There have been a number of studies which purport to demonstrate the effectiveness of prayer in healing people. One popular one, though, was created by people who have been in trouble with the law. How much can they really be trusted?

Bruce L. Flamm, MD, Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of California, Irvine, writes for Skeptic:

The study's three authors were Kwang Cha, Rogerio Lobo, and Daniel Wirth. Dr. Cha, has left Columbia University and refuses to return phone calls or letters about the report. Dr. Rogerio Lobo, identified by the New York Times and ABC News as the report's lead author, now claims to have not been involved with the study until after its completion and to have provided only, "editorial assistance". Dr. Lobo also refuses to return phone calls or letters about the study. If the report's lead author did not conduct the international prayer study, who did?

The remaining author is a mysterious individual known as Daniel Wirth.  Mr. Wirth has no medical degree but does have a long history of publishing studies on mysterious supernatural or paranormal phenomena. Many of these studies originated from an entity called, "Healing Sciences Research International" an organization that Mr. Wirth supposedly headed. This entity's only known address was apparently a Post Office Box in Orinda California. Wirth holds an MS degree is in the dubious field of "parapsychology" and also has a law degree.

In October 2002, Mr. Wirth, along with his former research associate Joseph Horvath also known as Joseph Hessler, was indicted by a federal grand jury. Both men were charged with bilking the troubled cable television provider Adelphia Communications Corporation out of $2.1 million by infiltrating the company, then having it pay for unauthorized consulting work. Police investigators discovered that Wirth is also known as John Wayne Truelove.

There were a lot of flaws in the original study, but the popular media reported on almost none of that. As is so often the case, many reporters simply failed (or refused) to do their job by practicing even the most basic skepticism. One wonders whether they even deserve the moniker “journalist” in the first place. Sadly, I’ll be that none of them bother to report on these new developments, either. Just goes to show what sort of quality “reporting” we can expect from most outlets.

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