Interrogation Advice from CIA Docs Unethical
Two researchers say physician advisers on torture ignored their ethical duties.
Aug. 8, 2010— -- Physicians working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) suffered severe ethical lapses in providing advice on enhanced interrogation techniques, two researchers say.
The doctors merely established threshold exposure limits, rather than taking into account whether the techniques caused mental or physical pain, according to Leonard S. Rubenstein of Johns Hopkins and Dr. Stephen Xenakis of the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.
They authored a commentary on the subject in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.
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"This medical participation in enhanced interrogation represents a failure by the physicians involved, and by the [CIA's Office of Medical Services] institutionally, to uphold ethical medical values," they wrote.
Rubenstein and Xenakis based their commentary on documents released by the Obama administration in 2009 that revealed CIA physicians, psychologists, and other health professionals had "important roles in enhanced interrogation."
The CIA's enhanced interrogation program began in 2002, and it was designed to maximize a detainee's feelings of vulnerability and helplessness.
The methods used in the program were applied in escalating fashion, from the removal of clothes and limitation of food and sleep, on to facial and abdominal slaps, dousing with cold water, wall standing, and confinement in a box. The final step was waterboarding.
Physicians provided opinions to the agency and lawyers on whether these techniques would be expected to cause severe pain or suffering, thus constituting torture.
Based on the advice, the CIA's Office of Medical Services approved these and other methods, as long as limitations were in place, including:
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