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Hunger Strikers: Ethical and Legal Dimensions of Medical Complicity in Torture at Guantanamo Bay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2013

Sarah M. Dougherty ,
Jennifer Leaning ,
P. Gregg Greenough  and
Frederick M. Burkle Jr.
Sarah M. Dougherty*
Affiliation:
FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts USA
Jennifer Leaning
Affiliation:
FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts USA Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MassachusettsUSA Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
P. Gregg Greenough
Affiliation:
Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MassachusettsUSA Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts USA Division of International Health and Humanitarian Programs, Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts USA
Frederick M. Burkle Jr.
Affiliation:
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts USA Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DCUSA
*
Correspondence: Sarah M. Dougherty, JD, MPH FXB Center for Health and Human Rights Harvard School of Public Health 651 Huntington Ave, 7th Floor Boston, MA 02115 USA E-mail sdougher@hsph.harvard.edu
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Abstract

Physicians and other licensed health professionals are involved in force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay (GTMO), Cuba, the detention center established to hold individuals captured and suspected of being terrorists in the wake of September 11, 2001. The force-feeding of competent hunger strikers violates medical ethics and constitutes medical complicity in torture. Given the failure of civilian and military law to end the practice, the medical profession must exert policy and regulatory pressure to bring the policy and operations of the US Department of Defense into compliance with established ethical standards. Physicians, other health professionals, and organized medicine must appeal to civilian state oversight bodies and federal regulators of medical science to revoke the licenses of health professionals who have committed prisoner abuses at GTMO.

DoughertySM, LeaningJ, GreenoughPG, BurkleFMJr. Hunger Strikers: Ethical and Legal Dimensions of Medical Complicity in Torture at Guantanamo Bay. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2013;28(6):1-9.

Keywords

dual loyaltyhunger strikemedical ethicsmilitary medicineprisoner
Type
Special Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 28 , Issue 6 , December 2013 , pp. 616 - 624
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2013 

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