PHR Library

June 23, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hundreds of Health Professionals Call on US to Stop Participating in Torture and Support Independent Investigation

A group of leading US health professionals have called on their colleagues throughout the United States to join them in urging steps to end torture and cruel treatment by US forces and to assure the protection of medical personnel from complicity in abuse. The group has asked all US health professionals to join the US Health Professionals' Call to Prevent Torture and Abuse of Detainees in US Custody - initiated by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) - as an expression of their professional ethical commitment to prevent torture wherever it is inflicted.

Over 300 health professionals including - in their individual capacities - a former United States Surgeon General, the White House Physician to President George Herbert Walker Bush, a former Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, a retired US Army brigadier general and medical officer, the President of the Association of American Medical Colleges, former presidents of the American College of Physicians and the American Public Health Association, and past editors-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine have thus far signed the US Health Professionals' Call to Prevent Torture.

A wide range of sources have exposed a systematic pattern of torture and ill-treatment by US interrogators, including physical torture, such as beatings and shackling in stress positions, and psychological torture, such as mock executions, sleep and sensory deprivation, prolonged isolation, forced nudity, cultural and sexual humiliation, use of dogs to instill terror, threats of violence or death against detainees or their loved ones, and more. The US Army has identified the deaths of at least 28 detainees as confirmed or suspected homicides.

Noting that the American Medical Association's Code of Medical Ethics provides that "Physicians must oppose and must not participate in torture for any reason," the US Health Professionals' Call conveys the "grave concern over the mounting evidence of both physical and psychological torture and ill-treatment inflicted by United States forces on prisoners and detainees in Afghanistan; Iraq; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and elsewhere."

Health professionals are particularly disturbed by evidence that some US military medical personnel have played a role in torture and ill-treatment of prisoners and detainees. Such complicity comprises a severe breach of ethical duties. Yet, as recently as June 16, 2005, the Pentagon's chief medical officer crafted new guidelines that effectively permit military medical personnel to participate in ill-treatment of detainees unless they are involved in a patient-provider relationship with that detainee. The new guidelines also permit disclosure to interrogators of detainees' confidential medical records, a violation of fundamental medical ethics.

"Torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are unworthy of the traditions and character of our country and our profession," said Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis, a retired Army Brigadier General. "The purpose of the US Health Professionals' Call to Prevent Torture is to give our colleagues across the country a chance to break their collective silence on abuses by U.S. forces and condemn the use of medical personnel to facilitate it in any way."

The US Health Professionals' Call to Prevent Torture urges several immediate steps by the US government, including:

• An independent, bipartisan commission empowered to investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment;
• Retraction of all legal opinions and policies that permit or condone torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
• Promulgation and public disclosure of interrogation rules consistent with the prohibition against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
• Assurance of accountability up the chain of command for torture and ill-treatment by US personnel.
• Promotion of ethical practice by military medical personnel. 

Related Links

For more information on psychological torture and US Policy read the PHR report: Break Them Down: The Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) mobilizes the health professions to advance the health and dignity of all people by protecting human rights. As a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.