Parents try to pray away an inflamed, and then burst appendix, in a country where routine surgery will fix it; sixteen year old boy dies. They basically get away with it. Awesome. ~Mooglets
Church HIV prayer cure claims 'cause three deaths'
At least three people in London with HIV have died after they stopped taking life saving drugs on the advice of their Evangelical Christian pastors.
The women died after attending churches in London where they were encouraged to stop taking the antiretroviral drugs in the belief that God would heal them, their friends and a leading HIV doctor said.
Responding to the BBC London investigation, Lord Fowler, the former health minister responsible for the famous Aids awareness campaign of the 1980s, condemned the practice.
"It's just wrong, bad advice that should be confronted," said the Tory peer, who chaired last month's House of Lords committee into HIV.
Jane Iwu, 48, from Newham, east London, described one case, saying: "I know of a friend who had been to a pastor. She told her to stop taking her medication - that God is a healer and has healed her."
"This lady believed it. She stopped taking her medication. She passed away," said Ms Iwu, who has HIV herself.
'Irresponsible' advice
BBC London spoke to a second woman from east London who told of a friend who died after taking advice from her pastor who told her to stop taking her antiretroviral drugs.
Meanwhile, the director of a leading HIV research centre in east London said she had dealt with a separate case in which a person with HIV died as a result of advice from a pastor.
"I've only seen that once, but it has happened," said Prof Jane Anderson, director of the Centre for the Study of Sexual Health and HIV, in Hackney.
"We see patients quite often who will come having expressed the belief that if they pray frequently enough, their HIV will somehow be cured," she added.
"We have seen people who choose not to take the tablets at all so sometimes die."
Lord Fowler condemned pastors giving this advice, saying: "It's dangerous to the public and dangerous in terms of public health."
"It's irresponsible," he said, suggesting pastors should instead "come off the air on it, look at things much more seriously, and not give this completely wrong advice to the public".
HIV prevention charity African Health Policy Network (AHPN) says a growing number of London churches have been telling people the power of prayer will "cure" their infections.
"This is happening through a number of churches. We're hearing about more cases of this," AHPN chief Francis Kaikumba said.
AHPN said it believed the Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN), which has UK headquarters in Southwark, south London, may be one of those involved in such practices.
The church is headed by Pastor T B Joshua, Nigeria's third richest clergyman, according to a recent Forbes richlist.
When approached by BBC London, leaders of the church described themselves as Evangelical Christian pastors.
The church's website, which was set up in Lagos, Nigeria, shows photos of people the church claims have been "cured" of HIV through prayer.
HIV-Aids healing
In one example, the church's website claims: "Mrs Badmus proudly displays her two different medical records confirming she is 100% free from HIV-Aids following the prayer of Pastor T B Joshua."
"HIV-Aids healing" is listed on the church's website among "miracles" it says it can perform.
"Cancer healing" and "baby miracles" are also advertised.
The church's UK website promotes a monthly "prayer line" for which it says: "If you are having a medical condition, it is important you bring a medical report for record and testimony purposes."
It has posted videos on the internet showing its services in south London, in which participants who claim to have arthritis, asthma and schizophrenia say they have been healed after being sprayed with "anointing water" provided by the church.
Mary Buhari, 44 , from central London, told the BBC she had had a phone conversation with a representative of the church, in which she was told she could be cured of HIV.
"I was told they can cure any illness on Earth through prayer, including HIV," she said.
However, when asked by BBC London if it claimed its pastors can cure HIV, SCOAN responded: "We are not the healer. God is the healer. Never a sickness God cannot heal. Never a disease God cannot cure.
"We don't ask people to stop taking medication," the church added. "Doctors treat; God heals."
The recent House of Lords committee report into HIV awareness said faith groups' approaches to supporting people with HIV had improved but more needed to be done.
"It is essential that faith leaders engage with HIV as an issue and provide effective and truthful support and communication around the subject," it said.
A Department of Health spokesman responded to the report saying: "Over 60 recommendations were made and we will be responding to Parliament in the next few months."
From BBC News
Wow. London. London, people. Jesus effin' christ.
Critical thinking. Critical thinking. All these people are professing that praying will not work, they're all saying 'yes, some people come to us thinking that if they ray it will go away' - but are any of them actually telling them that, actually, fucking no. Religious bullshit will not fucking work, because religion is bullshit and God doesn't fucking exist, so praying will in fact do absolutely bollocks all.
No. Of course they don't. Not even in softened up and pasny'd terms. Because why? Because we're not meant to offend people.
Telling someone who sincerely believes that praying will magically make everything go away is bollocks, is apparently offensive.
Telling someone that they should rely on empirical fucking scientific research and remedies, not bullshit made up bollocks is apparently offensive.
But somehow allowing these people their delusions and in turn allowing them to die of them? That's all fine and bloody dandy.
Ugh.
~Mooglets
The faith healers who claim they can cure cancer
A group of faith healers who claim they have miracle cures for cancer and HIV have been condemned as "irresponsible, even criminal" by a professor of complementary medicine, following a BBC Newsnight investigation.
The group of healers, collectively known as ThetaHealing, claim that their technique - which focuses on thought and prayer - can teach people to use their natural intuition and "brain wave cycle" to "create instantaneous physical and emotional healing."
ThetaHealing have about 600 practitioners in the UK who charge up to £100 per session.
But the healers' claims have been called "criminal" and "not supported by any kind of evidence" by Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, whose unit not only carry out their own studies but also assess those done by other researchers.
Newsnight recorded Warrington-based ThetaHealing practitioner Jenny Johnstone - who charges £30 for a telephone call or £400 for a course - making a number of claims about the technique, including:
"There was a baby I worked on over the telephone and from one day to the next the cancer in his stomach had just disappeared."
Professor Ernst says such claims are "irresponsible, even criminal".
He believes that the ThetaHealing group try to distinguish themselves from the other 20,000 faith healers in the UK by applying a "veneer of science", but says "it's still nonsense".
'Instant healing'
Repeated clinical trials appear to show that although such faith healing might make people feel better, it does not cure disease. Professor Ernst conducted one such trial which pitched faith healers against actors pretending to be faith healers and found the actors performed better than the healers.
"There was never any suggestion I should go back to my doctor, which is what I needed to do," he told us.
One former client of ThetaHealing - who did not wish to be identified - told the BBC that he was "angry and embarrassed" that he had wasted £1,200 on their healing and missed two years of proper medical treatment.
On ThetaHealing's website it says that Vianna Stibal, the American founder of the group, "facilitated her own instant healing from cancer in 1995".
It also says that Ms Stibal conducts seminars around the world to teach people about ThetaHealing, and that she has trained teachers and practitioners who are now working in 14 countries.
Earlier this month, Ms Stibal visited the UK to address a meeting at the London School of Economics (LSE).
At the meeting Ms Stibal responded to a question from an audience member who asked if it was possible for ThetaHealing to make an amputated leg grow back:
"I believe it's possible to grow it back… a lady grew back her ovary... you can grow back a leg. I've seen people grow back," she told attendees.
Some of the 100 people who attended the event told a BBC researcher that they were reassured about the legitimacy of the group by the fact that the meeting was being held at the LSE.
The LSE told Newsnight that ThetaHealing's meeting was a "normal commercial booking".
Further remarks made by Vianna Stibal at the London meeting, whereby she claimed that ThetaHealing could effectively reduce HIV to undetectable levels, have also alarmed Aids charity the Terrence Higgins Trust.
"The fact is we've seen charlatans of this kind all the way through the HIV epidemic," Lisa Power of the Trust told Newsnight. "Those charlatans are more dangerous than ever now that we have effective treatment."
Ms Power worries that some patients could put their lives at risk by delaying taking effective anti-retroviral drugs in favour of pursuing faith healing.
Both Vianna Stibal and Jenny Johnstone refused to answer questions from Newsnight. Ms Johnstone still insists she has healed a baby's stomach cancer, but said there was no point in her trying to prove it because the BBC would not believe her anyway.
From BBC News
Please excuse me while I swear a bit.
I fucking hate 'faith healers' and 'alternative therapists' and 'psychics'. All with an equal burning passion, likened to the power of a thousand burning suns. I hate them. I fucking hate them.
These people are nothing but predatory assholes. Some may be deluded into thinking they really are imbued with fantastical powers, but most are simply assholes out to make a quick buck.
They don't have the science to back them. They don't even have the slightest shred of evidence to back them. Yet they are given a veneer of respectability and con people at every turn. Assholes.
These people prey on the weak, the desperate, the gullible, the people who have no more hope and the people who are themselves deluded. It sickens me, it really does.
I swear, we need to have a law in place, especially for those making medical claims. Prove it. Prove that you can do what you claim, by going through strict scientific testing - like every drug and treatment offered by real medical staff - and then you can peddle it.
But of course, none of them will be willing to do that, because none of them will pass the tests. None of them will get so far as a minute into the testing before being shown to be assholes peddling bullshit.
There's a quote from Tim Minchin that covers this nicely:
'Do you know what we call alternative medicine that works? Medicine!'
Because if this stuff was proven effective, rather than less than placebo, it would have long been integrated into real medical practice.
But no. the people who peddle this shit won't accept that, either. They'll come up with all sorts of asinine conspiracy theories instead.
- 'If they accepted this into real medicine, it would take all the money away from Big Pharma.'
- 'If they accepted it as real medicine, it would put Doctors out of their jobs.'
- 'The Government wants people to be sick.'
- 'The Government causes half the problems we clear up, so they don't want us to be accepted.'
Bull. Shit.
As you can tell from this little rant, I'm not only an atheist, but also a strident skeptic. If you can't prove the veracity of your claims? I won't accept them and will call you on your bullshit. That simple.
~Mooglets