Dirty Laundry: The American Psychological Association and Torture

A new report, written by a 20-person task force of physicians, lawyers, and human rights experts and recently released by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession and the Open Society Foundations, has found that medical doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists, along with other health professionals have been instructed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense to violate standard ethical principles and medical standards (i.e. do no harm) in the “war on terror”. These professionals have aided in cruel and degrading interrogations, assisted in devising and implementing practices designed to maximize disorientation and anxiety in order to make detainees more malleable for interrogation, and participated in the application of excruciatingly painful methods of force-feeding of mentally competent detainees carrying out hunger strikes. The full report is available for free download at http://www.imapny.org/medicine_as_a_profession/interrogationtorture-and-dual-loyalty

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Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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