Sir

Your Editorial 'Responsible interrogation' (Nature 459, 300; 2009), on involvement by psychologists in interrogation at detention centres, was misleading in several respects. You defend psychologists' participation as a protection for detainees, provided that the professional “adheres to, and is held accountable to, the most fundamental medical ethic of all: do no harm”.

This ought to be the case. However, there is evidence that psychologists at some US detention centres have been consulting on the use of techniques that amount to torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which the United States is a signatory.

Psychologists have taught reverse-engineered Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) techniques to detention-centre personnel. The SERE programme was instigated during the Korean War in order to teach US soldiers to resist torture by the Chinese communists or North Koreans in the event of their capture. To reverse-engineer SERE is to apply the torture that the soldiers were being taught to resist.

Because of these and other abuses, the members of the American Psychological Association approved a referendum on the subject this year prohibiting psychologists' involvement in interrogations at detention centres (see http://tinyurl.com/4xc24r). It is shocking that your Editorial does not mention that this prohibition is the American Psychological Association's policy. By not mentioning it, you leave the impression that psychologists have been helping to reduce abuse, when the data to the contrary are overwhelming.