Doctors group says Bush Administration conducted medical experiments on detainees

[deminks]

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0607/doctors-group-bush-administration-conducted-medical-experiments-detainees/

A new report by the watchdog group Physicians for Human Rights alleges Monday that the Bush Administration experimented on terrorism suspects during their enhanced interrogation program put in force starting in 2002.

The group's review, which examined Bush-era documentation, asserts that the administration violated laws set up in the wake of the Holocaust to prevent medical testing on prisoners of war. (Nazi doctors sometimes experimented on their prisoners.)

The report states that, "Medical personnel were required to monitor all waterboarding practices and collect detailed medical information that was used to design, develop and deploy subsequent waterboarding procedures." Notes the Associated Press:

For example, the report said, doctors recommended adding salt to the water used for waterboarding, so the patient wouldn't experience hyponatremia, "a condition of low sodium levels in the blood caused by free water intoxication."

(end snip)

[Octafish]

1. More war crimes.

Anyone going to do anything about it? Mr. Holder?

[Echo In Light]

11. BLASPHEMER!

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Paging Dr. Mengele . . . . . .

[Frustratedlady]

3. They sure concentrated on CTAs, didn't they?

The comments are interesting, too. Me thinks that group, including Rumsy, should stay in their underground lair, or whatever you call it. It looks to me like Americans are more and more disgusted with the lot of them and they would do themselves a favor by fading into the background.

Whatever happened to all that land GW bought down south. Since the hordes didn't chase him out of office, he no longer has a use for it? What a despicable bunch they were/are.

[immoderate]

5. Their land is located on an aquifer. They may not need it -- yet.

--imm

[immoderate]

4. Oh that madcap Bush!

==> :sarcasm:

--imm

[rudy23]

6. Are we going to "look forward" on this the same way we did with regulations on drilling?

The gusher in the Gulf should remind us of the high price of "looking forward."

[katandmoon]

7. Looking the other way makes these Obama's war crimes too

[rudy23]

9. Absolutely. Look how well that's working out for us in other areas. nt

[bobbolink]

21. Correct. Yet, we are to remain loyal.

:(

[kenny blankenship]

8. Physicians for Human Rights demands that President Obama direct the Attorney General to investigate

http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/news-2010-06-07.html
Physicians for Human Rights demands that President Obama direct the Attorney General to investigate these allegations, and if a crime is found to have been committed, prosecute those responsible.

(audience laughter)

[dgibby]

10. Not. Gonna. Happen.

Obama is not only complicit in these crimes, he's piled on some of his own.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

12. NO WAY

[Solly Mack]

13. America can prosecute war criminals or protect them...

and not prosecuting war criminals is protecting them.


The Torture Doctors


"Medical personnel were deeply involved in the abusive interrogation of terrorist suspects held overseas by the Central Intelligence Agency, including torture, and their participation was a “gross breach of medical ethics,” a long-secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded… Red Cross investigators concluded that medical professionals working for the C.I.A. monitore d prisoners undergoing waterboarding, apparently to make sure they did not drown. Medical workers were also present when guards confined prisoners in small boxes, shackled their arms to the ceiling, kept them in frigid cells and slammed them repeatedly into walls, the report said.

Facilitating such practices, which the Red Cross described as torture, was a violation of medical ethics even if the medical workers’ intentions had been to prevent death or permanent injury, the report said. But it found that the medical professionals’ role was primarily to support the interrogators, not to protect the prisoners, and that the professionals had “condoned and participated in ill treatment.”


The CIA's Torture Psychologists


How Doctors Got Into the Torture Business

[Solly Mack]

14. another link: Army Doctors Implicated in Abuse 2005

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51032-2005Jan5.html


"Medical personnel helped tailor interrogations to the physical and mental conditions of individual detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to the article. It says that medical workers gave interrogators access to patient medical files, and that psychiatrists and other physicians collaborated with interrogators and guards who, in turn, deprived detainees of sleep, restricted them to diets of bread and water and exposed them to extreme heat and cold."


I'm going through my saved links.

[slipslidingaway]

15. Thanks for looking back at the old stories on this issue! n/t

[Solly Mack]

16. It's impossible to prosecute a crime without looking back

Even conspiracy to commit happens in the past....

No doubt the doctors were acting in "good faith"

My disgust is palpable.

[slipslidingaway]

17. True and sadly we are told to look forward :( n/t

[Solly Mack]

18. and when I look forward I see a government that knows exactly what it can get away with..

I see a government that will not hesitate to excuse any and all atrocities...any and all abuses... under the faintest color of law....with excuses of national security and spreading democracy.

When I look forward I can hear people asking "How did this happen?" (again and again) and never once recognizing their own hypocrisy.

[chill_wind]

19. +100

[Solly Mack]

23. Hey chill_wind!

I wish...and then I kick myself for wishing. :(

[slipslidingaway]

20. Could not agree more and as your links indicate this goes back years ...

we expected the Bush administration to turn a blind eye to their crimes, but many hoped the Obama administration would look back ... just a little.

http://www.unbossed.com/index.php?itemid=1021

Monday, August 14, 2006

"...Guantanamo Psychologists v. Psychiatrists

Psychiatrists took a stand against being used for prisoner interrogations early on in the GWoT. The American Medical Association, Physicians For Human Rights and Amnesty International were three of many organizations who supported the anti-torture and anti-witness policy of the psychiatrists.

"No psychiatrist should participate directly in the interrogation of persons held in custody by military or civilian investigative or law enforcement authorities, whether in the United States or elsewhere. Direct participation includes being present in the interrogation room, asking or suggesting questions, or advising authorities on the use of specific techniques of interrogation with particular detainees."


.....The June 7, 2006 New York Times brings news that the United States Department of Defense has decided to give preference to using psychologists over psychiatrists as advisers to its interrogation teams at Guantánamo and other unnamed locations based on "a recognition of differing positions taken by their respective professional groups."

More specifically, The American Psychiatric Association unequivocally has adopted a policy stating that its members should not be part of these interrogation teams.

The American Psychological Association has adopted a far weaker policy that, in practice, puts no constraints upon its members participating in interrogation, stating only that members consulting on national security interrogations should be "mindful of factors unique to these roles and contexts that require special ethical consideration." This position is taken in spite of considerable pressure from many members desiring the Association to state unequivocally that members should not participate in these interrogation teams in any capacity.

The psychologists fought back by assembling a Task Force and by withholding their member dues..."

[Solly Mack]

22. Thanks for the link! Some people have become inured . Some never cared.

Some find it inconvenient.

[pokerfan]

24. PZ Myers asks, "Are we the baddies?"

An LA Times story brings up the troubling possibility — nay, near-certainty— that we aren't the global good guys our right wing brethren keep telling us we are. I know, it's hard to believe, since we are so obviously the good guys in all that we do, but sometimes, there are trivial little incidents that make a fellow worry. Like when we have doctors doing experiments in torture. That's the sort of Ming-the-Merciless kind of thing that baddies do.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/sometimes_youve_got_to_wondera.php">more