Scientists rejest use of their study to justify "Enhanced Interrogations"

It is perhaps no shock that many of the people whose work was cited in the recently declassified memos supporting torture methods at Gitmo are furious. One group of scientists are already saying their work was misinterpreted and that the memos are citing work that has no bearing on the topic of interrogation techniques.

The study in question by Kundermann, which was published in 2004 in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, found that people who were deprived of sleep for one night had an increased sensitivity to certain types of pain. Two Justice Department memos, dated May 10, 2005, cited this study as justification to conclude that severe sleep deprivation of up to 180 consecutive hours might cause some increased pain but not "severe physical pain" when used in conjunction with facial slaps, stress positions, water dousing and walling, in which a detainee is slammed against a flexible wall.

"Because sleep deprivation appears to cause at most only relatively moderate decreases in pain tolerance, the use of these techniques in combination with extended sleep deprivation would not be expected to cause severe physical pain," wrote Steven Bradbury, a principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, who authored the memos.

Of course, this is the problem with classified analyses like this - no peer review, little oversight. I can't imagine being quoted in one of these memos, and hope that those who have been are not penalized for those who took their work out of context.