Doctors
Accuse US Of 'Unethical Practices' At Guantanamo Bay
By Jeremy Laurance
09 September, 2007
The
Independent
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".
They compare the actions
of the military doctors, whom they accuse of being involved in the force-feeding
of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and of turning a blind eye to evidence
of torture in Iraq and elsewhere, to those of the South African security
police involved in the death of the anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko
30 years ago.
The group highlighted the
force-feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay last year and suggested
the physicians involved should be referred to their professional bodies
for breaching internationally accepted ethical guidelines. The doctors
wrote: "No healthcare worker in the War on Terror has been charged
or convicted of any significant offence despite numerous instances documented
including fraudulent record-keeping on detainees who have died as a
result of failed interrogations ... The attitude of the US military
establishment appears to be one of 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak
no evil'."
The US introduced the policy
of force-feeding, in which prisoners are strapped to a chair and a tube
is forced down the throat into the stomach, after more than 100 prisoners
went on hunger strike in 2005.
"Fundamental to doctors'
responsibilities in attending a hunger striker is the recognition that
prisoners have a right to refuse treatment," the doctors wrote.
After last year's protest,
David Nicholl, consultant neurologist at City Hospital Birmingham, who
led the protest, lodged formal complaints with two medical boards, in
California and Georgia in the United States. He also lodged a complaint
with the American Medical Association, of which John Edmondson, the
former hospital commander at Guantanamo Bay, was a member.
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."
Dr Nicholl said it was "vitally
important" that doctors independent of the US military were allowed
to investigate the care of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and the deaths
of detainees (there were three reported suicides in June 2006). But
a British Medical Association request to send a delegation of doctors
to the prison camp had been refused by the UK Government.
© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited
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