Following up on the post from yesterday: CIA Torture Report- Why not mention CIA doctors & Human Experimentation?
Meet the Psychologists Who Helped the CIA Torture
The spin that “Neither psychologist had any experience as an interrogator” is irrelevant- Ignore it! This mind virus is promoted so the incompetence meme can be pushed. I am calling bullshit- straight out on that! These two men weren't there to interrogate. Why would they have needed experience in that regard. They were their to aid in the torture by assisting the perpetrators of the abuse and gather information for the experimentation this torture was part and parcel of.Some human experimentation appears to have focused on “learned helplessness” - I can see the benefit to the powers that shouldn’t be in exploring/exploiting this in a massive way More on that at the very end of the post
The concept of learned helplessness, a psychological phenomenon in which people who face persistent adversity effectively give up and lose the capacity to attempt to improve their situations — Seligman’s original research on the subject, from the 1960s, involved shocking dogs — was put to use by Mitchell and Jessen in their dealings with the CIA, and it echoes in the report: “SWIGERT had reviewed research on 'learned helplessness,' in which individuals might become passive and depressed in response to adverse or uncontrollable events. He theorized that inducing such a state could encourage a detainee to cooperate and provide information.” Many interrogation experts vehemently disagree: This level of detainee mistreatment, they argue, increases the risk that the subject will simply say whatever the interrogator wants to hear, leading to unreliable intelligence.
Seligman, for his part, has repeatedly expressed sorrow that his research was used in this manner. Reached via email by Science of Us, he responded with a statement that he’s used previously when questioned about his research’s role in the torture program: "I am grieved and horrified that good science, which has helped so many people overcome depression, may have been used for such bad purposes.”
More explicit on the human experimentation.... Interrogation, Torture and dual loyalty This article is also a ‘poor me/us’ article- Doctors were forced etc., They were paid handsomely.They could have simply quit their jobs. They didn’t- We can no longer, as a society, continue believing this passing the buck, excuse making & incompetence bullshit. It just isn’t so. Many medical doctors have participated in human experimentation and are participating in human experimentation and will continue to participate in human experiments in brutal, disgusting ways unless they are held to account!The report below makes clear the human experimentation without consent. I will, of course, highlight the disgusting facts of the matter
New York, NY — An independent panel of military, ethics, medical, public health, and legal experts today charged that U.S. military and intelligence agencies directed doctors and psychologists working in U.S. military detention centers to violate standard ethical principles and medical standards to avoid infliction of harm. The Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers (see attached) concludes that since September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense (DoD) and CIA improperly demanded that U.S. military and intelligence agency health professionals collaborate in intelligence gathering and security practices in a way that inflicted severe harm on detainees in U.S. custody.These practices included “designing, participating in, and enabling torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” of detainees, according to the report. Although the DoD has taken steps to address some of these practices in recent years, including instituting a committee to review medical ethics concerns at Guantanamo Bay Prison, the Task Force says the changed roles for health professionals and anemic ethical standards adopted within the military remain in place.
“The American public has a right to know that the covenant with its physicians to follow professional ethical expectations is firm regardless of where they serve,” said Task Force member Dr. Gerald Thomson, Professor of Medicine Emeritus at Columbia University. “It’s clear that in the name of national security the military trumped that covenant, and physicians were transformed into agents of the military and performed acts that were contrary to medical ethics and practice. We have a responsibility to make sure this never happens again.”
The Task Force report, supported by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession and the Open Society Foundations, calls on the DoD and CIA to follow medical professional standards of conduct to enable doctors and psychologists to adhere to their ethical principles so that in the future they be used to heal, not injure, detainees they encounter. The Task Force also urges professional medical associations and the American Psychological Association to strengthen ethical standards related to interrogation and detention of detainees.
The report, Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the War on Terror, is based on two years of review of records in the public domain by a 19-member task force. The report details how DoD and CIA policies institutionalized a variety of interventions by military and intelligence agency doctors and psychologists that breach ethical standards to promote well-being and avoid harm. These interventions included:• Involvement in abusive interrogation; consulting on conditions of confinement to increase the disorientation and anxiety of detainees;• Using medical information for interrogation purposes; and• Force-feeding of hunger strikers.
In addition, the group says that DoD policies and practices impeded the ability to provide detainees with appropriate medical care and to report abuses against detainees under recognized international standards. The report explains how agencies facilitated these practices by adopting rules for military health personnel that substantially deviate from ethical standards traditionally applied to civilian medical personnel.
Shining a Spotlight on Ethical BreachesAccording to the Task Force, the DoD specifically:
• Excused violations of ethical standards by inappropriately characterizing health professionals engaged in interrogation as “safety officers,” masking one of their key functions;• Implemented rules that permitted medical and psychological information obtained by health professionals to be used in interrogations;• Required physicians and nurses to forgo their independent medical judgment and counseling roles, as well as to force-feed competent detainees engaged in hunger strikes even though this is forbidden by the World Medical Association and the American Medical Association;• Improperly designated licensed health professionals to use their professional skills to interrogate detainees as military combatants, a status incompatible with licensing; and• Failed to uphold recommendations by the Army Surgeon General to adopt international standards for medical reporting of abuse against detainees.The group also says that the CIA’s Office of Medical Services played a critical role in reviewing and approving forms of torture, including waterboarding, as well as in advising the Department of Justice that “enhanced interrogation” methods, such as extended sleep deprivation and waterboarding that are recognized as forms of torture, were medically acceptable. CIA medical personnel were present during administration of waterboarding, says the Task Force. The CIA no longer has detainees in its custody, according to official statements.
“Putting on a uniform does not and should not abrogate the fundamental principles of medical professionalism,” said IMAP President David Rothman. “‘Do no harm’ and ‘put patient interest first’ must apply to all physicians regardless of where they practice.”
Changes Don’t Go Far Enough
Despite steps by the DoD to improve treatment of detainees, the Task Force says the agency “continues to follow policies that undermine standards of professional conduct” for interrogation, hunger strikes, and reporting abuse. This includes: issuing protocols requiring doctors and nurses to participate in the force-feeding of detainees, including forced extensive bodily restraints for up to two hours twice a day; enabling interrogators access to medical and psychological information about detainees for exploitation by interrogators; and permitting clinical care for detainees to suffer from the inability or failure of clinicians to address causes of detainee distress from torture.
"We now know that medical personnel were co-opted in ways that undermined their professionalism," said Open Society Foundations President Emeritus Aryeh Neier. "By shining a light on misconduct, we hope to remind physicians of their ethical responsibilities."
They weren't co-opted ,which implies some sort of innocence or naivety on the part of the medical "professionals" That is not believable. That sentence should read. Medical personnel fully participated in way that undermined their professionalism. No co-opting. A prime example of 'buck passing' Finally from Physicians for Human Rights:
"Health professionals played a pivotal role in the abuse and brutality exposed in the CIA torture report and they must be held accountable," said Dr. Vincent Iacopino, PHR’s senior medical advisor. "They were complicit at every step, including designing the torture techniques, (how to maximize results) monitoring the infliction of severe physical and mental pain,( measuring results of their designs) and failing to document clear evidence of harm.(covering up their crimes and everyone elses) What happened was unethical, unlawful, and immoral, and we must ensure it never happens again."
Health professionals' involvement in monitoring the torture techniques was central to providing legal protection to those carrying out the CIA’s program. PHR said the use of doctors and psychologists was the primary means by which the government attempted to justify torture as “safe, legal, and effective.
Finally........... The Hippocratic Oath (Greek ὅρκος horkos) is an oath historically taken by physicians and physician assistants. It is one of the most widely known of Greek medical texts. It requires a new physician to swear, upon a number of healing gods, to uphold specific ethical standards.An interesting intro article with accompanying videos on "learned helplessnes"