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Thursday, March 30, 2006
Prayer and Health
Here is an interesting article about prayer and health:
Prayer Does Not Help Heart Bypass Patients
NEW YORK (AP)—In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.
Researchers emphasized that their work can't address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said.
They also said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them.
Critics said the question of God's reaction to prayers simply can't be explored by scientific study.
Interestingly, I had just posted a question today on my class' online discussion board about religion/spirituality and health. The book I mentioned two posts ago about the cholera epidemic in Venezuela mentions the role of indigenous or folk remedies. Another article I read today for class* discusses patient compliance vs. noncompliance when receiving medication for mental illness, and appeals to God (including prayer) are cited as one possible type of noncompliance as a means for the patient to gain control over his or her illness. Anyway, here is my question:
If we subscribe to the notion that everything we do as anthropologists should be placed in the context of a particular society or culture (i.e. cultural relativism), how are we to reconcile the importance of health and disease prevention when so many people are blinded by irrational beliefs (i.e. religion, spirituality, etc.)? Put another way, is it ethically and/or morally responsible to refrain from criticizing another’s worldview when that worldview is contributing to the maintenance or spread of disease and sickness?
*Kaljee, Linda M. and Robert Beardsley
1992 Psychotropic Drugs and Concepts of Compliance in a Rural Mental Health Clinic. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 6(3): 271-287.
Posted by Will at March 30, 2006 05:19 PM in General Science | Philosophy and Religion