JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
-
To evaluate access to and distribution and quality of medical supplies donated by humanitarian aid organizations to hospitals and health services during the war in Bosnia and Croatia. ⋯ During war, access and security are beyond the control of humanitarian agencies. Assistance coordination, however, must be provided. Although a consensus on policies and objectives between different humanitarian organizations is difficult to reach, satisfactory complementarity can be achieved. The systematic and continuous gathering of information at the recipient and user level, beginning at the early phase of the conflict, is recommended to maintain appropriate assistance.
-
Between June 1994 and October 1995, representatives of Physicians for Human Rights studied the problem of physician complicity in torture (ie, misrepresentation and omission of medical evidence in postdetention examinations of detainees) in Turkey. The research consisted of a survey of forensic documentation of torture, interviews with individual physicians who examine detainees, analyses of official medical reports of detainees, and interviews with survivors of torture. Results from the survey, interviews, and medical report analyses provide evidence that torture of political and criminal detainees continues to occur in Turkey and that Turkish physicians are coerced to ignore, misrepresent, and omit evidence of torture in their examinations of detainees to certify that there are no physical signs of torture.