There were two military psychologists who were paid $80 million to develop the torture methods used by the CIA – confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee to include appalling acts such as waterboarding, coffin confinement, hypothermia, and rectal feeding.

As it turns out, these medical marvels were hardly rogues, judging by new allegations that the American Psychological Association itself gave the criminal depravity of the Bush-Cheney era its official endorsement.

This is something that makes you wonder whether any institution, even one based on protecting health, will ever be beyond corruption.

According to a new report, the APA not only secretly advised the CIA and FBI on torture tactics, it even changed its code of ethics to justify the use of torture.

The allegation was originally reported out by James Risen of the New York Times in his book Pay Any Price, which was published last year. But a study from the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology has reexamined the email cache Risen obtained from a former behavioral science researcher. It was discovered that after prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib – which sent CIA director George Tenet packing in 2004 – the Bush Administration wanted to gain ethical cover for inhumane treatment of prisoners.

The solution: Change the guidelines for those health professionals present during these interrogations, as mandated by DOJ rules. The key change stipulated that if a psychologist faced a conflict between the APA's ethics code and a lawful regulation – in this case, the activities that the DOJ had deemed as legal -- the psychologist could follow the "governing legal authority" even if they violated those APA standards.

Voila, ethical cover. Call it: See No Evil.

The emails included correspondences from psychologists from the White House, the CIA the Rand Corporation, and from the Director of Science Policy at the APA.

In a letter to the Times Friday, the APA said it has appointed an outside attorney to investigate. It appeared next to a letter from the Psychologists for Social Responsibility, which confirms the "moral corruption" at the APA; and another from the American Psychiatric Association, which encourages the Times to go after their colleagues even harder.

There is no validity to the practice of stress interrogations. And there is no debate that medical professional must uphold their moral obligation to "do no harm." It is inexcusable that those in the business of healing might take cues on ethics from sadists.

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