Now, this is going to be short (ish) but mainly because I am aware that it is a sensitive issue and I am (oddly) loathe to upset people, however it is something which has managed to get my hackles up.
In a nutshell, there is a blog about Katie, a 14 year old girl who is dying of Hodgkin’s Disease. This is a story which has been picked up by various blogs (Orac for instance, but may others). No matter what, this would be a sad story and I am sure most people’s hearts go out to the girl and her family.
There is just one small problem with the whole story. Katie’s family have chosen to not head down the “conventional medicine” route for her treatment and instead opted for prayer. Now I know it is not the BMJ or anything but Wikipedia has this to say about the cancer Katie has:
Hodgkin’s lymphoma was one of the first cancers to be rendered curable by combination chemotherapy.
You would hope, that as she is young and was otherwise healthy, early (proper) treatment would have given Katie very good chances with this one. Sadly her family thought otherwise. She was denied accesss to Chemotherapy and instead relied on a combination of crackpottery and prayer. Needless to say, it has not worked. I am going to avoid linking directly to her sites or the blogs made by her family. I am not going to really talk about her or her condition any more. This is about the bad science.
Her father has put together some blogs about her / for her. At the top is this bit of shockingness:
Katie is now 14 years old and was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease, a lymphatic cancer when she was 13. This site is a request to pray for her. Call her prayer pager 1-361-333-KATY (5289), enter your ZipCode and # key, to let her know you have prayed for her. Updates of her progress will be posted on the site. The Power of Prayer is Awesome. See beginning story at www.prayforkatie.blogspot.com.
Sadly for Katie, the power of prayer is not awesome. Pretty much every time it has been studied it shows people who are subject to prayer show improvement over those who are not prayed for. People who are prayed for and know about it show less improvement. If your faith does mean you feel praying for Katie will help her, then dont call her “prayer pager” just do it. And if Prayer works, why wont God cure amputees?
It is really sad to see this girls chances have been destroyed because so many people seem to think that “hope” is a better alternative to treatment. It is even sadder to read the comments on Katies blogs and see so many other people seem to rate the value of prayer that you just know there will be other, needless, deaths.
Shame on them. If their God exists, they are going to hell.
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It’s very hard to comment on this stuff. Obviously, anyone facing such a terrible thing is entitled to take whatever relief they can find. So this is directed at the people who respond rather than the people with the blog.
I noticed a couple of weeks ago that there seems to be a trend for parents facing terrible trials seem to be turning increasingly to the Internet for support, as in the case of the parents of a severely disabled girl who have had her chemically bonzaied for her “own good,” justifying it in terms of their religious faith. I know that I haven’t been there and I can’t ever bear to imagine the depths of suffering of these people. However, suffering doesn’t give you a blank cheque to do whatever you choose.
I guess my idea of religion is skewed but It strikes me that these people are usually being “sacreligious” rather than “religious.”
I can’t understand why God would be swayed by weight of numbers.
Is he a bit deaf regarding prayers, so he can’t hear just one? Sufficient weight of prayers from zillions of praying people will get his attention?
Is God now so swept up in the wonders of modern life that he spends all day on the Internet and only responds to prayers from the blogs that get the most links on Technorati?
Are prayers like voting – the tally of prayers decides whose wishes shall be granted?
Do these people have no respect for their God at all? The capricious old testament God of Abraham was at least more consistent than the modern day God who needs his own TV channels. And who callously targets children to suffer and then decides whether they can be relieved if enough people beg him to help and tell him he’s great and they really love him and will pass over loads of money to his preachers.
Nicely put 🙂