Before the Joint Committee on Public Health
The Massachusetts Medical Society’s has established policy on the participation of physicians in torture.
“The Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) asserts that physicians should not be coerced or participate in, or otherwise assist or facilitate, the commission of torture of any person.
Physicians who have firsthand knowledge that torture has occurred, is occurring, or has been planned have a duty to promptly inform person or persons in a position to take corrective action.
Physicians providing medical care to individual detainees owe their primary obligation to the well-being of their patients and should not participate or assist in any way, whether directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in the interrogation of their patients on behalf of military or civilian agencies; nor should any part of the medical records of any patient or information derived from the treatment relationship be disclosed to persons conducting interrogation of the detainee.
Physicians should not participate in or assist any coercive interrogation including degradation, threats, isolation, imposition of fear, humiliation, sensory deprivation or excessive stimulation, sleep deprivation, exploitation of phobias, or intentional infliction of physical pain.”
The MMS’s House of Delegates is the policy making arm of the Society. It is comprised of over 200 regional delegates representing the nearly 25,000 physicians and student members of the MMS. Proposed policies are introduced by individual members, committees of the Society or Districts. Testimony is presented publicly during reference committee hearings on the first day of the Annual meeting and the full House of Delegates votes on the reference committee’s recommendations thereafter.
The policy above was recommended for adoption by the reference committee and subsequently adopted by the full House of Delegates in 2006. This policy position is offered to assist the Committee in its deliberations on H 1921/S 1143.
