The Pentagon's top health official said the allegation is "an outrageous distortion" of what actually was going on at the prison camp in Cuba.
Dr. Gregg Bloche, of the Brookings Institutionand who also teaches law at Georgetown University in Washington, and Jonathan Marks, a barrister at Matrix Chambers in London and a bioethics fellow at Georgetown, made the allegations in a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"Health information has been routinely available to behavioral science consultants and others who are responsible for crafting and carrying out interrogation strategies," their commentary says.
The two experts continue with allegations that health professionals caring for the prisoners at Guantanamo have been encouraged to tell military officials there about relevant health information, "Not only does this undermine patient trust; it puts prisoners at greater risk for serious abuse. The global political fallout from such abuse may pose more of a threat to U.S. security than any secrets still closely held by shackled internees at Guantanamo Bay," they said.
Dr. William Winkenwerder, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, denied the allegations and said the Guantanamo detainees had the same rights as federal or military inmates.
