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Modern prayer experiments bring to fruition the grand experiment envisioned in 1872 by an anonymous Briton who threw down a prayer test challenge to believers.

The experiment was a simple one. Choose “one single ward or hospital” for three to five years of sustained prayer by “the whole body of the faithful.” Will its patients’ healing and mo

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

rtality rates surpass those in comparable hospitals elsewhere? The proposal triggered a national “prayer-gauge controversy” that raged for a year. For many people, the very idea of testing prayer — and God — was outrageous.

If experimenting with prayer offends, said Victorian polymath Francis Galton, then why not examine the efficacy of spon

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

taneous prayers? Galton collected mortality data on people who were the subjects of much prayer, such as kings, and reported that they did not outlive others. Moreover, the proportion of stillbirths suffered by praying and nonpraying expectant parents appeared similar.

And there things stood quietly for a century, until American researchers

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

ecided they would experiment with prayer. The study that did most to stimulate both scientific and popular interest in prayer was Randolph Byrd’s 1988 report of “Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population.” Byrd randomly assigned 393 coronary patients either to a no-prayer group or to a group that w

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

ould receive prayer from three to seven “born again” intercessors.

For six of 26 outcomes, the prayed-for patients did better. Although there were questions about whether the person recording the data was entirely ignorant of the patient assignment, the widely publicized conclusion was that prayer worked.

For the other measures -- such as l

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

ngth of hospital stay and even mortality -- there was, however, no difference between the prayer and no-prayer groups. The ambiguous results helped inspire Dr. Herbert Benson, director of the Mind-Body Institute at Harvard University, to propose in 1997 a substantial, well executed and elegantly simple experiment called the Study of the Therap

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

eutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer, also known as STEP.

In STEP, which was funded by the John Templeton Foundation, more than 1,800 consenting coronary bypass patients were assigned to one of three groups: one that knew that it was being prayed for by volunteer intercessors, one that did not know for certain whether it was being prayed for

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

ut was, and another group that did not know for certain whether it was being prayed for but wasn’t.

After becoming aware of the STEP experiment from Templeton staff and Herbert Benson, the lead investigator, I filed a statement “Why People of Faith Can Expect Null Effects in the Harvard Prayer Experiment.” I put this on record in 1997 so that

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

such Christian thinking about prayer would not seem, if offered now, like after-the-fact backpedaling or rationalization. I also wrote two more articles for the Reformed Review expressing my Christian and scientific skepticism about the prayer experiments while acknowledging the more intriguing and persuasive evidence of correlation

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

between religiousness and health.

In the intervening nine years, while we awaited the results from this unprecedented mother of all prayer experiments, other prayer experiments surfaced:

A 1997 experiment on “Intercessory Prayer in the Treatment of Alcohol Abuse and Dependence” found no measurable effect of intercessory prayer.
ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi
i>
A 1998 experiment with arthritis patients reported that no significant effect from distant prayer was found.
A 1999 study of 990 coronary care patients -- who were unaware of the study --reported about 10 percent fewer complications for the half who received prayers “for a speedy recovery with no complications.” But there wa

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

s no difference in specific major complications such as cardiac arrest, hypertension and pneumonia, with the median hospital stay the same 4.0 days for both groups.

A 2001 Mayo Clinic study of 799 coronary care patients offered a simple result: “As delivered in this study, intercessory prayer had no significant effect on medical out

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

omes,” the study said.

A 2005 Duke University study of 848 coronary patients found no significant difference in clinical outcomes between those prayed for and those not.

Amid these negative results, one stunning result challenged my prediction. “Prayer works,” said a headline in The New York Times magazine afte

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

r a 2001 Journal of Reproductive Medicine article reported that prayed-for women undergoing in vitro fertilization experienced a 50 percent pregnancy rate — double the 26 percent rate among those not receiving experimental intercessory prayers. When suspicions about the study emerged, one of the study’s authors pleaded guilt

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

to criminal business fraud and was sentenced to prison. The article’s Columbia University co-author removed his name from the “study,” with which it turned out he had no direct involvement.

Climaxing this string of negative or discredited results comes what may be the coup de grace for intercessory prayer experiments: intercessory prayer in

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

the STEP experiment had no effect on recovery from bypass surgery. If these had been clinical tests of a new drug, the pharmaceutical industry would surely, at this point, say “enough.”

But imagine that these experiments had confirmed the intercessory prayer’s clinical efficacy. How big would the “God effect” -- if that is how we would have

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

iewed it -- need to be to be added to the list of recommended medical treatments? Might affluent but ill people effectively outsource prayers for their healing by paying distant people to pray, in the confidence that God will be counting votes? And if a now-proven God were to be arm-twisted into reliably responding, would faith be required a

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

ny more?

Or do we err in viewing the “God effect” as a mere slight subtraction to, for example, the number of stillbirths or coronary deaths? In the historic Christian understanding, God is not a distant genie whom we call forth with our prayers but rather the creator and sustainer of all that is. Thus when the Pharisees pressed Jesus for s

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

me criteria by which they could validate the kingdom of God, Jesus answered, "The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed . . . . . For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you."

The Lord's Prayer, the model prayer for Christians that I pray every day, does not attempt to control a God who withholds care unless cajoled.

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

Rather, by affirming God's nature and human dependence even for daily bread, it prepares one to receive that which God is already providing. Through prayer, people of faith express their praise and gratitude, confess their wrongdoing, voice their concerns, open themselves to the spirit, and seek the peace and grace to live as God's own people

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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