Remote Prayer Report Misrepresented its Data

November 19, 2002

Remote prayer report misrepresented its data. Wired Magazine has uncovered evidence that data used to obtain two federal research grants totaling $1.5 million were represented as positive even though they were not. [Bronson P. A prayer before dying. Wired Magazine, Dec 2002] http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/prayer.html The research, done by the late Elisabeth Targ, M.D. and colleagues, involved 40 patients with advanced AIDS who were randomly selected for either "distant healing" or a control group. The "healers," many of whom were located thousands of miles away, performed various prayer-based ministrations after receiving photographs of the patients. After six months, the researchers concluded that the subjects who were not prayed for had spent 6 times as many days in the hospital and contracted 3 times as many AIDS-related illnesses. [Sicher F, Targ E, and others A randomized double-blind study of the effect of distant healing in a population with advanced AIDS. Report of a small scale study. Western Journal of Medicine 169:356-363, 1998] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?db=m&form=6&dopt=r&uid=9 866433 The researchers subsequently were funded by the NIH Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to conduct two 150-patient trials -- one on brain cancer, and the other to redo the AIDS study.

Wired Magazine has reported that the study was "unblinded and then reblinded to scour for data that confirmed the thesis" and that the journal editors did not know this fact when they decided to publish. The study was designed to measure death rates. When the data showed no difference between the prayer and control groups, the researchers conducted a chart review that was not properly blinded, looked for other differences, and reported that several were statistically significant. This analysis was improper because when many endpoints are examined, the odds of finding a few that appear significant are much higher than the odds of a single endpoint selected in advance proving significant. Wired referred to this as "the sharpshooter's fallacy -- spraying bullets randomly, then drawing a target circle around a cluster" and calling it significant.

Elisabeth Targ, a lifetime believer in parapsychology, was the daughter of Russell Targ, a prominent parapsychologist who believed that some people could view objects at great distances through psychic means, a practice referred to as "remote viewing." In April 2002, Elisabeth was diagnosed as having an incurable glioblastoma multiforme, the very same brain tumor that her remote healing research would study. She died four months later despite the efforts of "healers" and other believers worldwide who prayed for her.

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	November 19, 2002 Remote prayer report misrepresented its data. Wired Magazine has uncovered evidence that data used to obtain two federal research grants totaling $1.5 million were represented as positive even though they were not. [Bronson P. A prayer before dying. Wired Magazine, Dec 2002] http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/prayer.html The research, done by the late Elisabeth Targ, M.D. and colleagues, involved 40 patients with advanced AIDS who were randomly selected for either "distant healing" or a control group. The "healers," many of whom were located thousands of miles away, performed various prayer-based ministrations after receiving photographs of the patients. After six months, the researchers concluded that the subjects who were not prayed for had spent 6 times as many days in the hospital and contracted 3 times as many AIDS-related illnesses. [Sicher F, Targ E, and others A randomized double-blind study of the effect of distant healing in a population with advanced AIDS. Report of a small scale study. Western Journal of Medicine 169:356-363, 1998] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?db=m&form=6&dopt=r&uid=9 866433 The researchers subsequently were funded by the NIH Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to conduct two 150-patient trials -- one on brain cancer, and the other to redo the AIDS study. Wired Magazine has reported that the study was "unblinded and then reblinded to scour for data that confirmed the thesis" and that the journal editors did not know this fact when they decided to publish. The study was designed to measure death rates. When the data showed no difference between the prayer and control groups, the researchers conducted a chart review that was not properly blinded, looked for other differences, and reported that several were statistically significant. This analysis was improper because when many endpoints are examined, the odds of finding a few that appear significant are much higher than the odds of a single endpoint selected in advance proving significant. Wired referred to this as "the sharpshooter's fallacy -- spraying bullets randomly, then drawing a target circle around a cluster" and calling it significant. Elisabeth Targ, a lifetime believer in parapsychology, was the daughter of Russell Targ, a prominent parapsychologist who believed that some people could view objects at great distances through psychic means, a practice referred to as "remote viewing." In April 2002, Elisabeth was diagnosed as having an incurable glioblastoma multiforme, the very same brain tumor that her remote healing research would study. She died four months later despite the efforts of "healers" and other believers worldwide who prayed for her.