Meet Scott

Scott A. Allen, MD

Dr. Scott A. Allen a physician, professor emeritus and former Chair of Medicine at the University of California, Riverside. He recognized in the field of health and human rights, most recently for helping bring attention to the conditions for children in U.S. immigration detention, work for which he and his colleagues received the 2019 Ridenhour Prize and the Physicians for Human Rights Award. He has testified before congress issues of detention health and has been a keynote speaker at national and international meetings. Dr. Allen began his work in health and human rights at the age of 17 in Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand, listening to the stories of those who had escaped the Khmer Rouge’s torture and killing fields. After returning to the United States to complete his medical studies, he embarked on a career of caring for underserved and marginalized populations. Following three years in the National Health Services Corps in the Mississippi Delta and Rhode Island, he served for seven years as a full-time physician for the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, acting as the department’s medical program director between 2001 and 2004. In 2004, Scott left that position and joined PHR in its investigations into the treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the examination of the Bush Administration’s interrogation program – particularly of the participation of health professionals. Dr. Allen is also the co-founder of the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights at Brown University, now the Center for Health and Justice Transformation. In 2018, Dr. Allen and his colleague Dr. Pamela McPherson became whistleblowers when they made protected disclosures to Congress about the harms of family detention in the U.S. immigration program where they worked as expert consultants. As practicing clinicians, Dr. Allen and his wife, Dr. Emma Simmons, founded and see patients at the Access Clinic, a primary care clinic in Southern California for adults with developmental disabilities.
In 2008, Dr. Allen traveled to Libya on behalf of PHR and Human Rights Watch to examine and seek the release of political prisoner Fathi al-Jahmi. Sadly, al-Jahmi died in custody. (he collaborated on that trip with future ambassador Chris Stevens who later would perish in the Benghazi attack). His state department dispatches of our visit were included in the massive Wikileaks release. Scott was assisted by interpreter Gasser Abdel-Razek who himself was later imprisoned in Egypt. Fred Abrahams was the skilled Human Rights Watch leader of their effort. His work was featured in the documentary E-Team.
On April 30, 2015, a report "All the President's Psychologists" co-authored by Dr. Allen revealed the extent of cooperation between leadership of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the administration in supporting the CIA torture program. The article about the report by James Risen ran on the front page of the New York Times, and the full report was embedded in the story. A subsequent independent investigation by a law firm retained by the largely confirmed the findings of this independent report.
Scott was the lead medical co-author of the 2010 PHR report, "Experiments in Torture." Experiments in Torture is the first report to reveal evidence indicating that CIA medical personnel allegedly engaged in the crime of illegal experimentation after 9/11, in addition to the previously disclosed crime of torture. In their attempt to justify the war crime of torture, the CIA appears to have committed another alleged war crime—illegal experimentation on prisoners.June, 2010. This report followed earler reports co-authored by Dr. Allen regarding the U.S. torture program, including Leave No Marks and Aiding Torture.