Christopher Howard
Extract
The reader is left with no escape from the conclusion that doctors through overwhelming pressure, cowardice, lack of peer support, lack of self-criticism or awareness and even personal conviction and relish have betrayed the principles of their profession, often in the recent past and often not far from home. . . Ultimately the question that remains tantalizingly unanswered is when is punishment not cruel, inhuman or degrading? Paradoxically, through condemning so eloquently the identified abuses of medicine, that which is not condemned seems to be given a degree of immunity for which an extension of the report’s own arguments appears to provide no justification.
Howard C. (Book Review) Medicine betrayed: the participation of doctors in human rights abuses. J Med Ethics. 1994 Mar;20(1):61-62.