It's silly season again at the British Medical Journal, but this article should be compulsory reading for all biotech investors who are wont to look no further than the mantra of "p<.01:"
Beyond science?
Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: randomised controlled trial
Leonard Leibovici, professor.
Department of Medicine, Beilinson Campus, Rabin Medical Center, Petah-Tiqva 49100, Israel
leibovic@post.tau.ac.il
Abstract
Objective: To determine whether remote, retroactive intercessory prayer, said for a group of patients with a bloodstream infection, has an effect on outcomes.
Design: Double blind, parallel group, randomised controlled trial of a retroactive intervention.
Setting: University hospital.
Subjects: All 3393 adult patients whose bloodstream infection was detected at the hospital in 1990-6.
Intervention: In July 2000 patients were randomised to a control group and an intervention group. A remote, retroactive intercessory prayer was said for the well being and full recovery of the intervention group.
Main outcome measures: Mortality in hospital, length of stay in hospital, and duration of fever.
Results: Mortality was 28.1% (475/1691) in the intervention group and 30.2% (514/1702) in the control group (P for difference=0.4). Length of stay in hospital and duration of fever were significantly shorter in the intervention group than in the control group (P=0.01 and P=0.04, respectively).
Conclusions: Remote, retroactive intercessory prayer said for a group is associated with a shorter stay in hospital and shorter duration of fever in patients with a bloodstream infection and should be considered for use in clinical practice.
Before anyone gets too worked up about "the power of prayer," please note that the prayer in this case took place 4-10 years after the patients were infected and hospitalized.
As someone points out in the letters section, the median length of hospitalization for the two groups was the same, and so what was happening here was likely a type I error caused by a few outliers in the control group. It is also relevant that they have multiple endpoints to choose from (mortality, length of infection and length of stay).
bmj.com
The responses are worth reading - some are pretty amusing.
Peter |
