Medics to U.S.: End force-feedings in Gitmo

[harpo]

250 doctors from 7 countries protest Gitmo practice
Friday, March 10, 2006; Posted: 8:07 a.m. EST (13:07 GMT)


LONDON, England (Reuters) -- More than 250 doctors from seven countries urged the U.S. government on Friday to abandon force-feeding and the use of restraints on hunger strikers at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

The doctors from Britain, the United States, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands said prisoners at the camp in eastern Cuba have the right to refuse treatment and that physicians must respect their decision.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/03/10/lancet.gitmo.reut/index.html

[katinmn]

1. Neurologist challenges AMA to speak up! Silence is deafening.

Dr David Nicholl, a neurologist at City Hospital in Birmingham, England, and the initiator of the letter, said the American public and the medical community need to be aware of what is happening at Guantanamo Bay.

"These are very serious allegations," Nicholl told Reuters.

The letter also questions how seriously the American medical profession takes allegations of torture by its own members.

"This is a challenge to the American Medical Association," he said. "Are they going to obey those declarations (forbidding force-feeding), or are those bits of paper literally not worth the paper they are written on?"

[harpo]

3. does the AMA normally take stances on stuff like this?

[katinmn]

4. I wouldn't call it normal, but they have issued position statements

such as:

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/16007.html
AMA opposes physician involvement in executions

[harpo]

5. sweet, thanks for the reference

[katinmn]

2. Kick for the doctors