CIA torture is only part of medical science's dark modern history
New documents released by the Guardian have shown the CIA may have broken its own internal ethics policies during their controversial torture programme following 9/11. In particular the CIA breached its guidelines for “human experimentation”, which specifically state that research should not occur without a subject’s informed consent.
While these breaches may not be surprising to the cynical, the involvement of medical doctors and psychologists in the programme still has the capacity to shock. Doctors from the Office of Medical Services (OMS) were active throughout the torture programme – with some even being present and participating in the interrogations themselves. This, according to many medical professionals, it a major breach of medical ethics – procedures based at their heart on the principle of “do no harm”.
But is this really such a shock? Unfortunately, probably not. Look at the history of medical science and these breaches are more common than we’d like to admit.
The controversy over the CIA torture is very similar to another debate raging within the US medical community – that over doctor involvement in the death penalty. With the growing use of the lethal injection, doctors have been increasingly involved in this form of punishment, developing and implementing drugs for the purpose of killing. As Jonathan Groner explains (PDF):
http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/jun/22/cia-torture-is-only-part-of-medical-sciences-dark-modern-history
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