French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Telegraph

French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment
A 50-year mystery over the 'cursed bread' of Pont-Saint-Esprit, which left residents suffering hallucinations, has been solved after a writer discovered the US had spiked the bread with LSD as part of an experiment.

Henry Samuel in Paris
Published: 7:00AM GMT 11 Mar 2010

In 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were interned in asylums and hundreds afflicted.

For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now, however, an American investigative journalist has uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind control experiment at the height of the Cold War.

The mystery of Le Pain Maudit (Cursed Bread) still haunts the inhabitants of Pont-Saint-Esprit, in the Gard, southeast France.

On August 16, 1951, the inhabitants were suddenly racked with frightful hallucinations of terrifying beasts and fire.

One man tried to drown himself, screaming that his belly was being eaten by snakes. An 11-year-old tried to strangle his grandmother. Another man shouted: "I am a plane", before jumping out of a second-floor window, breaking his legs. He then got up and carried on for 50 yards. Another saw his heart escaping through his feet and begged a doctor to put it back. Many were taken to the local asylum in strait jackets.



Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7415082/French-bread-spiked-with-LSD-in-CIA-experiment.html

[NoFace]

1. Amazing, how'd they get away with in in France though?

Another mind boggling story.
Did you hear about the HUGE ESP stuff they were doing up into the 90's?
Nutty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project

From your link:
Scientists at Fort Detrick told him that agents had sprayed LSD into the air and also contaminated "local foot products".
ha ha ha!

[Hekate]

3. Jesus, what a callous reply. This was a heinous thing to do, and you think it's funny?!

:wtf:

[NoFace]

8. Sorry, let me publicly wring my hands in exasperated indignation for your benefit.

For all the good it'll do.

Did you expect anything less from the CIA?


The same CIA that sets up schools to train torturers in South America?
The same CIA that recently tortured people TO DEATH in black sites?
Hmmm...surely you can't be that green.

Maybe you're just trying to Out-Sympathize me to prove you are more of a Democrat than me?

Anyways, peace! man, for what it's worth I never said I thought it was funny. At all.
(not sure where you're getting that from...)

I just know far worse things the CIA has done than spiking people with free LSD.

So, no, it doesn't make me cry anymore.
We live on Earth. It's a cesspool.
Not much has changed or will.
You get used to it after a while I think.

[eShirl]

17. "I never said I thought it was funny. At all. (not sure where you're getting that from...)"

my guess is, your laughter + absence of a "sarcasm" emoticon

[NoFace]

18. Ah yes, a funny misspelling in article. Not to be confused with me laughing at actual people dieing.

But I guess if you're looking hard enough for -something- to be offended by.... you can find it anywhere?
Another misguided internet argument over nothing hahaha how refreshing!

[eShirl]

20. cheers!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

66. explains why some put Texas Pete on their French Bread

it seemed to make sense at the time. :}

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[CLANG]

35. Why is everyone so upset?

The guy was laughing at the misspelling in the article : food=foot. Some people need to pay more attention to their reading and comprehension skills. Sheesh!

[w4rma]

42. Why? His posts are pretty astute. (nt)

[Hekate]

53. Eh, I just gave him an Iggy after that.

Although I think Alert works very well indeed these days :fistbump:

Hekate

[Octafish]

63. One DUer's father CIA LSD homicide victim.

Know your BFEE: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ford Covered Up CIA Murder of American Scientist

This tragedy is heartbreaking for the family of Dr. Frank Olson and our nation.

[aquart]

2. What happened to the bastards who did it?

I'll bet they think they aren't anything like Mengele.

[eShirl]

6. Probably most have already died in the ensuing 59 years.

[aquart]

10. Yes, but I was wondering HOW.

[formercia]

24. Why do these events get exposed after people die?

What's so special about these people that they get to live a full life without fear of prosecution? Is it perhaps, that by prosecuting them, the evidence would lead to others, even higher in the food chain?

[NoFace]

11. Maybe they were Mengle proteges...didn't we get a bunch of German scientists after WWII?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

Not sure if any of those Paperclip guys were as despicable as Josef though.

[Judi Lynn]

13. And Mengele was a protected guest in Paraguay with the full approval

of U.S.'s bloody, super right-wing monstrous genocidal Nazi-loving dictator for 35 years, Alfredo Stroessner:

ALFREDO STROESSNER
President of Paraguay

Alfredo Stroessner seized power in Paraguay in 1954. European correspondents who visited Paraguay during his rule used the term the "poor man's Nazi regime" to describe the Paraguayan government. Of German descent, Stroessner was a great admirer of Nazism, and this showed not only in the refuge he offered to many Nazi war criminals, such as Joseph Mengele, but also in his ruthless methods.

From the Nazis the Paraguayan military learned the art of genocide. The native Ache Indians were in the way of progress, progress represented by American and European corporations who planned to exploit the nation's forests, mines, and grazing lands. The Indians were hunted down, parents killed, and children sold into slavery. Survivors were herded into reservations headed by American fundamentalist missionaries, some of whom had participated in the hunts.

Between 1962 and 1975, Paraguay received $146 million in U.S. aid. Paraguayan officials seemingly wanted more, however, for in 1971, high ranking members of the regime were implicated in the Marseilles drug ring, with Paraguay their transfer point for shipments from France to the US. In the 1980s, America finally condemned Paraguayan civil rights abuses and drug trafficking. Stroessner still looked as if he'd be dictator for life, but in 1988 one of his closest generals, Andres Rodriguez, a known drug dealer, took over after a coup. Rodriguez promised to restore democracy, and President Bush called the 1989 elections a democratic opening, but opponents declared them a massive fraud. Rodriguez's Colorado party won 74% of the vote. Stroessner took refuge in Brasilia, Brazil. He still lives there, in comfort.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

(This link was published in 1995, and Stroessner did the world a favor by dying several years ago.)

~~~~~

Paraguay in Transition
by William Stief

ASUNCION, PARAGUAY--For nearly 35 years, until February 3, 1989, General Alfredo Stroessner ruled as the dictator of Paraguay. He and his Colorado Party, founded as the National Republican Party September 11, 1887, in emulation of the U.S Republican Party, ran "a patrimonial system," according to Fernando Masi, an economist who worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and who now heads the Paraguayan Institute for Latin American Integration.

That meant, Masi says, that Stroessner "distributed the wealth of the state to a small group of people, creating a new military-civilian elite which had big farms, numbered bank accounts in Switzerland five or six houses apiece." Stroessner also abolished export taxes in the 1960s to benefit himself and his allies.

~snip~
According to Caballero, Stroessner "jailed and tortured" 8,000 people, making it difficult for an effective opposition to develop. Carmen de Lara Castro, a founder of the Paraguayan Commission for defense of human rights, corroborates that figure, though she adds that no one knows the precise number of political activists jailed and tortured. Her human rights group- -non-governmental and one of Latin America's oldest--was formed during one of Stroessner's many "waves of repression." She says, "most political prisoners were peasants" whose relatives, in fear for themselves, ignored the prisoners' plight. Middle class people, she says, were more likely to be freed, "depending on the mood of the dictator."

~snip~
The Stroessner regime's extended brutality has induced a survivalist passivity in the people of Paraguay. Masi points to the 60 percent hike in electricity rates in 1988 to emphasize the extent of the inertia. "There were no protests. The state grew like a monster and nearly digested the whole country," he says.

Some have credited Stroessner with improving Paraguay's infrastructure, but the facts point in a different direction. There are only 88,000 telephones and 1,250 miles of paved roads in Paraguay and only Asuncion and a small city near the Brazilian border have running, potable water.

~snip~
Under these circumstances, paying off the country's foreign debt is likely to be difficult. "If we could get the money Stroessner and his clique stole, we could pay off a third of our foreign debt," Masi says. But chances of that are slim.

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1989/07/steif-paraguay.html

[NoFace]

15. The things we've done in South America truly turn my stomach....

... and by that I mean they make me physically ill... when I think about the stories I've heard of torture and abuse carried out as children and wives were forced to watch.

The saddest part, to me, is this, " The Stroessner regime's extended brutality has induced a survivalist passivity in the people of Paraguay. Masi points to the 60 percent hike in electricity rates in 1988 to emphasize the extent of the inertia. "There were no protests. The state grew like a monster and nearly digested the whole country," he says. "

I've seen this (on a much smaller scale of course) with people in Texas who are just so used to being abused that they don't stand up to anything. The power company, the railroad leaking toxic gases, but even the small things like just rudeness and inconsideration at the doctors office. Somehow that's the sadder thing. The everyday difference between the haves and the have nots.

It's sad when people treat others as less than human ...less even than a wild beast.
It's sadder still that it works...and some people start behaving as less than human.

:(

EDIT:
I don't mean that as an insult...before anyone rails against me for my stupidity toward oppressed people...only that they no longer expect human dignity that we as Americans mostly take for granted.

On the one hand I feel lucky....grateful even... that we aren't all under some dictatorship. Isn't that weird?
But seriously, I wonder what keeps that from happening to all of us?

[Judi Lynn]

19. Very few Americans seem to grasp the fact the US gov't has been torturing Latin Americans

for DECADES. There's a hideous history throughout Central and South America anyone can discover who takes the time to research.

I have to post this info. to serve as a wake-up call to people who still don't know, with the request they start doing their homework as soon as they can manage it, as this information was always been completely blocked in our own corporate media. They need to do the work themselves, in order to know what has been done with their tax dollars, in their names, behind their backs.

A healthy mind craves more than bogus perception molding, cynicaly created programing to justify hostilities toward the governments and supporters of governments our right-wing overlords hate.

The Unholy Trinity - From Latin America To Iraq

Death Squads, Disappearances, and Torture

By Greg Grandin

~snip~
At this point, Washington can no longer deny that its agents in Latin America facilitated, condoned, and practiced torture. Defectors from death squads have described the instruction given by their U.S. tutors, and survivors have testified to the presence of Americans in their torture sessions. One Pentagon “torture manual” distributed in at least five Latin American countries described at length “coercive” procedures designed to “destroy capacity to resist.”

As Naomi Klein and Alfred McCoy have documented in their recent books, these field manuals were compiled using information gathered from CIA-commissioned mind control and electric-shock experiments conducted in the 1950s. Just as the “torture memos” of today’s war on terror parse the difference between “pain” and “severe pain,” “psychological harm” and “lasting psychological harm,” these manuals went to great lengths to regulate the application of suffering. “The threat to inflict pain can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain,” one handbook read.

“Before all else, you must be efficient,” said U.S. police advisor Dan Mitrione, assassinated by Uruguay’s revolutionary Tupamaros in 1970 for training security forces in the finer points of torture. “You must cause only the damage that is strictly necessary, not a bit more.” Mitrione taught by demonstration, reportedly torturing to death a number of homeless people kidnapped off the streets of Montevideo. “We must control our tempers in any case,” he said. “You have to act with the efficiency and cleanliness of a surgeon and with the perfection of an artist.”

Florencio Caballero, having escaped from Honduras’s notorious Battalion 316 into exile in Canada in 1986, testified that U.S. instructors urged him to inflict psychological, not “physical,” pain “to study the fears and weakness of a prisoner.” Force the victim to “stand up,” the Americans taught Caballero, “don’t let him sleep, keep him naked and in isolation, put rats and cockroaches in his cell, give him bad food, serve him dead animals, throw cold water on him, change the temperature.” Sound familiar?

More:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18920.htm

[Dr.Phool]

68. Don't forget some of Phillip Agee's work.

He got out of the CIA, and wrote an expose', after sitting in an Uruguayan police station, listening to a prisoner being tortured, and the police chief just kept turning the volume on his radio higher and higher to cover the screams.

[RedRoses323]

39. +1

:thumbsup:

[MisterP]

54. a lot of anticommunists were pro-Axis during and before WWII

the neofascist Francis Parker Yockey wrote for McCarthy. Case in point, one of the more ridiculous Second Red Scare works was "Behind the Lace Curtains of the YWCA" by JON VOIGT'S NAZI UNCLE. The Reagan Library has a terrifying collection of Bircheriana, whose rhetoric (Commies are murderous, lying, traitorous, anti-freedom, world-dominating, do-anything demons) strongly twisted US dialogue.

the anticommunist purges of 1947-52 were conducted by the same people who in the 20s were Fordists and Hooverites, and later the often-fascistic anti-New Deal forces; they were helped by anticommunist liberals (as WEB Du Bois discovered). Henry Wallace's 1948 campaign was described the same way that Nader is today: it's a waste, he's egotistical (then again, what Presidential candidate isn't "in it for himself"?), he's an antidemocratic Commie who's ruining the country; had it not been for Thurmond's run scaring Blacks and Democrats, 1948 would've been WAY closer.

Hofstadter and Arthur Schlessinger erased prewar history in the name of 50s unity and consensus: moderate right and moderate left, one happy family forever against both Fascism and Bolshevism. It would be Cold-War Democrats who pursued Vietnam and let Iran-Contra off the hook. With the DLC, conservatism and unity/obedience spread like cancer after the early 80s, and the Reagan Dems became the Clinton, Bush, and Goldman Sachs Dems. These are the same forces that are rewarding banks ("anyone who blocks TARP hates America"), blocking speculation restrictions, staying in Iraq and Afghanistan (and using Bush talking points of "we can't leave"), and are now giving us the mandate without even that PO that would've covered all of 3 million people ("anyone who blocks HCR hates America"). Today, it's the DEMOCRATS standing in the way of reform and any move to the left (though their bills are just ramping up the anger): all these ConservaDems have is their cultishness and the excuse that "we're better and throw you some bones" and "they have the filibuster/a new filibuster/are using the filibuster a lot."

[Warpy]

37. They probably died in bed

after enjoying a long retirement on a taxpayer funded pension, all believing the did the right thing in harming innocent people to preserve the US against the godless Commies.

If anybody out there wondered why we old Boomers mistrusted the military and ancillary organizations, this is an illustration of it. This isn't an isolated incident. Lots of this stuff was done during the paranoid Cold War years.

[Hekate]

4. It sickens me that this was done -- and in our name. How could they?

:wow:

[reggie the dog]

5. Those bastards

that is against international law, not to mention immoral.

[RainDog]

7. ...and that's not torture because?

it was done to innocent people?

[NoFace]

9. ...because it was done *oh so many* years ago I think. We aren't even prosecuting ...

etc etc etc

[truthisfreedom]

12. Our government has done things as sick as the nazis and we are supposed to respect it.

Man, I live in a sick world.

[NoFace]

16. It used to be worse...that's the only silver lining I guess...(nt)

[Duende azul]

23. No silver lining here.

We will know in 50 years if it used to be worse.
And even that's not a given.

[Mari333]

50. we are still doing things as bad as the nazis

one of the sad things about the USA is that so many people here still believe the propaganda that we are the good guys.

[Hubert Flottz]

14. I think they did the same thing at the repub convention...

[Duende azul]

21. French bread? Let's call it "Freedom Bread".

[druidity33]

22. very strange

that no one since then had figured out what it was. I assume that not "everyone" had a nightmare experience. Had it not been in the 50s when LSD wasn't a known drug, someone might have been able to recognize what was happening and tried to guide folk through it.

This would make for an absolutely terrifying movie...

no great surprise about the CIA being dicks though, gotta kinda expect that.


:shrug:

[RaleighNCDUer]

51. The effects were similar enough to ergot poisoning that it was assumed

to be that.

http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/wong/BOT135/LECT12.HTM

Notably, this article specifically mentions this incident in some detail - still attributing it to ergotism. Makes me wonder what the miller's and baker's defense was in court - it doesn't mention that. Were they complicit, or fall guys?

[eppur_se_muova]

58. Ergot poisoning occurs naturally, and has very similar symptoms.

LSD is a derivative of lysergic acid, which is produced by "ergot" mold, which grows on damp grain. There have been enough outbreaks of ergot poisoning throughout history that any similar outbreak would be quickly identified as such.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claviceps

[nightrain]

25. what a pathological and unethical thing to do to people!

[Turborama]

26. Ergo, not ergot. n/t

[druidity33]

57. actually it's ergot, not ergo. nt.

[tiny elvis]

27. symptoms did not all match lsd even in excess

lsd will not directly cause death
a 20% rate of long term institutionalization would be very unlikely from one time doses of lsd, no matter how large
one may argue that not knowing the cause exacerbates psychosis, but the victims knew afterward that they were poisoned
reports of severe and dangerous muscle constrictions are typical of ergot poisoning, but are not an effect of lsd in any amount
fully realized and sustained hallucinations or apparitions of mundane beasts are documented in ergot poisoning, very uncommon with any amount of lsd
there were smaller outbreaks at the time in areas nearby
however, a long search for direct evidence of ergot contamination found none, which is why the theory of mercury poisoning came up later
for me, the cause is still uncertain
less seriously, if not one in 250 random victims had anything resembling a religious experience, then i still suspect accidental poisoning rather than dosing

[Enthusiast]

30. I agree with you.

This does not sound like LSD. Maybe it was some unknown ergot alkaloid used by the CIA in the experiment.

[tiny elvis]

36. maybe so. evidence only suggests cia caused the incident

mimicking a natural disaster to hide the cause makes it seem even more sick and brutal if true

[Bluenorthwest]

33. Dosage is one of three equal influences

Dosage, set and setting. First, clearly, the dose would have been uncontrolled. In bread. Eat a little, eat a lot? And you assume 'one time doses' when you do not know who came back for bread.
Set and setting, the place and the circumstances, when one does not know one is having a drug experience, when one 'comes on' at random places, in random moments, those factors are out of control. In that time and place, it is not likely that the people even knew about psychedelic drugs.
I offer that you don't know enough about this to pontificate.
You ramble on about 'amounts' as if that was the only factor. It is one of three to consider. And the amounts themselves are unknown, were not controlled, and could have been wildly different from person to person.

[tiny elvis]

38. don't be harsh. study the incident

there were physical reactions not associative with lsd
the hallucinations were not something trippers can identify with, even from bad trips
the first person dosed with lsd, dr hoffman, said it was accidental and unexpected
he said it was very entertaining and edifying
he had no particular set or setting

[conscious evolution]

41. Sounds to me like

one of the LSD derivatives being tested.
The MK-Ultra program played with a lot of phsycotropics besides LSD.
One particularly nasty version was some crap called BSO.Garaunteed bad trip with many of the effects listed in this incident.

[tiny elvis]

47. i wonder if that was what kesey called ditran in the electric kool ade acid test

given to him when he volunteered to be a guinea pig
he said it was 'the bummer'

[Bluenorthwest]

46. Harsh? You miss the point

Dr Hoffman's set and setting was as follows: a brilliant scientist who knew he was working with unknowns, 'comes on' to the drug while peacefully bicycling home, where he tells his wife what he has figured out, he got some of the 'unknown' into his system. That is his set and setting. It is very particular. For Hoffman, it was accidental, sure, but not unidentified. That is, as his 'trip' began, he was not unable to figure out why. He, unlike the French in question, was aware of the source of what had altered his state.
Again, your conclusions are questionable, because you do not even know the doses involved. Too much is too much.
So, Hoffman most certainly did have a set and setting, as those elements are always present. The person who takes it, where they take it, and how much they take, all of these things will shape the resultant experience. All three. Including dose. And we do not even know the dose.
I've tripped many times, with many people. And I really, really do not agree with your assumptions, for they are assumptions.
Dr Leary did much work on this subject, and according to him, the mind set and physical surroundings are as important or more so than the dose. This is why he always said that unaware ingestion was a bad thing, and an act that should never be done to anyone, ever.
So people who do not know they have ingested anything are not comparable to people who ingest with intention of tripping.

[Romulox]

40. Agreed. Symptoms sound dissociative--like PCP.

The "I think I can fly--even with broken legs!" incident is plucked directly from a Helen Hunt made for TV movie.

[NoodleyAppendage]

45. You assume that Sandoz wasn't working with a weaponized LSD-variant.

I agree that it doesn't sound like typical LSD symptoms, but that doesn't negate some other variant. If it was ergotism, then why the official CIA documents with the admission of purposeful poisoning?

J

[tiny elvis]

48. i never thought about it, which practically amounts to assuming sandoz wasn't etc

but the sandoz employee specifically said 'diethylamide'
if he was wrong, how strong is the evidence?

[AlecBGreen]

49. from the artcile

One note transcribes a conversation between a CIA agent and a Sandoz official who mentions the "secret of Pont-Saint-Esprit" and explains that it was not "at all" caused by mould but by diethylamide, the D in LSD.

So not pure LSD, but a variant of it.

[eppur_se_muova]

59. "diethylamide" was used here as shorthand for LSD.

By itself, "diethylamide" makes no chemical sense, whether or not the person using the term understood that.

It's sort of like polychlorinated dibenzodioxins being referred to as "dioxin" for short -- a convenient abbreviation for journalists, but ignores the fact that "dioxin" is the formal chemical name of a completely different compound. Chemists cringe when civilians start tossing out abbreviations of structural names, not realizing the potential confusion that can result.

[Cetacea]

64. It could have been laced with some poison

[G_j]

67. perhaps DOM, STP

other drugs they experimented with

[DemzRock]

28. OMG! This is an act of war against an ally

in my opinion! How can you poison people in a friendly country? OR any country. And people died from it. Freaking bastards.

[GinaMaria]

29. OMG Why?

Why this village? Why do this to anyone? Our government is out of control :cry:

[PADemD]

32. A very good account of the tragedy was written by John G. Fuller

I read the book in 1968.

THE DAY OF ST. ANTHONY'S FIRE
by John G. Fuller
(New York: Macmillan, 1968)

Review here:

http://www.parlorcity.net/reviews/stafire.htm

[The_Commonist]

34. As much as I have personally enjoyed LSD over the years...

...this was just not cool! You don't do this to people, but then the CIA is built upon the notion of doing uncool things to people.

I was once dosed without my knowledge in a time and a place where I would never have chosen to dose myself. Things got really weird at first, but then I figured out what had happened, since I had experience. I got through it fine, even enjoyed certain moments, but things might have been different if didn't know what was going on. I can see it being terrifying enough to end up in a straight jacket if you are inexperienced.

Shame on you CIA!

[Echo In Light]

52. Evil bastards they are. I haven't dosed since my early 20s, but I follow your point

[dionysus]

43. wierd, i read the book on this... whatever it was took days to happen.

people would get sick, then recover, although filled with energy and unable to sleep, then they'd trip HARD, for days. it's not like any LSD i ever tried.

[NoodleyAppendage]

44. That's a book I will be buying. Fascinating! n/t

J

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

55. I'm not buying it.

CTer wants to sell a book.

[Edweird]

56. I like acid, but dosing someone without their knowledge or consent is wrong.

I can imagine people without a history of LSD usage thinking that they have gone insane.

[mojowork_n]

60. Your tax dollars at work...n/t

[The Midway Rebel]

61. Best. Spaghetti Dinner. Ever! eom

[varelse]

62. I think we need to do a re-take of that "Land Mines vs. the CIA" poll...

[troubledamerican]

65. There's a reason why Charles DeGaulle pulled France out of NATO

[SlingBlade]

69. Didn't they turn that place into some kind of holy shrine ?

You know, Like at Lourdes ?

And ta think, They were all just high and hallucinating.

Damned CIA !
Why do they hate god and the saints ?

[LoZoccolo]

70. They did it for the lulz. n/t