Letters to the Editor

Detainee Policy Sharply Divides Bush Officials

The intense government debate over the treatment of detainees, given its importance to our country as a whole, requires broad public participation.

Recently, the American College of Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, together representing more than 300,000 members, have gone on record endorsing Senator John McCain's proposal to prohibit the "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees.

The fate of this proposal deeply concerns American health professionals. Our ethics codes condemn torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and prohibit health professionals from supporting such abuses.

If approved intact by Congress, the McCain amendment, by proscribing abusive treatment of all detainees in United States custody, would help ensure that our colleagues in the national-security setting are never drawn into abusive, harmful or unethical interrogations and detention practices.

Above all, it would eloquently clarify our country's values and our traditional, legal and moral commitment against torture and abuse.

C. Anderson Hedberg, M.D.
Steven S. Sharfstein, M.D.
Ronald F. Levant
Philadelphia
Nov. 2, 2005

The writers are presidents of, respectively, the American College of Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.

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