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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
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CIA Docs Accused of 'Human Experimentation'

Report from ethics groups says docs in interrogation program guilty of war crimes

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(Newser) – CIA doctors who monitored the agency's "enhanced interrogation" of terror suspects may be guilty of war crimes linked to human experimentation, according to a new report from a medical ethics group. The report from Physicians for Human Rights accuses the doctors and psychologists of being involved at every stage of the interrogation, the Guardian reports. It labels their recording of information on the effectiveness of the techniques as human experimentation, outlawed after the prosecution of Nazi doctors at Nuremberg.

"They were experimenting and keeping records of the results," the report's co-author writes. "That is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions." Officials from the American Medical Association say they in discussions with the Obama administration over the role of doctors in the CIA's program. "The participation of physicians in torture and interrogation is a violation of core ethical values," the group said in a statement.

Medical staffers were present during the waterboading of suspects, and were believed to have used a pulse oxymeter in at least one case, placed on the prisoner's finger to monitor his oxygen levels.
Medical staffers were present during the waterboading of suspects, and were believed to have used a pulse oxymeter in at least one case, placed on the prisoner's finger to monitor his oxygen levels.   (Shutter Stock)
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Doctors are certainly guilty of war crimes for permitting torture to go forward and overseeing it while they had the authority to stop it. - Steven Reisner, co-author of the Physicans for Human Rights report

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14 comments
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cornelison
Sep 3, 09 5:37 AM CDT
It will always be the tip of the ice berg. Reply
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+3
Thinker
Sep 3, 09 6:46 AM CDT
I was physically ill after reading this report. and cornelison, you are right. The CIA has refused to release many more details ... what can be worse than this??? I am so ashamed. If we don't investigate this completely and punish those responsible, we are worse than the German people who turned away from the atrocities of the Nazis. We should have learned from the past. This is just sickening. Reply
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+13
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Reader64481089
Sep 3, 09 9:05 AM CDT
Thinker, Doctor and others I write one of my lsat comments upon Newser. I shall loose my home soon as I have lost my wife and will else I held dear. I have a deep seated feeling that if and when the truth comes out it will rival the experimentation held by the Germans, perhaps not in human genetics but much worse as they drove people to the point of madness to find the breaking point of the human mind. We probably will never know the true extent of all that has been done in the name of Democracy, they have defaced that word just as extremists have defaced most religions from the great crusades to the Muslim jihad. I weep for what this country has lost, I fear it will never again be the country in to which I was born .......Perhaps indeed I have lived and seen to much
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+5
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schmidtkoff
Sep 3, 09 9:36 AM CDT
@reader - i am concerned about your post. i am not comfortable with your ending "...perhaps....i didn't see an email address on your page or i would have emailed you. for my purposes of privacy i will post an email address. please email me for i am worried about you.
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+1
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dontlikenobody
Sep 3, 09 5:16 PM CDT
R64 - We will miss you. You've been a voice of sanity and caring. Godspeed.
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+1

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