Medical profession must dissociate itself from torture & actively investigate & sanction offenders

[struggle4progress]

Medical profession must dissociate itself from torture and actively investigate and sanction offenders

Published: Thursday, 31-Jul-2008

Doctors who assist in torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment should face prosecution and licensing punishments, says an editorial on BMJ.com.

Steven Miles from the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota, says that more doctors are involved in torturing prisoners than in treating torture survivors. But doctors who assist in torture rarely face professional consequences. He argues that the medical profession must not only dissociate itself from torture but actively investigate and sanction offenders.

More than 100 countries condone the use of torture and up to half of torture survivors report that a doctor was present and oversaw the abuse.

Miles points out that while medical societies are quick to condemn doctors participating in torture abroad, they are not so vocal when it comes to what is taking place in their own country ...

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=40440

[Cobalt-60]

1. torture doctors. Theres a black list worth keeping

Is there a central registry where these criminals can be identified?

[Mnemosyne]

3. Unidentified to protect the guilty, as usual. n/t

[flashl]

2. And, here ...

NC Medical Board appeals execution decision


The Associated Press

Published: July 30, 2008

The North Carolina Medical Board on Wednesday defended its right to punish physicians who participate in executions, arguing in an appeal that the Legislature never intended for doctors to take part.

The board asked the state Supreme Court to reverse a Superior Court judge's decision from September 2007 that determined the board overstepped its authority by threatening to punish physicians for participating in executions.

The medical board said in the appeal it filed Wednesday that it "would be abandoning its own mission were it not to enforce and protect the ethics of the medical profession, especially one so central to the medical profession as the preservation of life."

The board's policy effectively triggered a moratorium on the death penalty in North Carolina, which has not executed an inmate since August 2006.