An Ironic Twist for Dr. Targ

An Ironic Twist for Dr. Targ
Time, Friday, Jul. 26, 2002
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,331956,00.html

In my January 16, 2002 column entitled “Investigating the Power of Prayer,” I looked askance at the Federally-funded National Institutes of Health for granting nearly one and a half million dollars to Dr. Elizabeth Targ for two studies she was conducting. Now her story has a troubling new twist.

Targ was investigating “distance healing,” a technique that involved healers from various faiths praying for patients with serious illnesses, healers who were far removed from the patients and never encountered them. Furthermore, the patients were unaware that prayers were being offered on their behalf.

One group being studied by Targ consisted of AIDS victims, the other of those afflicted with a kind of brain tumor known as glioblastoma multiforme. As her studies progressed, Targ said that the prayed-for patients were doing considerably better than those in a control group with the same illnesses, but who were not the recipients of prayers from afar. My column cast a skeptical eye on such claims.

Last week I belatedly learned that Targ herself, in a most ironic twist of fate, had surgery in April for a brain tumor.
[...]

And, according to a website set up by her friends, she is “open to hearing about alternative and complementary treatment and healing strategies.”

One of those strategies is being employed by Targ’s friends on the web site, where they have requested that readers send “very focused healing intention for the alleviation of her condition and for her complete recovery” in the form of written prayers.
[...]

[Note: Just days after this column was published, we learned that Dr. Elizabeth Tarq died of glioblastoma]

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