Doctors send letter against force-feeding

Scores of prisoners, detained indefinitely, have gone on hunger strikes.
LONDON (AP) -- Doctors from around the world urged the U.S. military Friday to stop force-feeding detainees on hunger strikes at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, calling the procedure "degrading and unethical."
In a letter to The Lancet medical journal, 263 doctors from Britain, Ireland, the United States, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands also appealed to the American Medical Association, which endorses a World Medical Association ban on the force-feeding of patients.
The World Medical Association says a prisoner should not be forcibly fed if a doctor believes he is capable of "unimpaired and rational judgment" to refuse treatment.
"Doctors force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo are acting as an arm of the military," said Dr. William Hopkins, a psychiatrist at Barnet Hospital in London and a signatory to the letter. "It is degrading and unethical to do this to people in detention."
Hunger strikes
Since the U.S. prison camp opened in January 2002 at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, scores of prisoners accused of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban militia or the Al-Qaida terrorist network have waged hunger strikes to protest their indefinite detentions. Many of the 490 men at Guantanamo have been held for four years without charge.
Six detainees are on a hunger strike at the prison, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin said Friday. Three are being forcibly fed through tubes inserted into their nostrils.
The feeding of hunger strikers is carried out in a "humane and compassionate manner," only when necessary and "through lawful clinical means," Martin said in an e-mailed response to questions.
Dr. Duane M. Cady, chairman of the AMA board of trustees, said Friday the association had met with the Defense Department to raise concern about doctors' "feeding individuals against their will."
No detainees have died at the Guantanamo prison, Martin said. However, there have been more than 34 suicide attempts since the camp opened. One prisoner was left with brain damage.
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