In yet another twist in an ongoing legal battle, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge yesterday (Jan. 24) reinstated a defamation lawsuit filed by Kwang Yul Cha, a fertility researcher who published a controversial 2001 study linking in vitro fertilization success to prayer. The judge reversed his decision to throw out the case last November in response to a motion filed by University of California, Irvine professor Bruce Flamm, who has openly criticized Cha's study since its publication.

"The legal nightmare will now continue," Flamm wrote in an Email to The Scientist.

Cha's privately owned healthcare group, CHA Health Systems, announced the judge's decision in a press release yesterday. "We're very pleased that the Court has reinstated Dr. Cha's claim," said Dr. Cha's attorney, Anthony Glassman, in the release. "We have always believed that the article was reasonably susceptible to a defamatory interpretation, and we look forward to letting a jury make that determination."

Flamm, however, maintained that the lawsuit extends beyond the opinion piece at the root of Cha's lawsuit. "I am certain that this lawsuit is not really about defamation or the precise wording of one sentence in a brief opinion article," Flamm wrote. Instead, Flamm insisted, Cha's suit seeks to silence his criticism of Cha's "physic-defying 'miracle' study."