Doctors accuse US of 'unethical practices' at Guantanamo Bay

[struggle4progress]

Source: The Independent

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 07 September 2007

More than 260 doctors from around the world have launched an unprecedented attack on the American medical establishment for its failure to condemn unethical practices by medical practitioners at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.

In a letter to The Lancet, the doctors from 16 countries, including Britain and America, say the failure of the US regulatory authorities to act is "damaging the reputation of US military medicine" ...

Writing in today's Lancet, Dr Nicholl and his co-signatories, say: "After 18 months there had been no reply from the AMA, the Californian authorities stated that they 'do not have the jurisdiction to investigate incidents that occurred on a federal facility/military base', and the authorities in Georgia stated that the 'complaint was thoroughly investigated', but 'the Board concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to support prosecution'."

When the same complaint was considered by the Royal College of Physicians in the UK, the college concluded: "In England, this would be a criminal act." ...

Read more: http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article2938962.ece

[seriousstan]

1. 260 world wide? That's hard to believe.

[struggle4progress]

2. You perhaps expected doctors everywhere to adopt the AMA and APA interrogation position?

[seriousstan]

3. What do you mean? I was merely expressing my disbelief at the number.

I "perhaps" expect nothing (of value), and I have received it. Thanks

[struggle4progress]

6. Just trying to figure out what you were saying.

[donheld]

7. Why is that number so hard to believe?

260 isn't that big of a number :shrug:

[tom_paine]

4. Bush-Rule Amerika is an ugly and totalitarian place

The sort of place free people from Britain (which is far better than being an Imperial Subject of Amerika) SHOULD AVOID.

If I was a Brit I would say, "Let the barbarians and savages in Amerika perform their atrocities. It's what they do.

And of course it wopuld be a crime in Britain, still barely belonging to the Free World.
It would NOT be a crime in Amerika because Amerika is a lawless petty dictatorship, although it is by far the wealthiest country in the Third World.

[MasonJar]

5. Please note that there are also American doctors signing this; it

is highly likely that most medical personnel in the US do not sanction the US military's Guantanamo lack of ethics. I suspect that many military docs do not either.