CIA torture doctors contravene Hippocratic Oath

A new report revealed that US medical experts were involved in enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on terror suspects during the Bush administration in violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

"Health professionals played a main role in developing, implementing and providing justification for torture," Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said in a report issued on Monday.

The PHR report also asserted: "Health professionals in the (federal government) and psychologist contractors engaged in designing and monitoring harmful interrogation techniques,"

The US-based medical rights advocacy group condemned the activities.

"Such medical participation in torture is a clear violation of medical ethics," said PHR.

The group also said the health experts "were complicit in selecting and then rationalizing these abusive methods, whose safety and efficacy in eliciting accurate information have no valid basis in science."

CIA interrogators are accused of having used a range of techniques on detainees, including physical threats, mock executions, choking to the point where detainees lost consciousness, and even using a stiff brush to scrub a detainee's skin raw.

PHR warned that such spy agency techniques - and monitoring by doctors to gauge their effectiveness - "approaches unlawful experimentation" on human subjects.

The group called for a separate investigation of the medical experts involved to determine whether "criminal and unprofessional conduct" took place and said those who violated medical ethics rules should lose their licenses.

Meanwhile, in response to a request, the CIA declared it cannot turn over more details of its interrogations of terror suspects without spilling classified government secrets.

A report released last week shed new light on alleged CIA abuses. The agency faced a Monday court deadline to turn over more papers, but the CIA responded by telling the federal judge in the case that dozens of remaining documents must stay secret.