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BioEdge: US should stop physician participation in detainee force-feeding, say ethicists || BioEdge

US should stop physician participation in detainee force-feeding, say ethicists

by Michael Cook | 9 Jan 2016 |

The US government should rescind directives authorizing participation of health professionals in interrogation and force-feeding because they are inconsistent with professional ethics, argue ethicists in PLoS Medicine.
A 2015 report of the Defense Health Board found that the Department of Defense “does not have an enterprise-wide, formal, integrated infrastructure to systematically build, support, sustain, and promote an evolving ethical culture within the military health care environment.”
The Board declared that health care professionals should not have to perform medical procedures that violate their professional code of ethics, State medical board standards of conduct, or the core tenets of their religious or moral beliefs.
In the wake of scandals about torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and other sites run by the CIA or the military, the government accepted most of the Board’s recommendations.
However, there were some loose ends. “The Board’s failure to call for a prohibition of any military health professional involvement in interrogation or force-feeding hunger strikers in its recommendations is a serious deficiency. It should also have recommended transparency and oversight in the reform process,” say Leonard S. Rubenstein, of Johns Hopkins University and co-authors in the PLoS article.
They conclude with a ringing call for respect for conscientious objection:

“Health professionals who have volunteered to serve for their country should never be asked or directed to violate their professional ethics, nor be allowed to be instruments in detainee abuse. To be true to their role in setting ethical standards for practice and creating an environment that enables health professionals to follow them, professional associations must do everything in their power to make sure that military rules do not require health professionals to choose between service to their country and ethical practice.”

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/us-should-stop-physician-participation-in-detainee-force-feeding-say-ethici/11702#sthash.iwoOUXpv.dpuf
Bioedge

Happy New Year! BioEdge is gearing up for a big year, with lots of news and more interviews with bioethicists from around the world.

Animal rights is one of the areas which we cover from time to time – which explains the photo above, one which I have been dying to use. It is a famous selfie of a male crested macaque named Naruto in an Indonesian wlldlife reserve.

British nature photographer David Slater placed the camera amongst the monkeys in 2011 and Naruto pressed the trigger. Later on the image appeared on Wikipedia without Slater’s permission, but Wikipedia refused to take it down, because Naruto was the “author”, not Slater.

In September PETA (People for the Ethical Treatments of Animals) became involved. It argued in United States District Court in San Francisco that Naruto held the copyright. On his behalf PETA wanted to licence the image and use the proceeds to protect his species. Implicit in its case was the notion that animal are also persons and have legal rights.

The bemused judge, William H. Orrick, disagreed. “While Congress and the president can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans,” he wrote, “there is no indication that they did so in the copyright act.”

This was a blow for PETA, but its attorney was philosophical. “We will continue to fight for Naruto and his fellow macaques,” said Jeff Kerr. “As my legal mentor used to say, ‘In social-cause cases, historically, you lose, you lose, you lose, and then you win.’”