After lots of speculation, including being a plot line on NBC's The West Wing, the latest most comprehensive study shows that patients who were being prayed for by strangers did not have better outcomes. In fact, the patients who knew that they were being prayed for had slightly higher rates of complications than those that didn't know but were being prayed for anyway. On the other hand, they had a lower rate of serious complications but the variance was put down to chance by researchers. In The West Wing President Bartlett wouldn't fund a study on prayer helping health, yet the federal government has spent over $2 million studying the issue since 2000. Article