Psychologists, physicians, and other personnel who were trained and licensed to heal were instrumental in creating and maintaining the U.S. government’s policy of torture in its overseas prisons. Health professionals designed torture tactics, directly inflicted and supervised abuse, gauged harm, and enabled, covered up, and failed to report abuse.

This should not come as a surprise. Most torture regimes - even ones as old as the Holy Roman Empire during the Renaissance and as notorious as the Nazi government in World War II - have relied on health professionals to function.  In fact, because our very own mainland prisons and other places of custody are no strangers to abuse, it is critical that we also explore the role of health professionals in systems of injustice at home.

It's time to hold accountable the healers who have harmed. Accountability matters to survivors of medical torture, whose trauma makes it difficult to trust the physicians and psychologists they depend on for recovery, and to the vast majority of health professionals who take seriously their commitment to do no harm.  It also matters to the rest of us - as patients and members of civil society, we have a right to treatment by health professionals who we can trust, and a right to a government that upholds the law.