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Views & Reviews No Holds Barred

Margaret McCartney: Rectal feeding is torture masquerading as medicine

BMJ 2014; 349 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g7859 (Published 31 December 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g7859
  1. Margaret McCartney, general practitioner, Glasgow
  1. margaret{at}margaretmccartney.com

The most recent mention of “rectal feeding” I can find in the medical literature is from 1913, when it was described as a technique to give nutrition to people who were “nil by mouth.”1 No, I didn’t learn about it at medical school either.

The recent report on the CIA by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence says that “at least” five detainees in secret prisons outside the United States had been “subjected to rectal rehydration or rectal feeding,” one having been “‘very hostile’ . . . [he] removed the rectal tube as soon as he was allowed to.”

The partially redacted report, which covers the CIA’s interrogation programme that began in 2002, …

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