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Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanamo

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 06:37:20 PM EST
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More than 250 doctors around the world have joined a harshly worded criticism of the U.S. over the force-feeding of Guantanamo prisoners. Their letter has been published in the medical journal, The Lancet.

The open letter in the Lancet was signed by more than 250 top doctors from seven countries - the UK, the US, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands. "We urge the US government to ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians and that techniques such as force-feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned," the letter said.

The doctors said the World Medical Association - a world body representing physicians, including those in the US - specifically prohibited force-feeding. They also recommended that those participating in the Guantanamo force-feedings be disciplined by their professional organizations.

From the text of the letter:

We write regarding the forcefeeding and restraint of Guantanamo Bay detainees currently on hunger strike.1,2 The World Medical Association specifically prohibits forcefeeding in the Declarations of Tokyo and Malta, to which the American Medical Association is a signatory.

Fundamental to doctors' responsibilities in attending a hunger striker is the recognition that prisoners have a right to refuse treatment. The UK government has respected this right even under very difficult circumstances and allowed Irish hunger strikers to die. Physicians do not have to agree with the prisoner, but they must respect their informed decision. Those breaching such guidelines should be held to account by their professional bodies. John Edmondson (former commander of the hospital at Guantanamo) instigated this practice, and we have seen no evidence that procedures have changed under the current physician in charge, Ronald Sollock.3

Edmondson, in a signed affidavit, stated that "the involuntary feeding was authorized through a lawful order of a higher military authority."4 This defence, which has previously been described as the Nuremberg defence,5 is not defensible in law. In a reply to an earlier draft of this letter, Edmondson said that he was not forcefeeding but "providing nutritional supplementation on a voluntary basis to detainees who wish to protest their confinement by not taking oral nourishment".

The affidavit is filed in Al Joudi et al vs George Bush in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Case1: 05-cv-00301-GK. Document 48, Exhibit A. Filed Oct 19, 2005.

There's also some personnel screening going on at Guantanamo. The letter says:

Recently, it was confirmed that health-care staff are screened to ensure that they agree with the policy of forcefeeding before working in Guantanamo Bay.

The cite for the claim is listed as Okie S., Glimpses of Guantanamo: medical ethics and the war on terror. N Engl J Med 2005; 353: 2529-2534. In the article, which is a first person acount of doctors touring Guantanamo, the author reports a conversation with Captain John S. Edmondson, an emergency physician and the commander of the medical group that delivers the prisoners' care:

The military's policy of tube feeding prisoners on hunger strike is controversial, and military health care providers are "screened" before deployment to Guantanamo "to ensure that they do not have ethical objections to assisted feeding," Edmondson told me.

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    Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanamo | 11 comments (11 topical)
    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 07:39:50 PM EST
    I can only imagine the volume of scare posts from TL if we weren't force feeding them: "Prisoners dying in hunger strike at Guantanamo" Or more angry than that. If the government did what TL is asking, I predict that TL would complain about the unhumane starvation within minutes.

    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 07:55:57 PM EST
    The word you're looking for is inhumane. Easy mistake for someone like you to make. I'm it doesn't come up much in your circles.

    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#3)
    by Al on Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 09:15:14 PM EST
    JR, the rhetorical trick to attack by imagining what your opponent would say in an imaginary situation that actually does not exist, is very crude. Frankly, you disappoint me. The problem here is that those "physicians" who are force-feeding prisoners in Guantanamo are actually contravening the American Medical Association's own rules. It's not "the Left" they are offending, it's their own profession.

    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#4)
    by Che's Lounge on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 07:31:19 AM EST
    Force feeding? In medicine we refer to it in the more familiar Assault and Battery.

    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#5)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 09:07:42 AM EST
    Uh..worldwide? More than 250? Somehow the numbers do not compute.

    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 09:19:10 AM EST
    Well, math, honor, honesty, decency, logic and integrity have never been your strong suits, Jim.

    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#7)
    by Sailor on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 09:21:04 AM EST
    Of course if you replly on point, attack the semantics of TL's headline. Sheeesh.

    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#8)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 08:52:03 PM EST
    charlie - 250 out of millions? You figure it out.... but wait, you can't. Sorry charlie.

    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 10:06:33 PM EST
    Oh, really. Do go on. Tell me all about this wellspring of support of Doctors. Of Academics Of anyone who can think or count without takin' their damned shoes off who's solidly behind shrub's position on Gitmo, torture and indefinite holding without charging. Shrub's success has always come down to rovesputin's ability to deliver the deliverance vote. That's his base. That's all he's got left. And spare me the Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus horsebrit. Shrub ain't no Lincoln. He ain't even Franklin Pierce or James Buchanan. Those were different times. That was during a Civil War. IN THIS COUNTRY!! That was not during an illegal, immoral foreign intervention based on lies and bogus evidence. Gee, you really have a very superficial understanding of History and Government. Too bad most of that is wrong.

    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 05:10:05 PM EST
    I have been to and fed hunger striking detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They receive a level of medical care that is to be envied by any healthcare institution in the United States. The hunger strike was initiated in an attempt to gain media attention---a common tactic which is taught and can be found in many terrorist handbooks. The only torture which can be seen in Guantanamo is the template of persistent manipulation that they use to skew the media, influence the world and thus continue their terrorist activities.

    Re: Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanam (none / 0) (#11)
    by Sailor on Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 06:37:57 PM EST
    I have been to and fed hunger striking detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They receive a level of medical care that is to be envied by any healthcare institution in the United States.
    Nope, not going to fall for it, wouldn't be prudent [/bush senior]

    Doctors World-Wide Condemn U.S. Over Guantanamo | 11 comments (11 topical)