HEALTH professionals working for the CIA were involved in monitoring and refining “enhanced” interrogation techniques for the US government, a human rights group has claimed.

Physicians for Human Rights, a US organisation of health professionals, says the Bush administration “apparently conducted illegal and unethical human experimentation and research on detainees in CIA custody”.

The group says its charges are based on documents in the public record, and that they believe the “apparent experimentation and research appear to have bene performed to provide legal cover for torture”, and to justify and shape future policies for the use of these “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

The group has filed a complaint, backed by other human rights groups, with the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Human Research Protections.

A CIA spokesman rejected the report.

BMJ 2010, online