Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Prominent Journal JAMA on CIA Physicians: Role in 'Enhanced Interrogation' and Torture

JAMA Extract - GO here

Vol. 304 No. 5, August 4, 2010 JAMA is about Violence and Human Rights and includes an article entitled:

"Roles of CIA Physicians in Enhanced Interrogation and Torture of Detainees"

Leonard S. Rubenstein, JD; BG (ret) Stephen N. Xenakis, MD

JAMA. 2010;304(5):569-570. doi:10.1001/jama.2010.1057

For FULL text find a Doctor with JAMA password...

Since this article does not have an abstract, here are the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Secrecy has restricted scrutiny of the role of physicians and other medical personnel in the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA’s) "enhanced" interrogation program, begun in 2002. The program, also labeled "physical and psychological pressure," was designed to "psychologically ‘dislocate’ the detainee, maximize his feelings of vulnerability and helplessness, and reduce or eliminate his will to resist" efforts to obtain intelligence.1-3(appendix F) In 2009, the Obama Administration released guidelines on enhanced interrogation written in 2003 and 2004by the CIA Office of Medical Services (OMS).1-3(appendix F) The OMS guidelines, even in redacted form, and opinions from the US Department of Justice's (DOJ’s) Office of Legal Counsel show that CIA physicians, psychologists, and other health care personnel had important roles in enhanced interrogation.

Enhanced interrogation methods were applied in escalating fashion. Interrogators typically began by removing the detainee's clothes, limiting food, and depriving him of . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Author Affiliations: Center for Public Health and Human Rights, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland (Mr Rubenstein); and Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland (Dr Xenakis).

Short COMMENTATY and alernative access to FULL TEXT here

3 comments:

CN said...

Doctors and Torture
Malcolm Potts, MB, BChir, PhD
Family Health International Research Triangle Park, NC

JAMA. 1986;255(20):2760.

Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

Dr John Havard, secretary of the British Medical Association, has drawn attention to the need for national medical associations to support their individual members in combating what seems to be a global epidemic of torture.

The Collegio Medico de Chile has recently had the courage to suspend two doctors for their involvement in torture. The Uruguayan Medical Association has withdrawn from the World Medical Association to protest its apparent lack of leadership in dealing with this appalling problem.

As a physician who lives in America but travels to many countries, I would like to draw attention to the efforts of national medical associations (sometimes made at considerable personal risk to the officers of those associations) to deny doctors involved in torture the collective support of their profession. I hope the American Medical Association will take explicit action to support the Chilean and Uruguayan associations...[Full Text PDF of this Article may be available to doctor members of JAMA or soon some other way):

For more on this issue, keep watching here but mostly at NoMoreCrusades.blogspot.com

CN said...

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/289/16/2135http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/summary/255/20/2760-b

For item on Collegio Medic de Chile and the physicians document referred to above.

CN said...

Document on Torture and the AMA (American Medical Association) Why this is listed as merely an Opinion I don't know:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-ethics/opinion2067.shtml

See further development of the recent and older JAMA conflict to come - particularly at nomorecrusades.blogspot.com