Another Urban Legend Beloved of Conspiracy Theorists

Trouble is, it probably is not. In all likelihood it is entirely true. And that is incredible in and of itself. That after over a half-century having passed, the authentic version of a mysterious malady that attacked a village in southern France has finally been identified for what it most certainly was. Not an accidental poisoning of innocent villagers by an equally-innocent village baker who had accidentally contaminated the flour he used to bake bread, with a common rye-mould that was also a hallucinogen.

The legend of Le Pain Maudit (The Cursed Bread) that afflicted people living in Pont-Saint Esprit in the south-east of France in 1951, has finally been revealed for what it actually was. A malign, utterly discreditable 'research project' initiated by the U.S. CIA and the U.S. army's Special Operations Division to try their hand at mind-altering experiments. On a single day in 1951, the people of that little hamlet suddenly were assailed by fearful hallucinations utterly terrifying to them.

Some attempted suicide, others attempted to murder those closest to them. Five people died, while dozens of others were committed to insane asylums, among the hundreds of villagers taken ill by some mysterious force. Now, an investigative journalist, H.P. Albarelli Jr., has published his finding that this mysterious outbreak was a result of a CIA conspiracy (hah!) to use the people of this little village as unwitting, experimental subjects.

This covert, and utterly illegal research program, was an operation of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, an official U.S. government program which ran for a decade, using American and Canadian citizens as unaware test subjects. Drugs, mostly LSD, were used under the pretext of assisting people with mental problems in university and allied health institutions, to manipulate their mental states, for the purpose of altering their brain function.

In Canada the experiments were conducted by psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron whose theory was that by removing peoples' memories their psyche could be reprogrammed to correct schizophrenia. Dr. Cameron worked out of the Allen Memorial Institute at McGill University. Aside from the use of LSD, paralytic drugs and electroconvulsive therapy at huge strength was used; subjects were placed into drug-induced comas for weeks to months at a time. Never were patients or their families advised of the proceedings, nor consent sought.

People ho had entered the institute for help with relatively minor anxiety disorders and postpartum depression suffered permanent damage from the treatments they unknowingly underwent. From amnesia to incontinence, inability to vocalize or to recognize loved ones, patients exited the experiments in dreadful shape. The British psychiatrist William Sargant at St.Thomas Hospital London and Belmont Hospital Surrey, was also involved there in these experiments.

Mr. Albarelli found CIA documents in his investigative work on the death of a biochemist who had worked for the Special Operations Division, and while writing his book, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments, two of Dr. Olson's former colleagues confirmed the mind control experiments run by the CIA and U.S. army in collaboration with Swiss-based Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company.

The names of French nationals clandestinely employed by the CIA were revealed in a White House document which made pointed reference to the "Pont St. Esprit incident", more than obviously linking the entire affair.