The New York Times reports the results of a long-term study on the effects of prayer on healing. The study, published in the American Heart Journal joins a number of recent publications questioning the effectiveness of praying for ill humans. The general design of this and the other studies was to assign patients with similar ailments to groups who either received prayer or who didn't (with the usual placebo control groups). In this particular study, the researchers monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals who received coronary bypass surgery, in which doctors reroute circulation around a clogged vein or artery. The patients were broken into three groups. Two were prayed for; the third was not. Half the patients who received the prayers were told that they were being prayed for; half were told that they might or might not receive prayers. The only significant difference found was in the group who was told they were being prayed for: they suffered an increased rate of complications.
Nature also has a brief news item on the story. Coincidentally, this study corroborates not only previous studies, but also earlier anecdotalobservations such as countless popes falling ill and dying despite 10s of millions of people praying for them. The cousin of Charles Darwin came to the same conclusion about the efficacy of prayer back in the 19th
century, by checking on the effect of nationwide prayer on the recovery of the Royals from grave illness. Conclusion, never challenged in any serious "study": third-party prayer has no discernible effect.

Obviously, such results will have little effect on the faithful. And indeed, neither should they. Faith is something utterly unscientific and anybody searching for scientific corroboration of his/her faith may want to contemplate the meaning of faith. The letters to the NYT editor are along this argument and also worth reading. However, for medical professionals and generally interested scientists, this result is yet another pointer that prayer is not necessarily something worth considering when searching for a cure.