How Does Waterboarding intertwine Politics and Medicine?

 My boyfriend is in the military, I like to make jokes that he’s a “military for-lifer” and will never leave. As I’ve gotten to know him better, I have learned much more about different military torture techniques. And honestly, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t discuss some of the physiological changes and ethical concerns of one of these torture techniques. In this blog post, I will specifically be looking at the physiological changes and ethical concerns of water boarding as a form of torture.

However, understanding the physiological effects of water boarding is extremely difficult as human case studies cannot ethically water board someone for research, so this research becomes a little more convoluted. A study published in 2019, investigated amateur waterboarding attempts from a meta-analysis analyzing 65 videos from internet streaming sites. This analysis found that majority of the participants in these videos were white males between the ages of 20-40 without any military, medical or interrogation expertise. This study was interesting because since it was a meta-analysis looking at amateur water boarding techniques, physiological symptoms were monitored by the “interrogators” in the water boarding experiments (Balfe, 2020).

The psychological effects of torture are hard to argue against but the physical long-term effects of water boarding are harder to understand and research. According to Dr. Allen Keller, an associate professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine, waterboarding can cause hypoxia due to the victim holding their breath or due to the inhaling of water, potentially leading to deadly organ failure. (Ballantyne, 2009). In addition, it is believed that catecholamines, stress hormones can be released during torture situations like waterboarding as well (Ballatyne, 2009).

One article took a more interesting view at water boarding noting how hypoxic conditions can lead to permanent neurocognitive deficits due to a lack of oxygen to the brain. Oxygen deprivation can be a metabolic stressor and could affect many aspects of neurocognitive function (O’Mara, 2018). Thus, this hypoxic state although not immediate, if repeated during torture mechanisms like water boarding could lead to sever neurologic deficits and permanent brain stressors.

Overall, arguments defending any type of advanced interrogation or torture are deemed unsuccessful and ethically immoral. This isn’t a question regarding the ethics behind torture as it can cause permanent psychological and physiological deficits in an individual. Personally, I am no fan of advanced torture techniques but it is important to understand these techniques as a physician to understand how politics and medicine intertwine. What other physiological effects do you think water boarding could cause?

Balfe, M. (2020). Survival strategies while engaging in deviant behaviors: The case of amateur waterboarding torture. Deviant Behavior, 41(4), 444-457.

Ballantyne, C. (2009, May 01). Does Waterboarding Have Long-term Physical Effects? Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/does-waterboarding-have-long-term-p-2009-05-01/

S O’Mara, The captive brain: torture and the neuroscience of humane interrogation, QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, Volume 111, Issue 2, February 2018, Pages 73–78, https://doi.org/10.1093/qjmed/hcx252