New study shows that prayer doesn't do dick for CABG patients

[eauclaireliberal]

Largest Study of Prayer to Date Finds It Has No Power to Heal>

By Denise Gellene and Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writers
March 31, 2006

The largest study yet on the therapeutic power of prayer by strangers has found that it provided no benefit to the recovery of patients who had undergone cardiac bypass surgery.

In an unexpected twist, patients who knew prayers were being said for them had more complications after surgery than those who did not know, researchers reported Thursday.

The complications were minor, and doctors surmised that they could have been caused by the increased stress on patients worried that their conditions were so bad they needed prayers.

Father Dean Marek, a Catholic priest who was involved in the research, said he wasn't surprised by the results.

"I am always a little leery about intercessory prayer," said Marek, director of chaplain services at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "What we have in mind for someone else may not be what they have in mind for themselves…. It is clearly manipulative of divine action and personal choice."

Dr. Herbert Benson, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and one of the study's lead researchers, added: "Nothing this study has produced should interfere with people praying for each other."

Some scientists hoped the results of the $2.5-million study, conducted at six U.S. medical centers, would bring an end to the long controversy over therapeutic prayer.

"There have now been two big studies, with hundreds and hundreds of patients, that show no effect," said Dr. Harold G. Koenig, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University. "Let's move on now and direct our money somewhere else."

[onehandle]

1. Three day old news. nt

[pitohui]

3. well 3 millennia old news

if you ever had try it in a desperate situation

god can't be arsed to exist, he has abandoned us, pictures at 11

[BlooInBloo]

2. The only power prayer has....

... is the power to embarrass people who were stupid or gullible enough to believe that talking, thinking, and clasping hands together could heal.

Only in America do such idiotic ideas get funded study....

[Canuckistanian]

4. Methinks Dr. Koenig had to be "persuaded" to do this study

What a waste of resources.

[Xeric]

5. WHAT?!?!?

You mean that prayer DOESN'T WORK?
You mean that asking for stuff from our benevolent creator who lives in the sky DOES NOTHING!?
HOW COULD THIS BE?
I would never have imagined this in a million years.
After all, so many people, including our great President and wonderful Christians like Tom Delay and Pat Robertson have PROMISED ME that whatever I asked for would be granted. WOULD THEY LIE?
IT'S IN THE EFFIN BIBLE FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! Something about "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."
YOU MEAN IT'S NOT LITERALLY TRUE? WHY IF THAT'S THE CASE THEN MAYBE THE REST OF IT ISN'T TRUE!
OH NOES!
Next you'll be telling me that ANGELS aren't REAL and THERE'S NO SUCH BEING AS SATAN to blame my troubles on, or that MIRACLES DON'T REALLY HAPPEN!
ALL OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION MAY COLLAPSE!
Oh this must be the END TIMES for sure!
DAMN YOU SCIENCE!

[tularetom]

6. That's not what the fundie pastor on "The Sopranos" says

He also said man and dinosaurs were walking on the earth at the same time and evolution was the work of the devil. Hesh and his daughter had a discussion as to whether evangelicals were really friends of Jews. I think whoever writes the show lurks or posts on DU>