The Nation - News from Jan. 23, 1989

Hospitalized heart patients had slightly fewer medical complications when other people prayed for their recovery, according to a new study summarized in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. The complete study was published in July in the Southern Medical Journal. Dr. John Thomison, the SMA’s editor, said he would like further studies confirming the intriguing results, but, in the meantime, he sees prayer as “about as benign a form of treatment as there is. There is no danger whatsoever.” Thomison said he published the peer-reviewed study because it met his standards as a properly designed and executed scientific investigation in which patients appeared to be helped. None of the patients who were prayed for needed tubes inserted for breathing or feeding, compared to 12 patients, or 6% of the control group. Two in the prayer group needed antibiotics, versus nine in the control group.