95.973 Physician Involvement in Interrogation and in Torture:
The following definitions are for purposes of this statement:
Torture is defined as the intentional infliction of physical or mental harm for the purpose of gathering information, or to secure control or cooperation of a detainee, or for disciplinary or retaliatory purposes.
Interrogation is defined as questioning related to law enforcement or to military and national security intelligence gathering, designed to prevent harm or danger to individuals, the public or national security. Interrogations are distinct from questioning used by physicians to assess the physical or mental condition of an individual.
Coercive is defined as threatening to cause harm through physical injury or mental suffering.
Detainee is defined as a criminal suspect, prisoner of war, enemy combatant, or any other individual who is being held involuntarily.
Physicians who engage in any activity that relies on their medical knowledge and skills, regardless of jurisdiction or location, must continue to uphold principles of medical ethics. Physicians must not engage, directly or indirectly, in torture or in interrogations. Questions about the propriety of physician participation in interrogations and in the development of interrogation strategies may be addressed by balancing obligations to individuals with obligations to protect the public interest, e.g. from terrorist attack. Precedent for this may be found in public health ethics in which physicians’ expertise inform guidelines, policies, and procedure that lead to the imposition of relatively minor hardships on individuals for public welfare. However, when a physician is directly and clinically involved with an individual, the physician’s obligations to the individual take precedent over public interests.
Physician involvement with interrogations during law enforcement or intelligence gathering should be guided by the following:
- Physicians must not directly or indirectly participate in torture or in the development of techniques of torture.
- Physicians may perform physical and mental assessments of detainees to determine the need for and to provide medical care. When so doing, physicians must disclose to the detainee the extent to which others has access to information included in medical record. Treatment must never be conditional on a patient’s participation in an interrogation.
- Physicians must neither conduct nor directly participate in an interrogation, because a role as physician-interrogator undermines the physician’s role as healer and thereby erodes trust in the individual physician-interrogator and in the medical profession.
- Physicians must not monitor an interrogation with the intention of intervening in the interrogation, because this constitutes direct participation in interrogation.
- Physicians may participate in developing effective interrogation strategies for general training purposes. These strategies must be humane, respect the rights of individuals, and must not be coercive, for example, threaten or cause physical injury or mental suffering.
- When a physician has sound reason to believe that an interrogation constitutes torture, he or she must report this concern to the appropriate authorities. If the authorities are aware of the inappropriate interrogation but have not intervened to either stop the interrogation or prevent further inappropriate interrogations, physicians are ethically obligated to report such interrogations to independent authorities that have the power to investigate and/or adjudicate such allegations. (Council 11/19/09; Reaffirmed HOD 2015-167; Reaffirmed HOD 2024 in lieu of 169)
