[CIENCE TWENTY years agoın Montreai a crackpot psychiatrist…]

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CIENCE TWENTY years agoın Montreai a crackpot psychiatrist ruined the lives of dozens of people ... with CIA funding.

The psychiatrist was the late Dr. Ewan Cameron of the Allin Memorial Psychiatric Institute and first President of the World • chiatric Association.

Cameron based his treatment on the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) developed in Britain to treat severe • psychotics. But Cameron's patients were not "p'sychotics" , but victims of mild "psychoneurosis" • And while British psychiatrists recommended stopping treatment if the patient became disuriented, this was exactly what Cameron, wished to achieve.

Cameron's treatment involved a severe form of ECT, followed by several weeks of drugged sleep to make the patient forget the treatment!

Instead of one shock of 100 volts for half a second the usual for severe depression), Cameron would give 150 volts for one second, repeated up to nine times. Instead of iwo or three shocks a week, he would give two or three a day for three to four weeks.

The result was "de-patterned" patients who forgot who or where they were. Cameron's theory was that their amnesia would be selective. The patients would tend to forget their mentally ill patterns of behaviour more than their healthy patterns.

Cameron would then commence "psychic driving" of the de-patterned patients. This involved up to 16 hours per day of repeating messages designed to "re-pattern" their brains in a "less neurotic" form.

Some patients refused to cooperate with this and had to be "kept alert with amphetamines, receptive with amytal' and paralysed with curare 'because of a tendency to leave the repetition area. ' In other words, they tried to escape from the maniacal Cameron.

Many patients had barely veen ill before 'treatment" One had post-natal depression, another had supposedly psychosomatic leg pains, while psychiatrist who came for a job interview was told by Cameron that she was "nervous" and ended up being de-patterned.

All patients so far traced have since suffered severe depression, amnesia, migraine, anxiety and insomnia. Others became suicidal or were "reduced to vegetables.

So why should the CIA fund activities more at home in a torture-chamber than a • hospital? The answer is MKULTRA, the CIA brain-washing project, supposed to be the answer to an alleged threat from Communist orain-washers. The part of the "treatment' that gets the patient to forget she or he ever had it would be important to such as the CIA.

Civil liberties activists are looking for the victims of eleven similar projects in the US, while there are suspicions that more experiments were done abroad.

CIA documents refer to "allied governments where the security service has people under its control' • In other words, vicivus dictatorships with thousands of expendable political prisoners.

Meanwhile, eleven identified victims of Cameron are suing the US government for the lasting psychiatric damage done by LUKE KELLY was the one treatment they were actually with the broad mouth and charged for.

(Info: New Scientist). harsh Dublin accent and the red hair. He died last week at HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCIENCE there of 4 eu binety COLUMN years Socialisi Organiser's first at the top of the Irish and science column appeared three international commercial folk years ago this week, with articles on valium and cancer, scene. and leaks from a nuclear waste plant in France. munist. He was a communist Elsewhere on the left, science from way back, from the days languishes, unless it's on the when communists were very front page in the capitalist scarce in Ireland and the tiny press. Socialist Worker now has Communist Party in the South an occasional science column felt it safer to call itself the Irish and New Statesman has quite Workers Farty. good coverage. London Labour Briefing is attempting a monthly contact with the London-based science page, coordinated by Irish Communist Group, a rather Piers Corbyn, with me as hench- inchoate organisation of wouldprison. be revolutienaries which soon The SO Science Column is divided into its Mavist, Trotskystill, regrettably, i one-comrade List and other elements. show. I would be only too pleased it others were to write election platform of the Secretfor it. At the very least I would Mary of the Irish stalinist party, like to hear from readers with Spanish Civil War veteran, comments, ideas, questions and Michael O'Riordan. information.

Anyway, I enjoy writing this united with the NICP in 1970 to column. My thanks to SO for form the Communist Party of allowing me the space. Ireland).

BIRTHDAY FUND mubs led by pogrom-preaching If you have enjoyed the SO Catholic priests attacked Irish Science Column over the last communist premises and broke one, two or three years, then up communist meetings were how about a small gift leash or just about over by 1966. It was kind) to show your apprecia- still a very brave public stand to tion. Either hand your donation make for an entertainer whose to SO sellers or send it to: bread and butter depended on Science Column Birthday public favour. Prezzie, 214 Sickert Court, London N1. liners Kelly sang and recorded SO sellers: make sure you songs like "Joe Hill" "there's remind buyers of this anniver- a Valley in Spain' •The Banks sary, and let us know sums are Made of Marble" and other raised, so that figures for the songs of the elationary SCBP can be pr blished. workers' movement.

1 remember a Dubliners concert somewhere on the Euston Road about 15 year ago, when Luke Kelly played 'The Battle of the Somme"

The Battle of the Somme opened in July 1916, soon after the Easter Rising in Dublin, and between July and November Luke Kelly was also a com- well over a million men died.

The 'Allies' - Britain and France - lost 600,000 soldiers to take ten miles of blooddrenched mud. 400,000 of these were British and Irish.

Of the Irish, many In the mid-'60s, he had some of the slaughtered members of the Unionist Ulster In 1966 he appeared on the Two pamphlets summing up the (This organisation, the IWP; ideas of Socialist Where We Stand days when bigoted - 20p plus 16p postage. 'How to fight the Tories' - 10p plus 16p postage. Or the two together for 45p including postage. From In the repertoire of The Dub- Socialist OrganWiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8 had been Protestant Volunteer Force. Others had been in the mainly Catholic National Volunteers. Members of both had joined up at the call of their leaders. Others were forced in by 'economic conscription' That was the only time I ever heard this haunting Irish lament fur the flower of Ireland's youth, Protestant and Catholic, who were capable of uniting only under the war flag of the British imperialist ruling class and then in the quicklime graves of the Somme and other World War 1 battlefields.

The news of Luke Kelly's death brought the tune back to me, vivid and disturbing. I must find out if he ever recorded it.

How to fight the Tories Th€20p Where agi Te westand Labour Socialist Ithe toin Party Fight ORGANISER for policies!

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Socialist Organiser no.165 February 9 1984 Page 14