Faith healing

===Negative impact on public health===
Reliance on faith healing to the exclusion of other forms of treatment can have a public health impact when it reduces or eliminates access to modern medical techniques.{{efn|"Faith healing can cause patients to shun effective medical care". Bruce Flamm<ref name='SRAM_Flamm'>{{cite journal|title=Inherent Dangers of Faith Healing Studies|journal=Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine|date=2004|first=Bruce L.|last=Flamm|volume=8|issue=2|url=http://www.sram.org/0802/faith-healing.html|access-date=2008-01-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070816154915/http://www.sram.org/0802/faith-healing.html|archive-date=2007-08-16|url-status=dead}}</ref>}}{{efn|"It is often claimed that faith healing may not work but at least does no harm. In fact, reliance on faith healing can cause serious harm and even death." Bruce Flamm<ref name= "Flamm2004"/>}}{{efn|"Faith-healers take from their subjects any hope of managing on their own. And they may very well take them away from legitimate treatments that could really help them." [[James Randi]]{{sfn|Randi|1989|page=141}}}} This is evident in both higher mortality rates for children<ref name="AsserSwan1998"/> and in reduced life expectancy for adults.<ref name='JAMA longevity' /> Critics have also made note of serious injury that has resulted from falsely labelled "healings", where patients erroneously consider themselves cured and cease or withdraw from treatment.<ref name= "Barrett2009"/>{{efn|"These [discarded medications] are substances without which those people might well die."[[James Randi]]{{sfn|Randi|1989|page=141}}}} For example, at least six people have died after faith healing by their church and being told they had been healed of HIV and could stop taking their medications.<ref>{{cite news|date=November 25, 2011|url=http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16117269|title=Church tells HIV patients to stop treatment|first=Liz|last=Lane|publisher=[[Sky News]]|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111126145744/http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16117269|archive-date=November 26, 2011}}</ref> It is the stated position of the AMA that "prayer as therapy should not delay access to traditional medical care".<ref name="autogenerated1" /> Choosing faith healing while rejecting [[modern medicine]] can and does cause people to die needlessly.<ref name=Cogan1998>{{cite book|author=Robert Cogan|title=Critical Thinking: Step by Step|url=https://archive.org/details/criticalthinking0000coga|url-access=registration|year=1998|publisher=University Press of America|isbn=978-0761810674|page=[https://archive.org/details/criticalthinking0000coga/page/217 217]}}</ref>