Report: U.S. Army doctors helped in abuse

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. Army doctors were involved in the abuse process and torture of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, the New England Journal of Medicine reports.

The four-page article was written by Gregg Bloche, a law professor at Georgetown University and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, and by Jonathan Marks, a London lawyer who is a bioethics fellow at Georgetown University Law Center and Johns Hopkins.

It claims medical workers gave interrogators access to patient medical files, and psychiatrists and other physicians collaborated with interrogators and guards who, in turn, deprived detainees of sleep, restricted them to diets of bread and water, and exposed them to extreme heat and cold.

The article said doctors have a duty to document abuse and report it to commanders and concluded "by these standards, military medicine has fallen short."

Pentagon officials told the Washington Post the article is inaccurate and misrepresents military officials' positions and acts. Doctors did not violate the Geneva Conventions, said William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.