Does prayer influence the success of in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer? Report of a masked, randomized trial.
Cha KY, Wirth DP.
Cha Hospital, Seoul, South Korea.
OBJECTIVE: To assess the potential effect of intercessory prayer (IP) on pregnancy rates in women being treated with in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET). STUDY DESIGN: Prospective, double-blind, randomized clinical trial in which patients and providers were not informed about the intervention. Statisticians and investigators were masked until all the data had been collected and clinical outcomes were known. The setting was an IVF-ET program at Cha Hospital, Seoul, Korea. IP was carried out by prayer groups in the United States, Canada and Australia. The investigators were at a tertiary medical center in the United States. The patients were 219 women aged 26-46 years who were consecutively treated with IVF-ET over a four-month period. Randomization was performed after stratification of variables in two groups: distant IP vs. no IP. The clinical pregnancy rates in the two groups were the main outcome measure. RESULTS: After clinical pregnancies were known, the data were unmasked to assess the effects of IP after assessment of multiple comparisons in a log-linear model. The IP group had a higher pregnancy rate as compared to the no-IP rate (50% vs. 26%, P = .0013). The IP group showed a higher implantation rate (16.3% vs. 8%, P = .0005). Observed effects were independent of clinical or laboratory providers and clinical variables. CONCLUSION: A statistically significant difference was observed for the effect of IP on the outcome of IVF-ET, though the data should be interpreted as preliminary.
You know, it would be a big surpise, if ONCE, one of y'all would accurately repost my statements.
And BULL. You have not show that study yet.
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Using patients as research subjects without informed consent also violates both the Nuremberg Code and the Helsinki Declaration. Furthermore, it is not logical to claim that informed consent was unnecessary because the intervention was only prayer and then to claim that the same innocuous intervention actually had profound physical effects on study patients. This is especially true since numerous claims made in previously published papers by one of the study's authors indicate that at least some of the people involved with this study believed, from the project's inception, that the intervention could have very real effects on uninformed human subjects. [10-14] Furthermore, because the study was conducted in Korea, where the majority of the population is Buddhist, Shamanist, or nonreligious, many study patients might have objected to Christian prayers as unwanted, blasphemous, or antithetical to their personal beliefs. But since the study was conducted without their knowledge or permission, the study subjects had no way to voice their objections or to opt out of the study.
The fact that 1 of the 3 authors now claims to have had nothing to do with the study is disturbing. Dr Cha and Dr Lobo both failed to respond to numerous telephone calls and letters requesting further information about their study. The remaining author, Daniel Wirth, MS, JD, has a long history of publishing studies on supernatural or paranormal phenomena, and his MS degree is in the dubious field of parapsychology. [10-14] While doing research for this manuscript I discovered that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had indicted Mr Wirth, claiming that he had conspired with ex-convict Joseph Horvath (AKA Joseph Hessler, AKA John Truelove, AKA John Doe) to defraud millions of dollars from the cable company Adelphia. Mr Wirth initially denied knowing Horvath.
"The IP group had a higher pregnancy rate as compared to the no-IP rate "
I thought that it was against "Christian moral code" to engage in IV-embryo transfer?