Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and prayer

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Feb-March, 2005  by Robert A. Anderson

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In this double-blind controlled trial of distance healing in 40 patients with advanced AIDS, subjects were pair-matched for age, CD[4.sup.+] count and number of AIDS-defining illnesses and randomized to receive either 10 weeks of distance healing (DH) treatment or to a conventional-treatment-only control group. Subjects were told they had a 50/50 chance of being in the active treatment group and all received standard care, 85% of the 37 men and 3 women professed a belief in distance healing. DH treatment was performed by unpaid self-identified healers (mean of 17 years experience) representing many different healing and spiritual traditions located throughout the United States, and subjects and healers never met. Healers were randomly assigned to subjects one week at a time, to work at the DH one hour daily; they received a packet with only the first name, photo, CD[4.sup.+] count and current symptoms of each subject; each healer worked with five subjects, and turned in logs of completion of sessions.

At 6 months, a blinded medical chart review found that treatment subjects acquired 0.1 new AIDS-defining illnesses/patient vs. 0.6 in controls (2p=.04), had a mean Boston Health Illness Severity score of 0.8 vs. 2.65 for controls (2p=.03), had 0.15 hospitalizations/subject vs. 0.6 for controls (2p=.04), 0.5 days of hospitalization vs. 3.4 (2p=.04) and required 9.2 outpatient doctor visits/subject vs. 13.0 (2p=.01). Recoveries from AIDS defining illnesses (6 vs. 2) did not reach significance. Treated subjects also showed significantly improved mood vs. controls (Profile of Mood Score 26 vs. 14) (2p=.02). Although ending CD[4.sup.+] counts were 55.5 and 31.1 [[micro]l.sup.3], respectively, this did not reach statistical significance.

Sicher F et al. A randomized double-blind study of the effect of distant healing in a population with advanced AIDS. Report of a small scale study. West J Med 1998 Dec; 169(6):356-63

COMMENT: These data strongly support the possibility of a distance healing/prayer effect on these AIDS patients. Dr. Dan Benor has catalogued 131 published prayer studies, of which 56 showed positive results. Many of these studies were done with plants, microbiological organisms, animals and enzymes. This study was well controlled and blinded, with rather striking results. The mechanisms by which prayer might be explained are poorly understood. Drs. Roberto Assagioli and Carl Jung postulated a "collective unconscious." Dr. Larry Dossey has written of the "non-locality" of prayer. Dr. William Tiller speaks of the subtle energy field with energies vibrating in the gigahertz range and moving up to [10.sup.9] times the speed of light. I suspect that these postulations will lead to a coherent model of distance healing within the next decade.

Robert Anderson is a retired family physician whose practice career took a holistic turn as decades passed. He has authored five major books, Stress Power!, Wellness Medicine, The Complete Self-Care Guide to Holistic Medicine (co-author), Clinician's Guide to Holistic Medicine (McGraw Hill, 2001), and The Scientific Basis for Holistic Medicine, (6th edition 2004), available from American Health Press, holos@nwi.net. Anderson was the founding president of the American Board of Holistic Medicine, past president of the AHMA, former Assistant Clinical Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Washington and is currently an Adjunct Instructor in Family Medicine at Bastyr University.

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