He cites an example from a Human Rights Watch report in which soldiers tied a beaten detainee to the top of his cell door and gagged him. The death certificate indicated he died of "natural causes ... during his sleep." However, after media coverage, the Pentagon changed the cause of death to homicide by blunt force injuries and suffocation.
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist at Harvard University-affiliated Cambridge Hospital who wrote a book on doctors and torture in Nazi Germany, called The Lancet analysis "a very good, detailed description of violations of medical policies involving medical ethics."
In a July 29 New England Journal of Medicine essay, Lifton urged medics to report what they know about US torture at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, and said in an interview on Thursday that a non-military-led investigation of doctors' conduct is needed.
"They made choices," he said. "No doctor would have been physically abused or put to death if he or she tried to interrupt that torture. It would have taken courage, but it was a choice they had."
The World Medical Association, an umbrella group for national medical associations, reiterated its policy of condemning any doctor's involvement in any abuse or torture of prisoners or detainees.
In an editorial comment, The Lancet condemned the behavior of the doctors, saying that despite dual loyalties, they are doctors first and soldiers second.
"Health care workers should now break their silence," the journal said. "Those who were involved or witnessed ill-treatment need to give a full and accurate account of events at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Those who are still in positions where dual commitments prevent them from putting the rights of their patients above other interests should protest loudly and refuse cooperation with authorities."
Johnson, the Army spokesman, said the US military "will allow no actions that undermine or compromise medical professionals' commitment to caring for the sick and wounded, regardless of who they are or their circumstances."
RSS