Is Michael Moore adding insult to injury

'Sicko' stars thank Moore for Cuba trip - USATODAY.com

In the film, Moore takes them to Cuba and tries to get them treated at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay — where, he contends, terror suspects were getting better medical care than the heroes of 9/11.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-05-19-michael-moore-cuba_N.htm?csp=34

Abu Ghraib doctors knew of torture, says Lancet report
2007-02-02

Army doctors at the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad falsified medical records to cover up torture and human rights abuses perpetrated on Iraqi detainees, the British medical journal the Lancet reported today.

It called for a full inquiry into reform of the military health system to address the failure of army medical staff to live up to their code of ethics and a professional obligation to care for their patients.

The journal published an article by Steven Miles, a professor of bioethics at the University of Minnesota, saying that American army doctors and nurses had been fully aware of torture and degrading treatment at Abu Ghraib, but did not blow the whistle before an official inquiry began in January.

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· Medical personnel and medical information were used to design and implement psychologically and physically coercive interrogations.

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An example of the ethical failings of medical personnel came in November 2003 after Iraqi Major General Mowhoush's head was pushed into a sleeping bag while interrogators sat on his chest.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1287158,00.html

TIME.com: How Doctors Got Into the Torture Business
2006-06-25
Some of the medical involvement in torture defies belief. In one of the few actual logs we have of a high-level interrogation, that of Mohammed al-Qhatani (first reported in TIME), doctors were present during the long process of constant sleep deprivation over 55 days, and they induced hypothermia and the use of threatening dogs, among other techniques. According to Miles, Medics had to administer three bags of medical saline to Qhatani — while he was strapped to a chair — and aggressively treat him for hypothermia in the hospital. They then returned him to his interrogators. Elsewhere in Guantánamo, one prisoner had a gunshot wound that was left to fester during three days of interrogation before treatment, and two others were denied antibiotics for wounds. In Iraq, according to the Army surgeon general as reported by Miles, "an anesthesiologist repeatedly dropped a 2-lb. bag of intravenous fluid on a patient; a nurse deliberately delayed giving pain medication, and medical staff fed pork to Muslim patients." Doctors were also tasked at Abu Ghraib with "Dietary Manip (monitored by med)," in other words, using someone's food intake to weaken or manipulate them.

Of the 136 documented deaths of prisoners in detention, Miles found, medical death certificates were often not issued until months or even years after the actual deaths. One prisoner's corpse at Camp Cropper was kept for two weeks before his family or criminal investigators were notified. The body was then left at a local hospital with a certificate attributing death to "sudden brainstem compression." The hospital's own autopsy found that the man had died of a massive blow to the head. Another certificate claimed a 63-year-old prisoner had died of "cardiovascular disease and a buildup of fluid around his heart." According to Miles, no mention was made that the old man had been stripped naked, doused in cold water and kept outside in 40° cold for three days before cardiac arrest.

Other doctors just looked the other way, their military duty overruling the Hippocratic Oath. One at Abu Ghraib intervened to ask guards to stop beating one prisoner's wounded leg and quit hanging him from an injured shoulder. He saw it happen three times. He never reported it. In Mosul, according to Miles, one medic witnessed guards beating a prisoner and burning him by dragging him over hot stones. The prisoner was taken to the hospital, treated and then returned by doctors to his torturers. An investigation into the incidentwas closed because the medic didn't sign the medical record and so he couldn't be identified.

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http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1207633,00.html

Psychologists and Physicians Involved in Torture at Guantanamo
2006-06-08

Washington - The Pentagon on Tuesday placed new restrictions on how doctors can be involved in interrogations of detainees, but critics deplored any policy that gives medical professionals a role, saying it can lead questioners to use harsher tactics than they would without medical advice.

The military's use of medical professionals in interrogations has drawn fire from human rights groups and medical ethicists. They have charged that doctors have been used unethically at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to force-feed detainees on hunger strikes and provide medical advice to help interrogators.

William Winkenwerder Jr., the assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs who approved the new policy, said it was written to ensure that healthcare professionals play an appropriate role. The policy attempts to draw a clear distinction between medical personnel who care for the health of detainees and mental health professionals, called "behavioral science consultants," who assist interrogators.

Winkenwerder, in a conference call with reporters, said the "consultants" did not take part in interrogations. They make psychological assessments of prisoners, he said, but are not allowed to shape interrogations with their knowledge of a subject's phobias or medical vulnerabilities.

Leonard S. Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, said the military should prohibit psychologists or doctors from aiding in the questioning of detainees. "They are using their professional knowledge to hurt people," he said. "The bottom line is health professionals should not be involved in interrogations."

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060706E.shtml

In the film, Moore takes them to Cuba and tries to get them treated at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay — where, he contends, terror suspects were getting better medical care than the heroes of 9/11.