Controversy continues over prayer, IVF study

A prominent reproductive health researcher has removed his name from the list of authors of a study on prayer and in vitro fertilization published in 2001, but the controversy over the study continues.

The study "Does Prayer Influence the Success of In Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer?" was published in the September 2001 issue of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine (J. Reprod. Med. 2001;46:781-7). The authors studied the use of prayer on 219 Korean women who underwent IVF over a 4-month period. The pregnancy rate was nearly twice as high in the women who had been prayed for, compared with those who had not been prayed for (50% vs. 26%), a statistically significant difference.

The study was removed from the Web site nearly 3 years later after the journal received a number of letters and e-mails critical of the research. The journal's editor-in-chief, Lawrence Devoe, M.D., said the study was removed from the Web site because it generated more traffic than the office could handle. Critics of the study questioned its methodology--involving several "tiers" of people, some praying for the study subjects and others praying for those doing the praying--as well as the fact that no informed consent was obtained.

The study recently was returned to the Web site, and the journal also published a defense of the work by one of its authors, Kwang Y. Cha, M.D. (J. Reprod. Med. 2004;49:944-5).