Remember the intercessory prayer study of pregnancy rates in women being
treated with in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer?
jreprodmed.comjrm1137.htmOpen ↗
spiritualityhealth.comitem 4020.htmlOpen ↗
E-Skeptic has an article about it.
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E-Skeptic #21 For May 25, 2004
Copyright 2004 Michael Shermer, Skeptics Society, Skeptic
magazine, e-Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com and
<[email hidden]>😉. Permission to print, distribute, and
post with proper citation and acknowledgment. We encourage
you to broadcast e-Skeptic to new potential subscribers.
www.skeptic.com: Where Nothing is Certain...But We're Not
Sure About That...
[snip]
Prayer Study Flawed and Fraud Columbia University prayer
study author pleads guilty to felony charges
This important report from Skeptic Bruce L. Flamm, MD,
Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University
of California, Irvine, [email hidden]
In the horrible days following the destruction of the World
Trade Center by Islamic zealots many Americans prayed for a
miracle or a sign from God. Such a miracle apparently
occurred and was widely documented in newspaper and magazine
articles. On October 2, 2001 the New York Times reported
that researchers at prestigious Columbia University in New
York found that infertile women who were prayed for became
pregnant twice as often as those who did not have people
praying for them. The study's results were absolutely
miraculous. In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is the most
advanced form of infertility treatment currently available
and represents the last hope for women with severe
infertility. Therefore, any technique that could increase
the efficacy of IVF by even a few percent would be a medical
breakthrough. Yet the Columbia University study claimed to
have demonstrated, in a carefully designed randomized
controlled trial, that distant prayer by anonymous prayer
groups increased the suc
The following facts related to the Columbia University
prayer study confirm that those physicians who doubted the
study's astounding results had extremely good reasons to be
skeptical. It will be interesting to see if ABC's Dr.
Johnson, a medical doctor who also serves as an evangelical
minister at the fundamentalist Community Covenant Church in
West Peabody, Massachusetts, will report or ignore the
following shocking information.
The study's three authors were Kwang Cha, Rogerio Lobo, and
Daniel Wirth.
Dr.Cha, has left Columbia University and refuses to return
phone calls or letters about the report. Dr. Rogerio
Lobo, identified by the New York Times and ABC News as
the report's lead author, now claims to have not been
involved with the study until after its completion and to
have provided only, "editorial assistance". Dr. Lobo also
refuses to return phone calls or letters about the study.
If the report's lead author did not conduct the
international prayer study, who did'
The remaining author is a mysterious individual known as
Daniel Wirth. Mr. Wirth has no medical degree but does have
a long history of publishing studies on mysterious
supernatural or paranormal phenomena. Many of these studies
originated from an entity called, "Healing Sciences Research
International" an organization that Mr. Wirth supposedly
headed. This entity's only known address was apparently a
Post Office Box in Orinda California. Wirth holds an MS
degree is in the dubious field of "parapsychology" and also
has a law degree.
In October 2002, Mr. Wirth, along with his former research
associate Joseph Horvath also known as Joseph Hessler, was
indicted by a federal grand jury. Both men were charged with
bilking the troubled cable television provider Adelphia
Communications Corporation out of $2.1 million by
infiltrating the company, then having it pay for
unauthorized consulting work. Police investigators
discovered that Wirth is also known as John Wayne Truelove.
FBI investigators revealed that Wirth first used the name of
Truelove, a New York child who died at age 5 in 1959, to
obtain a passport in the mid-1980's. Wirth and his
accomplice were charged with 13 counts of mail fraud, 12
counts of interstate transportation of stolen money, making
false statements on loan applications and five other counts
of fraud. The federal grand jury concluded that the
relationship between Wirth and Horvath extended back more
than 20 years and involved more than $3.4 million in income
and property obtained by using the na
Incredibly, at the time of the indictment, Horvath was
already in jail charged with arson for burning down his
Pennsylvania house to collect insurance money. The FBI
investigation revealed that Horvath had previously gone to
prison after being convicted in a 1990 embezzlement and
false identity case in California. Interestingly, the
investigation also revealed that he had also once been
arrested for posing as a doctor in California. It appears
that the "doctor" who performed biopsies on human research
subjects in Wirth's paranormal healing studies may have
actually been Mr. Horvath impersonating a doctor. Horvath
was a co-author on another of Wirth's bizarre studies in
which salamander limbs were amputated and found to grow
back more quickly when "healers" waived their hands over
the wounds.
Both Wirth and Horvath initially plead innocent to the
felony charges and over the next 18 months their trial was
delayed six times. However, on May 18, 2004, just as the
criminal trial of the United States v. Wirth & Horvath was
finally about to begin, both men pled guilty to conspiracy
to commit mail fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
Apparently a plea bargain had been made and many of the
charges had been dropped. Wirth and Horvath will be
sentenced in September and they each face a maximum of five
years in federal prison.
In summary, one of the authors of the Columbia University
prayer study has left the University and refuses to comment,
another now claims to have not actually participated in the
study and also refuses to comment, and another is on his way
to federal prison for fraud. Fraud is the operative word
here. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this entire
sordid saga can be summed up in one question: How did a
bizarre study claiming supernatural results end up in a peer-
reviewed medical journal? We may never know because the
editors of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine also refuse
to answer calls or respond to letters about this study.
Worse yet, the entire study remains posted on their internet
site and the public has been given no reason to doubt its
validity. It must be emphasized that, in the entire history
of modern science, no claim of any type of supernatural
phenomena has ever been replicated under controlled
conditions. The importance of this fact can not be over
emphasized.
In reality, the Columbia University prayer study was based
on a bewildering study design and included many sources of
error. I have already summarized many of the study's
potential flaws in two critiques published in the Scientific
Review of Alternative Medicine. But worse than flaws, in
light of all of the shocking information presented above,
one must consider the sad possibility that the Columbia
prayer study may never have been conducted at all. It
remains to be seen if the news media will find the above
information to be newsworthy.
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