Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[Barry Karr <SkeptInq@aol.com>]

Can Intercessory Prayer Heal?
 A debate at the University of Missouri - Columbia

 Contact:
 Kevin Christopher, CSICOP Public Relations Director
 Phone: (716) 636-1425 ext. 224
 E-mail: kchristopher@centerforinquiry.net

 For Directions:
 Patrick Kline, MU-Columbia CFA President
 Phone: (573) 875-5424
 E-mail: pfkline@hotmail.com

 Amherst, NY (March 6, 2001)--Dr. William Harris, professor of medicine at
 the University of Missouri at Kansas City will debate Irwin Tessman,
 Skeptical Inquirer contributor and professor of biological sciences at
 Purdue University, on the evidence for medical prayer. The first-of-its-kind
 debate, entitled "Is There Scientific Evidence That Intercessory Prayer
 Speeds Medical Recovery?" will be held on March 13th, 2001, at 7:00 p.m. in
 the Middlebush Auditorium on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus in
 Columbia, MO.

 The debate, co-sponsored by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation
 of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) is part of an annual series sponsored
 by the Campus Freethought Alliance. For directions to the event or other
 questions about the venue, contact Patrick Kline, President of the MU
 Freethought Alliance by e-mail at pfkline@hotmail.com or by phone at
 573-875-5424.

 In 1999 Harris and his research colleagues published a paper titled "A
 randomized, controlled trial of the effects of remote, intercessory prayer
 on outcomes in patients admitted to the coronary care unit" in the Archives
 of Internal Medicine (1999 Oct 25;159(19):2273-8). In it they concluded that
 "[r]emote, intercessory prayer was associated with lower CCU course scores.
 This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard
 medical care."

 Irwin Tessman criticized procedures and conclusions of Harris et al. in an
 article co-authored by Jack Tessman for the March/April 2001 issue of
 Skeptical Inquirer, titled "Efficacy of Medical Prayer: A Critical
 Examination of Claims." They conclude that Harris' tests fail to show any
 significant benefit for intercessory prayer and claim, in fact, that the
 results of one of the tests contradicts the previous medical prayer research
 of Randolph C. Byrd-most recently, "Positive therapeutic effects of
 intercessory prayer in a coronary care unit population," published in
 Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine (3 (6): 87-91, November 1997).

 Irwin Tessman holds a Ph.D. from Yale. His primary areas of scientific
 research are the molecular genetics of DNA repair, mutagenesis,
 recombination, and transposition in viruses and bacteria, and the evolution
 of altruism by natural selection.

 William S. Harris holds the endowed Chair in Metabolism and Vascular Biology
 at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He took a Ph.D. in Nutritional
 Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota. In addition, he serves as the
 Director of the Lipoprotein Research Laboratory at Saint Luke's Hospital.

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