CIA Medics Committed Unlawful Human Experimentation: PHR

www.rttnews.com
9/4/2009

(RTTNews) - A medical ethics group has accused the American intelligence agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), of employing doctors and psychologists in U.S. detention centers like Guantanamo to monitor its "enhanced interrogation" of terror suspects including "unlawful human experimentation," reports say.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a not-for-profit group in its latest report on investigating the role of medical personnel in alleged incidents of torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib (Iraq), Bagram (Afghanistan) and other U.S. detention sites, accuses doctors of participating at every stage in the the CIA's secret "torture program."

The PHR's latest report, "Aiding Torture: Health Professionals' Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated in the May 2004 Inspector General's Report" claims that doctors actively monitored the CIA's interrogation techniques with a view to determining their effectiveness, using detainees as human subjects without their consent.

The report details how the CIA relied on medical expertise to rationalize and carry out abusive and unlawful interrogations besides referring to aggregate collection of data on detainees' reaction to interrogation methods.

The PHR expressed concern that this data collection and analysis may amount to human experimentation, the report says.

"It is profoundly unsettling to learn of the central role of health professionals in laying a foundation for U.S. government lawyers to rationalize the CIA's illegal torture program," it added.

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