At Least 3 Die in UK After Churches Claim Prayer 'Heals' AIDS

At least three women living with HIV in Britain have died after they stopped taking their medication in the belief that God and prayer would cure them, the BBC reported on Oct. 17.

The women discontinued their prescribed regimens of anti-retrovirals "on the advice of their Evangelical Christian pastors," the BBC article said.

At least one British politician slammed the claims that prayer would eradicate HIV and the deaths that purportedly resulted from that assertion.

"It's just wrong, bad advice that should be confronted," said Lord Norman Fowler, who was behind a national HIV awareness campaign in the mid-1980s when he served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Security.

But for people of faith, the word of God--at least, as told to them by their church ministers--may outweigh the medical expertise of their doctors.

"I know of a friend who had been to a pastor," Jane Iwu, a 48-year-old HIV-positive woman, told the BBC. "She told her to stop taking her medication--that God is a healer and has healed her.

"This lady believed it," Iwu continued. "She stopped taking her medication. She passed away."

The BBC article said that reporters had also learned of a second case in which a woman stopped taking her medication on the advice of her cleric and died.

A third such case became known when the BBC spoke with the head of the Center for the Study of Sexual Health and HIV, which is located in the London borough of Hackney.

"I've only seen that once, but it has happened," Anderson told the BBC. "We see patients quite often who will come having expressed the belief that if they pray frequently enough, their HIV will somehow be cured."

Anderson went on to say, "We have seen people who choose not to take the tablets at all so sometimes die."

The message that God and prayer can cure HIV may be spreading through some evangelical communities in England, the Huffington Post reported on Oct. 18.

"This is happening through a number of churches. We're hearing about more cases of this," Francis Kaikumba, head of the African Health Policy Network, said.

Unidentified representatives of the church told the BBC that while his church, the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), which is based in London, offers a message of God's healing love, the denomination had not told anyone to stop taking their medication.

"Doctors treat; God heals," the church's representatives told the BBC.

But the church's website includes claims of Nigerian women being "cured" of HIV after Joshua prayed over them.

"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," the site declares. The church has made similar claims about a number of other diseases, including cancer, arthritis, and mental health issues.

Lord Fowler decried messages leading religious people to believe that their medications were no longer necessary to maintain their health.

"It's dangerous to the public and dangerous in terms of public health," Lord Fowler declared, going on to add, "It's irresponsible... [pastors need to] come off the air on it, look at things much more seriously, and not give this completely wrong advice to the public."