It's like all the other aspects of detainee treatment -- there's been no transparency whatsoever.

I think it's a flawed basis, ... All the facts suggest there are things they didn't look into. We know what kind of aggressive techniques are used there – humiliation, sleep deprivation, degradation. They didn't ask what role [medical personnel] played in those techniques.

The ethical standard is pretty much universal. It's the same reason physicians can't be involved in coerced interrogations.

If you look at the obligations of the health professions and doctors in particular, UN standards, World Medical Association standards, AMA standards, the responsibility of the physician in war or peace is to improve peoples' health and not to inflict pain or harm.

The allegations are of quite startling brutality in the implementation of force-feeding. Yet there's been no independent medical evaluation, and there absolutely needs to be one.