An Up Move for Physicians Who Do Lethal Injections
New York Times asks the time honored question at Gitmo: should doctors torture people. Apparently,Military doctors at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have aided interrogators in conducting and refining coercive interrogations of detainees, including providing advice on how to increase stress levels and exploit fears, according to new, detailed accounts given by former interrogators.I'm less worried than I might be because the real ethics experts are on the case: "Pentagon officials said in interviews that the practices at Guantánamo violated no ethics guidelines, and they disputed the conclusions of the medical journal's article, which was posted on the journal's Web site on Wednesday."
But others worry, particularly about physicians in so-called Biscuit Teams, who have as their job description the management of behavioral science consultation to the military, are basically in the same kind of conflict of interest as sports medicine docs in football teams, in that their commitment to health can be directly at odds with the team's immediate interest. Or, thinking about it, perhaps they really don't have any conflict at all, having accepted a job that amounts to reducing medicine to a skill in the service of other ends.
Either way, if you need a shrink, don't go to Gitmo.
contribute a comment
Comments have been closed for this post.
