The treatments included torture techniques involving drug-induced comas and intensive electroconvulsive therapy aimed at reprogramming the brain. Families are still grappling with the effects

A Montreal woman whose father was unknowingly brainwashed as part of The Montreal Experiments back in the 1950s is seeking compensation through a class-action lawsuit, after close to 100 patients were already compensated in the ’90s.

In 1957, the US agency was scrambling to deepen its understanding of brainwashing, brought the agency north of the border, where a Scottish-born psychiatrist, Ewen Cameron, was trying to discover whether doctors could erase a person’s mind and instill new patterns of behaviour.

The psychiatric patients were subjected to high-voltage electroshock therapy several times a day, forced into drug-induced sleeps that could last months and injected with megadoses of LSD. In many cases, patients and their families had no idea what was going on behind the walls of the Allan Memorial Institute.

The Montreal-based psychiatrist received funding from the Canadian government and the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

SOURCE:   
Read full feature at Global News
Read full feature at The Guardian

Manuel’s Blog TV

Families seek compensation over experimental health treatments in the 1950s.