This letter, from Dr David Nicholl and Dr Guido Gebauer, was published by The Guardian, September 10, 2009
Revelations that the CIA used doctors extensively while subjecting "war on terror" detainees to torture (CIA doctors may have experimented on prisoners, 3 September) should act as a wake-up call for the international medical community.
In 2006 I, along with over 260 other physicians, reported in the Lancet the abuses that were occurring in Guantánamo as a result of force-feeding prisoners at the camp. Among other things, prisoners had feeding pipes forced into nasal passages, a practice condemned by Amnesty. Despite this, several Guantánamo doctors were later awarded medals "for inspiring leadership and exemplary performance".
In 2007 myself and numerous other medical health professionals accused the American Medical Association (AMA) of being complicit in this abuse by failing to take action against an AMA doctor involved in such unethical behaviour.
To date no doctor has been investigated, still less struck off, for misconduct in the "war on terror". The current international medical ethical guidelines, which were developed as a direct consequence of the Nuremberg trials, are not worth the paper they are written on unless and until bodies such as the AMA boot the torturers out of their organisations.
Dr David Nicholl
Department of neurology, City hospital, Birmingham
• As a forensic psychologist I can identify the interrogation techniques used on the order of the then government of the US as a direct application of well-known animal experimentation techniques based on aversive conditioning. The fact that medical doctors and psychologists monitored these techniques and studied their effectivity certainly means that they were engaged in human experimentation. All evidence suggests that criminal human experimentation was and probably still is common practice in detention places such as Guantánamo Bay.
Dr Guido Gebauer
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