Medical Ethics of Military Called Into Question
A leading British medical journal has published an article that criticizes the medical ethics of the U.S. military at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and in Afghanistan.
U.S. military doctors working in Iraq collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, an article in the British medical journal The Lancet said on Friday. Professor Steven Miles, the report's author, cites evidence that some doctors falsified death certificates to cover up killings and hid evidence of beatings. "The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing psychologically and physically coercive interrogations," the University of Minnesota professor said.
The Wall St. Journal (subscription required), reports:
Britain's leading medical journal says U.S. military and coalition health personnel might have violated professional ethics by participating in abusive prisoner treatment in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. An article in the Lancet's Aug. 21 issue by Steven Miles, a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics, concludes that "government documents show that the U.S. military medical system failed to protect detainees' rights, sometimes collaborated with interrogators or abusive guards, and failed to properly report injuries or deaths caused by beatings."
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