Today’s issue of the journal Science includes an article by PHR experts which outlines how the Bush administration relied on flawed science to justify the use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs). While we have long known that the EITs employed by the Bush administration were illegal and unethical, this article shows that the science used to justify them was flawed as well. The article, which is authored by Vince Iacopino, Scott Allen and Allen Keller, argues that the science used to justify the EITs strongly suggests evidence of criminal negligence and possibly an intent to commit and conceal a systematic policy of torture. The article concludes with a number of recommendations designed to help scientists and health professionals uphold their commitment to the human rights and dignity of all people. David Biello, of Scientific American, echoed the author’s call for an investigation in his news story on the article:
As a result, the authors call for reforms, including requiring military medical personnel to follow all civilian medical ethics standards, as well as an investigation into what role, if any, such CIA or Department of Defense doctors played in torture or human experimentation. At the very least, such an investigation might provide some more useful information than that elicited via enhanced interrogation techniques.