these scientists to do further study.
"I don't know whether evidence was suppressed or whether the scientists doing the study were simply incompetent, but the four patients who died were the four oldest in the study. The 1995 study did not control for age when it assigned the patients to either the control or the healing prayer group. Any controlled study on mortality that does not control for age is by definition not a properly designed study.
"The follow-up study suppressed evidence, yet it is 'widely acknowledged as the most scientifically rigorous attempt ever to discover if prayer can heal' (source: Bronson 2002). The standard format for scientific reports is to begin with an abstract that summarizes the contents of the report. The 'Abstract' for the Sicher-Targ report notes that controls were done for age, number of AIDS-defining illnesses, and T-cell count. Patients were randomly assigned to the control or healing prayer groups.
"The study followed the patients for six months. 'At 6 months, a blind medical chart review found that treatment subjects acquired significantly fewer new AIDS-defining illnesses (0.1 versus 0.6 per patient, P = 0.04), had lower illness severity (severity score 0.8 versus 2.65, P = 0.03), and required significantly fewer doctor visits (9.2 versus 13.0, P = 0.01), fewer hospitalizations (0.15 versus 0.6, P = 0.04), and fewer days of hospitalization (0.5 versus 3.4, P = 0.04)." These numbers are very impressive. They indicate that the measured differences were not likely due to chance. Whether they were due to healing prayer (HP) is another matter, but the scientists conclude their abstract with the claim: "These data support the possibility of a DH effect in AIDS and suggest the value of further research.'
"Two years after the publication of these sensational-sounding results, Elisabeth Targ was granted $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to do two further studies on the healing effects of prayer. Both studies would involve 150 subjects. One was going to involve AIDS patients and the other was going to involve patients with brain cancer. Ironically, Targ died of glioblastoma (a rare form of brain tumor) in 2003, while studying the effects of distant prayer on glioblastoma patients and despite being one of the most prayed-for persons on the planet. (See 'A Magical Death,' by Phillips Stevens, Jr.)
"What the Sicher-Targ study didn't reveal was that the original study had not been designed to do any of the measurements they report as significant. Of course, any researcher who didn't report significant findings just because the original study hadn't set out to investigate them would be remiss. The standard format of a scientific report allows such findings to be noted in the Abstract or in the 'Discussion' section of the report. It would have been appropriate for the Sicher-Targ report to have noted in the 'Discussion' section that since only one patient died during their study, it appears that the new drugs being given AIDS patients as part of their standard therapy (triple-drug anti-retroviral therapy) were having a significant effect on longevity. They might even have suggested that their finding warranted further research into the effectiveness of the new drug therapy. However, in its introductory remarks, the Sicher-Targ report gives the impression that the researchers already knew the new drug therapy would work (making them clairvoyant!) and that is why they changed the design from the earlier pilot study.
"They now claim they never intended to replicate that study. Instead, they write:
"'[A]n important intervening medical factor changed the endpoint in the study design. The pilot study was conducted before the introduction of "triple-drug therapy" (simultaneous use of a protease inhibitor and at least two antiretroviral drugs), which has been shown to have a significant effect on mortality. [Here, they cite a study published in 1997, which is after their study was completed!] For the replication study (July 1996 through January 1997, shortly after widespread introduction of triple-drug therapy in San Francisco), differences in mortality were not expected and different endpoints were used in the study design. Based on results from the pilot study, we hypothesized that the DH treatment would be associated with 1) improved disease progression (fewer and less severe AIDS-defining diseases [ADDs] and improved [CD4.sup.+] level), 2) decreased medical utilization, and 3) improved psychological well-being.'
"The above description of why they changed the endpoint is grossly misleading. It was only after they mined the data once the study was completed that they came up with the suggestive and impressive statistics that they present in their published report. Under certain conditions, mining the data would be perfectly acceptable. For example, if the original study was designed to study the effectiveness of a drug on blood pressure but found that the experimental group had no significant decrease in blood pressure but did have a significant increase in HDL (the 'good' cholesterol), you would be remiss not to mention this. You would be guilty of deception, however, if you wrote your paper as if your original design was to study the effects of the drug on cholesterol and made no mention of blood pressure.
"So, it would have been entirely appropriate for the Sicher-Targ report to have noted in the Discussion section that they had discovered something interesting in their statistics: Hospital stays and doctor visits were lower for the HP group. It was inappropriate to write the report as if that was one of the effects the study was designed to measure when this effect was neither looked for nor discovered until Moore, the statistician for the study, began crunching numbers looking for something of statistical significance after the study was completed. Again, crunching numbers and data mining after a study is completed is appropriate; not mentioning that you rewrote your paper to make it look like it had been designed to crunch those numbers isn't.
"It would have been appropriate in the 'Discussion' section of their report to have speculated as to the reason for the statistically significant differences in hospitalizations and days of hospitalization. They could have speculated that prayer made all the difference and, if they were competent, they would have also noted that insurance coverage could make all the difference as well. 'Patients with health insurance tend to stay in hospitals longer than uninsured ones' (source: Bronson 2002). The researchers should have checked this out and reported their findings. Instead, they took a list of 23 illnesses associated with AIDS and had Sicher go back over each of the 40 patient medical charts and use them to collect the data for the 23 illnesses as best he could. This was after it was known to Sicher which group each patient had been randomly assigned to, prayer or control. The fact that the names were blacked out, so he could not immediately tell whose record he was reading, does not seem sufficient to justify allowing him to review the data. There were only 40 patients in the study and he was familiar with each of them. It would have been better had an independent party, someone not involved in the study, gone over the medical charts. Sicher is 'an ardent believer in distant healing' and he had put up $7,500 for the pilot study (ibid.) on prayer and mortality. His impartiality was clearly compromised. So was the double-blind quality of the study.
"In any case, this study also suffers from the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Of their list of 23 items, they found six that showed statistical significance. That means that there were 17 items prayer didn't affect. Sicher needs to explain why prayer is so fickle. . . .
"Healing Prayer (HP) & Distant Healing (DH)," Part 1, by
Robert Todd Carroll, 6 March 2008,
http://www.skepdic.com/essays/healingprayer1.html}
_____
Part 2
L. Non-Spectacular Results of Intercessory Prayer Results on Hospitalized Heart Patients
" . . . [In] 1999, [t]he 'Harris Study' [was published] (St. Luke’s Hospital), [entitled], 'A Randomized, Controlled Trial of the Effects of Remote, Intercessory Prayer on Outcomes in Patients Admitted to the Coronary Care Unit,' by William S. Harris, M.D. et al., [appearing]in 'The Archives of Internal Medicine' (Vol. 159 No. 19, October 25, 1999), a publication of the 'American Medical Association.' Harris was joined by four M.D.s, two Ph.D.s, one M.A., and one doctor of divinity in this peer-reviewed study.
"According to their report, there was no significant difference in time spent either in the hospital or in the coronary care unit for the experimental and control groups, yet the authors still managed to come up with a scoring system (what they call a 'CCU course score') that satisfied them that the group that was prayed for didn't suffer as much as the control group.
"The study took place at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, over a 12-month period. There were 466 patients in the experimental (prayer) group and 524 in the control (usual care) group. The patients were randomly assigned and the IP group was prayed for by five of randomly assigned (from a pool of 75) intercessors for 28 days. The prayer was to be for 'a speedy recovery with no complications' and anything else that seemed appropriate.' The intercessors knew only the first names of their subjects and had to believe in the efficacy of prayer, among other things.
"Despite the fact that the prayers were aimed at a speedy recovery with no complications, the authors did not consider the fact that there was no significant difference in either hospital or coronary care unit stay between the prayer and control groups to be that important. They concluded that 'prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care.'
"The authors claimed that 'it was anticipated that the effect of prayer was unlikely to be evident in any specific clinical outcome category (e.g., the need for antibiotics, the development of pneumonia, or the extension of infarction), but would only be seen in some type of global score.' Why a specific outcome, like length of time in the hospital or death, was considered irrelevant is unclear, especially since measuring specific outcomes was in their original proposal. They do admit that the CCU score they devised was 'intuitive' and 'has not been validated.'
"The authors write:
"'Since the score itself is only an estimate of overall CCU course, there is no known way to ascribe a clinical significance to it, other than to say that as a group, the patients in the prayer group "did 10% better." The score should be viewed only as a summary statistic designed to detect the impact of a mild global intervention on overall health in large groups, not in individual patients.'
"Perhaps the authors should have concluded: 'Study Shows Prayer Does No Harm!'
"'It's a weak measure,' said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia who has been critical of prayer research. 'You're collecting 30 or 40 variables but can't even specify up front which ones' will be affected. (Carey).
“'Dr. Harris corrected for this problem, experts say, but he then found significant differences between prayer and no-prayer groups only by using a formula that he and his colleagues had devised, and that no one else had ever validated.] (Carey).
M. Spurious Claims that Prayer Enhances Success of In-Vitrio Fertilization
" . . . [In] 2001. [t]he Columbia University fertility study [was published in] 'The Journal of Reproductive Medicine Online' (vol 46. no. 9, September 2001) [and] featured an article called 'Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization–Embryo Transfer? Report of a Masked, Randomized Trial,' by Kwang Y. Cha, M.D., Daniel P. Wirth, J.D., M.S., and Rogerio A. Lobo, M.D.
"The answer to the question in their report’s title, say the authors, is 'yes, quite a bit.' For example, 'The IP [intercessory prayer] group had a higher pregnancy rate as compared to the no-IP rate (50% vs. 26%, P=.0013).'
"This study has been plagued with problems since its publication. Dr. Kwang-Yul Cha has a company that owns fertility clinics and a large hospital in Seoul, Korea. Wirth is in federal prison for fraud and Lobo admits he didn't participate in the study.
"The researchers went to quite a bit of trouble to do their controlled, double-blind experiment. They even had the ones doing the praying in a different country from those getting the in-vitro fertilization. They even had people praying for the success of the people praying for the women in the IP group!
"(One thing they didn't do, however, was define 'prayer' or explain how it might influence anything in the universe, much less the outcome of their little experiment. Nor did they address an even more serious issue: If prayer works by influencing God to influence the outcome of an experiment, then God can interfere with the laws of nature at any time. If God can interfere with the laws of nature at any time, then no controlled, double-blind study can be sure of the meaning of whatever outcome results. Any result could be the result of direct influence by God. In other words, the assumption the study is based on is self-defeating. No science at all would be possible if God could be interfering with the laws of nature at will. Science requires a backdrop of lawfulness in nature in order to discover any causal connection between anything and anything else).
"Here is what the authors say about the prayers: 'All prayer participants in this study were of various Christian denominations. There were two tiers of prayer groups. Tiers 1 and 2 each consisted of four blocks of prayer participants (A–D). Most intercessors were known by one of the authors (D.P.W.), and others were referred by known intercessors. Within each block (A–D), intercessors knew each other. Prayer participants in tier 1 prayed in a directed manner with a specific intent to increase the pregnancy rate of the patients. Tier 2 prayer participants prayed in a directed manner for tier 1 prayer participants with the intent to increase their prayer efficacy.'
The patients were 219 women aged 26–46 years who were consecutively treated with IVF-ET over a four-month period. [50 (23% of the original pool) were eliminated for various reasons, 20 due to "fragmentary e-mail transmission," which is not explained.] Randomization was performed after stratification of variables in two groups: distant IP [88] vs. no IP [81]. The authors concluded that “we view these data to be preliminary and that they may not be confirmed in future investigations.” So far, nobody has tried to replicate the study.
"In any case, on June 14, 2004, 'The Journal of Reproductive Medicine' withdrew the study from its website. On May 30, 2004, it was reported that one of the study's authors is 'a conman obsessed with the paranormal who has admitted to a multi-million-dollar scam. Daniel Wirth pleaded guilty to conspiracy in connection with a $2 million business fraud in Pennsylvania. [He was sent to federal prison.] Wirth has used a series of false identities for several decades, including that of a dead child.' According to 'The Observer,' 'Wirth is at the center of a network of bizarre scientific research.'
"Dr. Bruce Flamm of the University of California commented that he is 'concerned this study could be totally fraudulent.' Flamm has been publicly criticizing the fertility prayer article since its publication.
"Wirth has a law degree and a master’s in parapsychology from John F. Kennedy University, but has no medical qualifications. He has co-authored numerous pieces of research claiming to prove paranormal activities. He headed something called 'Healing Sciences Research International,' which appears to have been nothing but a mailing address.
"Dale Beyerstein of the University of British Columbia has been investigating the work of Wirth and his frequent partner in crime, Joseph Horvath, for several years. He likens them to a pair of conmen.
"'The Observer' reports that shortly after the prayer and fertility study was published, the Department of Health began an investigation into Columbia University's research. 'It found numerous ethical problems.' After Wirth was indicted, Dr. Lobo of Columbia University, a respected scientist who was named initially as the lead author of the research, announced that he had provided only 'editorial review and assistance with publication.' He asked that his name be removed from the study. Lobo's lab was not involved in the study in any way and his name never should have been on the paper.
"Nevertheless, 'No evidence of manipulation has yet surfaced, and the study's authors stand behind their data' (Carey). Still suspicions remain. Wirth was the one who provided Dr. Kwang Cha, a Korean fertility specialist, with 'a roster of the women he said had been prayed for' when they met at a Starbucks on the Upper West Side. Allegedly, Wirth had not seen Cha’s pregnancy results yet. Lobo’s name was added to the study, though he admits he made no contribution to it and received it as a 'fait accompli.' Lobo admits the data could have been manipulated but he says he doesn’t see how (Carey).
N. Bogus, Data-Mined< Magic Thought-Driven and Unimpressive Studies per Prayer's Supposed Effects on Coronary Instability
" . . . [In] 2001. [t]he MANTRA studies [were published'. 'MANTR' I,' Mitch Krucoff et al. 'Integrative Noetic Therapies as Adjuncts to Percutaneous Intervention During Unstable Coronary Syndromes: The Monitoring & Actualization of Noetic Trainings (MANTRA) Feasibility Pilot,' American Heart Journal, 2001; 142:760-769.
"This study was to examine the feasibility of applying 4 noetic therapies—stress relaxation, imagery, touch therapy, and prayer—to patients in the setting of acute coronary interventions. Eligible patients had acute coronary syndromes and invasive angiography or PCI [percutaneous coronary intervention]. Patients were randomized across 5 treatment groups: the 4 noetic and standard therapies. Questionnaires completed before PCI reflected patients' religious beliefs and anxiety. Index hospitalization end points included post-PCI ischemia, death, myocardial infarction, heart failure, and urgent revascularization. Mortality was followed up for 6 months after hospitalization.
"Of eligible patients, 88 percent gave informed consent. Of 150 patients enrolled, 120 were assigned to noetic therapy; 118 (98 percent) completed their therapeutic assignments. Results were not statistically significant for any outcome comparisons. All mortality by 6-month follow-up was in the noetic therapies group.
"Another experiment led by Krucoff, a cardiologist, was billed as 'the world’s largest study into the effects of prayer on patients undergoing heart surgery. . .. ' It involved 750 angioplasty patients in nine hospitals who were randomly divided into two groups of 375. Both groups were given normal medical treatment.
"One of the groups was prayed for by 12 groups who followed various religions: Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam. They were alerted by e-mail as soon as possible after the patient was enrolled in the trial. This was a double blind study; none of the hospital staff, or the patients, or the patients' relatives were aware of which 375 patients were receiving prayer. The patients were studied for six months to see how they progressed. The data showed no difference in outcome between the two groups. Prayer neither helped nor hindered their recovery. (source: 'Religious Tolerance' and 'BBC News')
"'MANTRA II,' July 2005, [was] a study . . . published in 'The Lancet,' a respected medical journal in the UK. The research team was led by Krucoff of the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina. The study followed 748 patients either having a thin tube inserted through an artery to the heart to check for blockage or a procedure to clear a blocked artery.
"Patients were divided into four groups: 192 received just the standard care, 182 were assigned prayer, 185 got bedside music, imagery and touch (MIT therapy), and 189 prayer and MIT therapy. There was no significant difference between the four treatment groups when comparing clinical outcomes. Prayers, as well as music, imagery and touch therapies, were started before the patients had their procedures done.
"Patients receiving MIT therapy were taught how to relax their breathing and told to imagine a beautiful, peaceful place while listening to either classical, easy listening or country music. The therapist then applied 21 'healing touch' hand positions, each for 45 seconds. The patient could then wear headphones with musical background during the heart procedure.
"A little data mining permitted the researchers to claim that MIT therapy appeared to cut the rate of death six months after the procedure. It was also associated with significantly less 'pre-procedural distress,' the authors said. It's not clear whether this is because of the 'presence of a compassionate human being at the bedside' or the therapy, the study said. Another alternative is that the statistic might be a fluke.
"During the first two years of the study, the name, age, and illness of each patient assigned prayer therapy was given to each of 12 prayer groups. The prayer groups chose their own prayers, and prayed for their assigned patients for 5 days to 30 days. Patients were not told that people were praying for them.
"In the third and final year of the study, an additional 12 prayer groups were added and asked to pray for the prayers of the original 12 groups, which researchers described in the study as 'high-dose' praying. Skeptics might describe it as high-dose magical thinking.
"In short, the prayers of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist groups failed to reduce serious medical complications of patients undergoing heart procedures. Patients being prayed for were as likely as others to develop complications such as heart attacks, be readmitted to hospital, or die. MIT therapy didn't have a significant effect, either.
"Although the study showed no therapeutic effect of prayer, the researchers refuse to give up hope. In what sounds like little more than wishful thinking and a refusal to admit the ineffectiveness of healing prayer, the authors boldly claimed that 'secondary analyses can be useful for hypothesis generation to guide future trials.' In other words, this study failed to find anything of interest but you should still give us money to do more of the same.
"Others were quick to come up with the familiar ad hoc hypothesis that prayer works only if you have faith. If you didn’t get better from prayers it was because you didn’t believe strongly enough. '"The power of praying lies more with the receiver," said Lars-Vilhelm Palle, a priest at Borbjerg Church in the north of Denmark."If he doesn't believe, then the praying is less likely to work. Faith can definitely give you extra strength to help fight a disease." Fr. Palle’s belief, however, seems to be based on nothing more than blind faith or faith in the placebo effect.'
"'The Lancet' apparently is willing to expand the boundaries of science to anything of interest to people. 'The contribution that hope and belief make to a personal understanding of illness cannot be dismissed so lightly,' 'The Lancet' said in an editorial accompanying the publication of the Krukoff et al. study. 'They are proper subjects for science, even while transcending its known bounds.'
"However, since the sick people didn’t know they were being prayed for, the only thing hope and belief might affect here are the ones doing the study. They hope for a good result and believe that even if they don’t get one, they should be applauded and encouraged to continue their research.
O. Flimsy Proof of Positive Pravery Effects on Cardiac Bypass Patients
" . .. [In] 2006. [t]he [Herbert] Benson Study [was published, entitled]. 'Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in Cardiac Bypass Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Trial of Uncertainty and Certainty of Receiving Intercessory Prayer," by Herbert Benson et al., 'American Heart Journal,' April;151(4):934-42.
"Abstract
"Background
"'Intercessory prayer is widely believed to influence recovery from illness, but claims of benefits are not supported by well-controlled clinical trials. Prior studies have not addressed whether prayer itself or knowledge/certainty that prayer is being provided may influence outcome.
"'We evaluated whether (1) receiving intercessory prayer or (2) being certain of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with uncomplicated recovery after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. [The bold indicates an area of study to see if the “relaxation effect”—the supposed effect that comes from praying and praying for oneself--but the group that knew people were praying for them fared no better than the other two groups. In other words, they found no evidence for the relaxation effect when patients knew others were praying for them].
"Methods
"'Patients at six US hospitals were randomly assigned to one of three groups: 604 received intercessory prayer after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer; 597 did not receive intercessory prayer also after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer; and 601 received intercessory prayer after being informed they would receive prayer. Intercessory prayer was provided for 14 days, starting the night before CABG surgery. The primary outcome was presence of any complication within 30 days of CABG surgery. Secondary outcomes were any major event and mortality.'
"Results
"'In the two groups uncertain about receiving intercessory prayer, complications occurred in 52 percent (315/604) of patients who received intercessory prayer versus 51% (304/597) of those who did not (relative risk 1.02, 95 percent CI 0.92-1.15). Complications occurred in 59 percent (352/601) of patients certain of receiving intercessory prayer compared with the 52 percent (315/604) of those uncertain of receiving intercessory prayer (relative risk 1.14, 95 percent CI 1.02-1.28). Major events and 30-day mortality were similar across the three groups.'
"Conclusions
"Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on complication-free recovery from CABG surgery. Certainty of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with a higher incidence of complications but this was probably a statistical fluke.'
"Dr. Benson acknowledged that at least two medical journals had turned down the study after asking for revisions. (Carey).
"'Comment: [T]his study suffers from the same problem that all such studies suffer from: there is no way to control who, among all those people who are praying but are not involved in the study, is praying for the patients. It’s possible, for example, that those who are praying for every sick person in the world are having an effect that can’t be measured. Perhaps all the people in this study would have fared worse had these generic prayers not been said! Perhaps by chance the people in the control group had extra people praying for them and had they not been praying the control group might have fared worse than the IP group! Or, perhaps the IP group had more extra people praying for them but the control group had an equal number of people praying that they would not recover and their prayers were answered by a different god than the one who answered the IP group intercessors’ prayers!'
P. Conclusion on the Alleged Legitimacy of Healing Prayer Research
"Criticisms of the Healing Prayer Studies
"Even those who defend prayer research concede that such studies are difficult. For one thing, no one knows what constitutes a 'dose':Some studies have tested a few prayers a day by individual healers, while others have had entire congregations pray together. Some have involved evangelical Christians; others have engaged rabbis, Buddhists and New Age healers, or some combination.
"Another problem concerns the mechanism by which prayer might be supposed to work. Some researchers contend that prayer's effects--if they exist--have little to do with religion or the existence of God. Instead of divine intervention, they propose things like 'subtle energies,' 'mind-to-mind communication,' or 'extra dimensions of space-time'--concepts that most scientists dismiss as nonsense. (Carey).
"Another problem is the same one we’ve seen with the ESP and PK experiments: [R]esearchers assume that 'not due to chance' is logically equivalent to 'my hypothesis is supported.' As with the psi studies, there is no known mechanism by which HP might occur and as with them, if HP were really occurring then no controlled study would be possible. There would be no way to control for the effects of supernatural or paranormal interference in any study.
"Finally, it would be really interesting if the prayers of one group seemed to work against the prayers of all other groups. Maybe then we would know who the true God is. Perhaps we should have a worldwide prayer study, pitting all religions and energy healers against one another, to determine the true religion. I think such a contest would make a great reality TV show."
("Healing Prayer & Distant Healing," Part 2, by
Robert Todd Carroll, 6 March 2008,
http://www.skepdic.com/essays/healingprayer2.html)
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Closing Prayerless Thought
If prayer truly heals, then why don't life insurance companies provide reduced premiums to religious people who pray? . . . After all, you'd think that the insurance industry would encourage folks to engage in a healthy prayer lifestyle by lowering premiums for those who get better or who preventively stay better through praying to God--if for no other reason that it would lower industry pay-outs for coverage of prayer-avoidable medical expenses.
"Hey! Pray! Then we don't have to pay!"
What a concept. So, why don't insurance companies do that? They must know something that prayer's believers refuse to accept:
Prayers don't work.
In the name of science, a big non-amen.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2016 04:43AM by steve benson.