In an oddly named article (To a Divisive Debate, Now Add Religion ) the Times relates that the Christian Scientists have now gotten into the act on health care.
I say the article is oddly named, because of I’m not mistaken, religion has been dividing the debate on health care for months now, with the Catholic Church leading the way by demanding that its dogma be enshrined in law.
The Christian Scientists, at least, are not demanding that we do so with theirs, only that we encourage insurance companies to pay for wholly worthless “medical” treatment, that is, prayer. This would, at first blush, appear to contradict the act’s emphasis on evidence based health care. It would also appear to contradict it at the second blush, not to mention all the other blushes that come after.
Believe it or not, the power of prayer has actually been studied, so we have empirical evidence that it doesn’t work:
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.
But the Christian Scientists soldier on. (Was ever a moniker more misleading? This is a group whose members let their children die, rather than give them medical treatment. Sounds neither Christian nor scientific to me.)
Needless to say, this nonsense has strong Congressional backing. Even Ted Kennedy supported it while he was with us, proving once again that no one is infallible on any issue. The miracle is that the Christian Scientists are probably not going to get their way and the rest of us, may not in the end have to subsidize the rantings of Christian witch doctors.
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