Medical torture describes the involvement and sometimes active participation of medical professionals in acts of torture, to either to judge what victims can endure, to apply treatments which will enhance torture, or as torturers in their own right. Medical torture may involve the use of their expert medical knowledge to facilitate interrogation or corporal punishment, in the conduct of torturous human experimentation or in providing professional medical sanction and approval for the torture of prisoners. The term also covers torturous scientific (or pseudo-scientific) experimentation upon unwilling human subjects. Torture is any act by which severe pain, whether physical or psychological, is intentionally inflicted on a person as a means of intimidation, a deterrent, revenge, a punishment, or as a method for the extraction of information or confessions (i. ... Interrogation is the method of interviewing a source used by police and military personnel to obtain information that the source would not otherwise willingly disclose. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Human experimentation (medical experiments performed on human beings) is an important part of medical research, and many people volunteer for clinical trials of medical treatments. ... Sanction is an interesting word, in that, depending on context, it can have diametrically opposing meanings. ...

Medical ethics and international law

It is generally accepted that medical torture fundamentally violates medical ethics, which all medical practitioners are expected to adhere to. Medical ethics is the discipline of evaluating the merits, risks, and social concerns of activities in the field of medicine. ...

• The Hippocratic Oath makes explicit statements against deliberate harm not in the patient's best interests. These statements are often translated as "I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgement" and "to never deliberately do harm to anyone, for anyone else's interest." (Note: these statements are formulations of the ethical principles of beneficence and non-maleficence.)
• In response to the Nazi human experimentation on prisoners, which were declared at the Nuremberg Trials to be "crimes against humanity", the World Medical Association developed the Declaration of Geneva to supplant the dated Hippocratic Oath. The Declaration of Geneva requires medical practitioners to state "[I, the medical practitioner] will maintain the utmost respect for human life from its beginning even under threat and I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity".
• The Nuremberg Trials also led to the emergence of the Nuremberg code which explicitly outlines the boundaries of acceptable medical experimentation.
• Additionally in response to the Nazi atrocities, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 outright prohibits the torture of prisoners of war and other protected non-combatants.
• The World Medical Association Declaration of Tokyo (1975) [1] makes a number of specific statements against torture, including "The doctor shall not countenance, condone or participate in the practice of torture".

The Hippocratic Oath is an oath traditionally taken by physicians pertaining to the ethical practice of medicine. ... This is horrible. ... The Nuremberg Trials were the sets of trials of officials involved in World War II and the Holocaust during the Nazi regime. ... The World Medical Association (WMA), an international organization of physicians, was formally established on 17 September 1947, pursuant to deliberations and decisions taken in the First General Assembly of WMA held in Paris, France. ... This article is about the Declaration of Geneva pertaining to the medical profession. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: Fourth Geneva Convention The Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) relates to the protection of civilians during times of war in the hands of an enemy and under any occupation by a foreign power. ... 1949 (MCMXLIX) is a common year starting on Saturday. ... The World Medical Association (WMA), an international organization of physicians, was formally established on 17 September 1947, pursuant to deliberations and decisions taken in the First General Assembly of WMA held in Paris, France. ...

Asserted instances of medical torture

• Between 1937 and 1945, Japanese medical personnel who were part of Unit 731 participated in the torture killings of as many as 10,000 Chinese and Korean prisoners as well as Allied POWs during the second Sino-Japanese War.
• During World War II, the Nazi regime in Germany conducted human medical experimentation on large numbers of people held in its concentration camps. In particular, Josef Mengele's experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz earned him the nicknames "the Angel of Death" and "Dr. Death".
• Japanese surgeons also performed vivisection and other medical experiments to torture American prisoners of war in several islands of the Pacific. [2] [3]
• Between 1970 and 1971, mentally disorienting interrogation techniques were used against interned prisoners captured in Northern Ireland, including white noise. The Irish government complained to the European Commission for Human Rights, who found Britain guilty of torture; however the higher European Court of Human Rights ruled that the British government's actions were "inhuman and degrading but did not constitute torture". [4]
• An Israeli medic was convicted of negligence for refusing to treat interrogated Palestinian detainee Mahmud Al-Masri for a burst ulcer, 24 hours before his death on March 6, 1989 at Gaza Prison. It was claimed by pro-Palestinian sources that this constituted medical torture, however this categorisation is disputed by pro-Israeli commentators, and those who consider it dereliction of duty rather than deliberate torture.
• In 1978, "Pisaot menuh" ("Human Experiments") were performed on seventeen political prisoners held at the infamous prison Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh under the Khmer Rouge.
• A study called "The aVersion Project" found that gay conscripts in the South African Defense Forces (SADF) during the apartheid era had been forced to submit to "curing" their homosexuality, both by electroshock therapies and by botched sex changes.
• There have been numerous claims that electroconvulsive therapy and prefrontal lobotomies and similar psychiatric treatments have sometimes been performed not in the patient's best interests, but rather as punishment for misbehaviour or to otherwise make the patient easier to manage. Some claim that such actions constitute medical torture. Some governments (e.g. Norway) have since begun paying reparations to patients who suffered such abuses.

1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... Body disposal at Unit 731 Unit 731 was a secret military medical unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that researched biological warfare and other topics through human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War(1937-1945) and World War II era. ... The Second Sino-Japanese War was a major invasion of eastern China by Japan preceding and during World War II. It ended with the surrender of Japan in 1945. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others. ... The term National Socialism has been used in self-description by a number of different political groups and ideologies, some of which have no connection with the Nazis; see National socialism (disambiguation). ... This is horrible. ... Josef Mengele Josef Mengele, M.D., Ph. ... Auschwitz, in English, commonly refers to the Auschwitz concentration camp complex built near the town of Oświęcim, by Nazi Germany during World War II. Rarely, it may refer to the Polish town of Oświęcim (called by the Germans Auschwitz) itself. ... Etymologically, vivisection refers to the dissection of, or any cutting or surgery upon, a living animal. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1971 calendar). ... Dieu et mon droit (Royal motto) (French for God and my right)2 Northern Irelands location within the UK Main language English Other recognised languages Irish, Ulster Scots Capital and largest city Belfast First Minister Office suspended Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain MP Area  - Total Ranked... For other uses of the term white noise, see white noise (disambiguation). ... European Court of Human Rights building in Strasbourg The European Court of Human Rights, often referred to informally as the Strasbourg Court, was created to systematise the hearing of human rights complaints from Council of Europe member states. ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... A political prisoner may be someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image are deemed by a government to either challenge or threaten the authority of the state. ... One of the cells at Tuol Sleng The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a musum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on the site of a former prison used by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. ... City motto: No motto City proper Province Phnom Penh Mayor Kep Chuktema ( ) Area 290 km² Population 862,000 Density 3446. ... Some of the Khmer Rouge leadership during their period in power. ... In modern society, gay is a word which can be used as either a noun or adjective. ... Military branches: South African National Defence Force or SANDF (includes Army, Navy, Air Force, and Medical Service), South African Police Service (SAPS) Military manpower - military age: 18 years of age Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 11,924,500 (2004 est. ... A segregated beach in South Africa, 1982. ... A clownfish Sex change in animals Some species are known to change sex, including reproductive functions, in special circumstances, such as the clownfish. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A human brain that had undergone leukotomy. ...

Asserted instances of medical complicity in torture

• A report in The Lancet states that U.S. military doctors and other medical personnel in Iraq were aware of and complicit in the 2003-2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. According to the article, none of the approximately 70 medical staff who were aware of the torture reported it prior to the official investigation in January 2004. It also states that medical staff conspired to cover up the abuse by falsifying medical records and death certificates.
• Member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Medical Doctor Phil Gingrey visited Guantanamo Bay and expressed his approval of the interrogation methods used there. He said "hard-working, honorable American troops at Gitmo are doing everything possible to treat enemy combatants in a manner consistent with the principles of the Geneva Convention" [5]. Janis Karpinski has made allegations of torture at the prison camp which, if true, would put Gingrey's medical ethics requirements as a doctor at odds with his commendation.
• The SERE ("Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape") program's chief psychologist, Col. Morgan Banks, issued guidance in early 2003 for the "behavioral science consultants" who helped to devise Guantánamo's interrogation strategy although he has emphatically denied that he had advocated the use of SERE counter-resistance techniques to break down detainees. The New Yorker notes that in November, 2001 Banks was detailed to Afghanistan, where he spent four months at Bagram Air Base, "supporting combat operations against Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters".
• A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch suggested that torture was routine under the appointed Iraqi government. Human Rights Watch Report
• Dr. J.C. Carothers, British colonial Kenyan psychiatrist, has been implicated in designing interrogation of Mau Mau prisoners.
• Similarly, it has been implied that Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Dr. Ayad Allawi violated his obligation to medical ethics whilst serving as Western European chief of secret police for the Baathist government of Saddam Hussein. However, the same sources allege that Allawi had abandoned his medical education at that point and his medical degree "was conferred upon him by the Baath party." [6].

The Lancet is one of the oldest and most respected peer-reviewed medical journals, published weekly by the Lancet Publishing Group, part of Reed Elsevier. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... It has been designated the: International Year of Rice (by the United Nations) International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO) 2004 World Health Day topic was Road Safety (by World Health Organization) Year of the Monkey (by the Chinese calendar) See the world in... {{{mWf}}} Caution: This article contains several potentially morbid photographs that depict nude, abused, and deceased persons. ... House of Representatives is a name used for legislative bodies in many countries. ... Gingrey during a committee hearing John Phillip Gingrey, M.D., (born July 10, 1942), an American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 2003, representing the 11th District of Georgia map). ... Map of Cuba with location of Guantánamo Bay indicated. ... Janis Karpinski wearing her Brigadier General star before being demoted to Colonel Janis Leigh Karpinski (born May 25, 1953, Rahway, New Jersey) is a United States Army Colonel in the 800th Military Police Brigade. ... SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) is a U.S. military training program developed at the end of the Korean War to provide service members with training in survival skills, evading capture, and dealing with being taken prisoner. ... Map of Cuba with location of Guantánamo Bay indicated. ... Bagram Air Base Bagram Air Base is located at the antique city of Bagram near Charikar in Parvan, Afghanistan. ... Human Rights Watch is a U.S.-based international human rights non-governmental organization located in New York City, USA, that conducts advocacy and research on human rights issues. ... The Mau Mau Uprising was an insurgency by Kenyan rebels against the British colonial administration from 1952 to 1960. ... Iyad Allawi Dr. Iyad Allawi (اياد علاوي) (born 1945) is the interim Prime Minister of Iraq. ... A secret police (sometimes political police) force is a police organization that operates in secret to enforce state security. ... Bath Party flag The Arab Socialist Bath Party (also spelled Baath or Baath; Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي) was founded in 1945 as a radical, left-wing, secular Arab nationalist political party. ... Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti, (Arabic ), born April 28, 1937 , was the President of Iraq from 1979 until he was captured by the military of the United States on December 13th, 2003, following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. ...

Medical torture in fiction

• Actor Michael Palin plays a medical torturer in Director Terry Gilliam's 1985 dark comedic dystopian film Brazil.
• Actor Gregory Peck plays Nazi medical torturer Josef Mengele in Director Franklin J. Schaffner's 1979 The Boys from Brazil.
• Actor Laurence Olivier plays a Nazi torturer dentist Christian Szell in Director John Schlesinger's 1976 Marathon Man.
• The film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, starring Jack Nicholson, shows abuse of psychiatric techniques including electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomy.

Michael Palin Michael Edward Palin (born May 5, 1943 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England) is an English comedian, actor and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python, as well as for his travel documentaries. ... Terry Gilliam at Cannes 2001. ... Gregory Peck at Cannes, 2000 Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an Oscar-winning American film actor. ... Josef Mengele Josef Mengele, M.D., Ph. ... Franklin James Schaffner (May 30, 1920 - July 2, 1989) was an American film director. ... The Boys from Brazil (1976) is a fiction thriller novel by Ira Levin. ... Laurence Olivier, as photographed in 1939 by Carl Van Vechten The Right Honourable Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM, KBE (May 22, 1907 – July 11, 1989) was an Oscar winning English actor and director, esteemed by many as the greatest actor of the 20th century. ... John Richard Schlesinger (February 16, 1926–July 25, 2003) was a British film director. ... Marathon Man is a 1974 paranoid thriller novel by William Goldman that was made into a 1976 film directed by John Schlesinger. ... One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is a 1975 film directed by Miloš Forman. ... Jack Nicholson at Cannes, (2001). ... Psychosurgery is the practice of performing surgery on the brain to treat or alleviate severe mental disease. ...

See also

• Declaration of Helsinki
• Doctors' Trial
• Geneva Convention
• Medical ethics
• Nuremberg Principles
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Vivisection

The Declaration of Helsinki, developed by the World Medical Association, is a set of ethical principles for the medical community regarding human experimentation. ... Karl Brandt at the Doctors Trial The Doctors Trial (or, officially, United States of America v. ... The Geneva Conventions consist of treaties formulated in Geneva, Switzerland that set the standards for international law for humanitarian concerns. ... Medical ethics is the discipline of evaluating the merits, risks, and social concerns of activities in the field of medicine. ... The Nuremberg Principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitues a war crime. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (also UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/217, December 10, 1948), outlining the organisations view on the human rights guaranteed to all people. ... Etymologically, vivisection refers to the dissection of, or any cutting or surgery upon, a living animal. ...

Sources

• Dr. J.C. Carothers, M.B. D.P.M. 1954. The Psychology of the Mau Mau. Government Printer, Nairobi, Colony and Protectorate of Kenya.
• Carolina Elkins. 2005. Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0805076530.
• Steven H. Miles, Abu Ghraib: its legacy for military medicine; The Lancet volume 364 issue 9435, page 725 (August 2004) [7]
  Related editorials:
  • The Lancet editorial staff, How complicit are doctors in abuses of detainees?; The Lancet volume 364 issue 9435, page 637 [8]
  • Harvey Rishikof and Michael Schrage, Technology vs. Torture; Slate, August 18, 2004. [9]
  • CNN editorial staff, Ethicist questions medical workers' role in abuse.; CNN.com, August 19, 2004. [10]
  • John Carvel, Abu Ghraib doctors knew of torture, says Lancet report; The Guardian, August 20, 2004. [11]
• Mikki van Zyl, Jeanelle de Gruchy, Sheila Lapinsky, Simon Lewin and Graeme Reid, The Aversion Project--psychiatric abuses in the South African Defence Force during the apartheid era.; South African Medical Journal volume 91 issue 3, page 216 (March 2001) [12] [13]
  Related editorials:
  • Paul Kirk, Apartheid army forced gay soldiers into sex change operations; Daily Mail & Guardian, July 28, 2000 [14]
  • Ana Simo, South Africa: Apartheid Military Forced Gay Troops Into Sex-Change Operations, The Gully, August 25, 2000 [15]
  • S. Predag, South African Gays Terrorized During Apartheid Era; Lesbian News, volume 26 issue 3 (October 2000)
• Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot regime: Race, Power, and genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1975; Yale University Press, 2002. pp. 438-439. [16]
• Joost R. Hiltermann. "Deaths in Israeli Prisons." Journal of Palestine Studies. Spring 1990. Vol. 19: Issue 3. pp. 101-110.
• Eliott Valenstein. Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery and Other Radical Treatments for Mental Illness (Basic Books, 1986).
• Stephen N. Xenakis. "From the Medics: Unhealthy Silence." The Washington Post. Feb. 6, 2005. p. B4. [17]