PHR: Bush Administration Conducted Experiments and Research on Detainees to Design Torture Techniques

In their attempt to justify the war crime of torture, the CIA appears to have committed another alleged war crime-illegal experimentation on prisoners.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) released a new report on Monday which provides evidence indicating that the "enhanced interrogation" program carried out after September 11, 2001 involved doctors and other health professionals in conducting apparently unethical research and experimentation using detainees as human subjects. 

The report, "Experiments in Torture" is based on publicly available documentation. It provides evidence of health professionals' engaging in research on interrogation techniques that violates the Geneva Conventions, The Common Rule, the Nuremberg Code and other international and domestic prohibitions against illegal human subject research and experimentation. 

This evidence indicating apparent research and experimentation on detainees opens the door to potential additional legal liability for the CIA and Bush-era officials.
The report details how research and medical experimentation on detainees was allegedly used to measure the effects of large-volume water boarding and adapt the procedure. 

Moreover, according to the report, health professionals monitored sleep deprivation on more than a dozen detainees and the findings to assess varying levels of sleep deprivation to support legal definitions of torture and to plan future sleep deprivation techniques. 

They also analyzed data based on their observations of 25 detainees who were subjected to individual and combined applications of "enhanced" interrogation techniques to determine whether one type of application over another would increase the subject's "susceptibility to severe pain."

Experiments in Torture is the first report to reveal evidence indicating that CIA medical personnel allegedly engaged in the crime of illegal experimentation, in addition to the previously disclosed crime of torture. 

Following Monday's release of Experiments in Torture, PHR has sent a letter to President Obama to call on him to investigate thoroughly the full scope of the human experimentation. PHR will demand that victims of research and experimentation perpetrated by the United States must be offered compensation, including health care services, to address ongoing health effects related to the experimentation, and a formal apology.

To view the full report and the letter to US President Barack Obama, Click here.