We have a most welcome note from Dr. Bruce L. Flamm, MD, who for the last eight years has been battling the ridiculous report that prayers intoned for infertility patients in Korea could result in a 100% increase in pregnancy rates among the subjects……Now, the Los Angeles Superior Court has — finally — thrown out the major defamation lawsuit that Korean fertility specialist Kwang Yul Cha filed against Dr. Flamm, a California physician who had published several articles questioning the validity of the report. That lawsuit, first filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in August 2007, was thrown out last November but then reinstated in January. Now it's finally dismissed. In 2001, a study was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine claiming that prayers from the USA, Canada, and Australia caused a 100% pregnancy rate in the subjects of those prayers — an incredible claim, indeed. Kwang Cha and his associates were widely reported in the news media, including on the USA ABC news program Good Morning America, who should have known better than to perpetuate this nonsense. The following year, the study's credibility was undermined when one of the co-authors, Daniel Wirth, was arrested by the FBI and later pled guilty to fraud. Cha's other co-author, Columbia University's Rogerio Lobo, later revealed that he *had not participated in the research* and he withdrew his name from the published findings. As Dr. Flamm says: "[This] ruling is a victory for science and freedom of speech. Scientists must be allowed to question bizarre claims and correct errors. Cha's mysterious study was designed and allegedly conducted by a man who turned out to be a criminal with a 20-year history of fraud; a criminal who steals the identities of dead children to obtain bank loans and passports is not a trustworthy source of research data. Cha could have simply admitted this obvious fact but instead he hired Beverly Hills lawyers to punish me for voicing my opinions." We're struck by the fact that the Journal of Reproductive Medicine — which capriciously published the original report and then dug in its heels and refused to react to the very obvious fact that this was a spurious quack non-scientific action refused to withdraw the article! This journal should be taken to task for flying in the face of medical science and so blatantly deceiving its readers. Report by James Randi James Randi Educational Foundation Swift newsletter (25th April 2008)