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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday May 03 2015, @06:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-about-the-Hippocratic-oath? dept.

The leading American professional group for psychologists secretly worked with the Bush administration to help justify the post-9/11 US detainee torture program, according to a watchdog analysis [PDF] released on Thursday.

The report, written by six leading health professionals and human rights activists, is the first to examine the alleged complicity of the American Psychological Association (APA) in the “enhanced interrogation” program.

Based on an analysis of more than 600 newly disclosed emails, the report found that the APA coordinated with Bush-era government officials – namely in the CIA, White House and Department of Defense – to help ethically justify the interrogation policy in 2004 and 2005, when the program came under increased scrutiny for prisoner abuse by US military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

A series of clandestine meetings with US officials led to the creation of “an APA ethics policy in national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the CIA torture program,” the report’s authors found.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/30/psychologists-bush-officials-torture-program

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @07:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @07:37PM (#178204)

    But these are psychologists, PhDs, not MDs, those are psychiatrists and they are bound by professional ethics to operate in the best interests of their patient, which kind of rules out torture. And it was basically two guys looking for defense contracts, hella lot more money than teaching Intro Psych! And, they might be psychopaths. The American Psychological Association is going to tear itself apart over this. More consequences of the Bush administration for higher education in America!

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @07:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @07:48PM (#178207)

    Mod this AC up. Psychologists have been at the bottom of intellectual totem pole, but they apparently managed to sink even lower.

  • (Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday May 03 2015, @08:49PM

    by Mr Big in the Pants (4956) on Sunday May 03 2015, @08:49PM (#178217)

    It sounds like that does not apply in this case either since they were not actually their patients.

    What you are suggesting is deregistering someone for advising on how one might proceed in a procedure they will not be involved in on people who they will have nothing to do with.

    Morally reprehensible, yes. Breech of doctor-patient relationship...no.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @09:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @09:36PM (#178233)

      It sounds like that does not apply in this case either since they were not actually their patients.

      Yes,very interesting, but even more damning. If you are giving medical or psychological advice on the treatment of a person, and that person is not your patient, then they are your victim.

      • (Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday May 03 2015, @11:14PM

        by Mr Big in the Pants (4956) on Sunday May 03 2015, @11:14PM (#178270)

        So what is the difference between them or any other run of the mill sociopath working with the CIA??

        Chosen profession? Is that it?

        It most certainly is not hypocrisy...

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @09:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @09:35PM (#178232)

    They recently did a study, repeating 100 psychological tests.
    Psychology: Only 39 Percent Reproducibility [nature.com]

    -- gewg_

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:43PM (#178249)

    Are psychologists not governed by a code of ethics?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @11:04PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @11:04PM (#178263)

      Are psychologists not governed by a code of ethics?

      Your generic academic professional ethics, and probably the International Conventions on Human experimentation, the International Convention Against Torture, things like that. But as many have been pointing out, psychology is an academic discipline, not a profession like psychiatry.