1951 — the entire village of Pont-Saint-Esprit in France went mad.

[Hannah Bell]

Wracked by physical and psychological convulsions, people stripped themselves or leapt from windows, became violent, thought snakes were knotted inside their bellies or flowers sprouting from their flesh. Seven died, including three suicides. Fifty were placed inside an insane asylum. Baffled by this horror straight out of the Middle Ages, as it was dubbed by a French newspaper at the time, the police thought something was in the flour. It arrested the miller and baker for two months, accused a supplier in Vienna. Only in 2009 did American historian, H. P. Albarelli Jr., reveal that this episode of collective madness was the work of our C.I.A., who wanted to test the effects of L.S.D. It did this, I should add, without any complicity from the French government, but when do we ever care about any country’s sovereignty?

That a U.S. agency would unleash a dangerous drug on an unwitting population should not surprise you. There have been many instances of this. That it would poison foreigners is not at all unusual. The only twist here, apparently, is that this was inflicted on a friendly nation.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/05/top-killing/#more-17723

[Luminous Animal]

1. Kick

[Matariki]

2. Not that it doesn't seem likely, but where did H. P. Albarelli Jr get his evidence?

Did the CIA or US govt. disclose this? FOIA documents?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. Conjecture, speculation, and stretching.

There was one CIA document that was released that contains one mention of this incident in passing.

And therefore the CIA did it.

[nashville_brook]

21. you were expecting a press release?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

23. I'm expecting extraordinary claims to be backed up by extraordinary evidence.

Or at least some evidence.

[msanthrope]

35. Forget it....mere invocation of the 'CIA' is enough to convince some--

Here's a contemporary account. Sounds like ergot.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2069953/

[msanthrope]

36. Forget it....mere invocation of the 'CIA' is enough to convince some--

Here's a contemporary account. Sounds like ergot.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2069953/

[reggie the dog]

53. this story was in the mainstream press

here in Frane and the UK a couple of months ago.

[Hannah Bell]

5. more info

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

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1257648/CIA-caused-French-village-mad-Fifties-spiking-baguettes-LSD.html

[FedUpWithIt All]

7. Telegraph: French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment

The author has witness testimony, an insider "note" and the following...

Mr Albarelli said the real "smoking gun" was a White House document sent to members of the Rockefeller Commission formed in 1975 to investigate CIA abuses. It contained the names of a number of French nationals who had been secretly employed by the CIA and made direct reference to the "Pont St. Esprit incident." In its quest to research LSD as an offensive weapon, Mr Albarelli claims, the US army also drugged over 5,700 unwitting American servicemen between 1953 and 1965.

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

[MineralMan]

10. Albarelli "claims...."

Velikovsky made "claims" too. Many people believed those claims. They were wrong.

Lots of speculative writing going on out there. Coast To Coast AM has these people on as guests all the time. Anyone can write anything. Anyone can surmise anything, based on fragmentary or misinterpreted information, too.

I wouldn't be so quick to assume that what Mr. Albarelli says is actual fact. Really, I wouldn't.

[FedUpWithIt All]

16. His claims were relating to the use of LSD on servicemen

The french incident is supported by documentation.

[msanthrope]

37. The Telegraph, FYI is the UK's National Enquirer. No one seriously

relies on it for news...

[Spider Jerusalem]

39. You probably have the Telegraph confused with the Sun.

Or perhaps the Daily Mail. The Telegraph is fairly right-wing and conservative (its nickname 'the Torygraph' is pretty well-deserved), but it's also serious newspaper (one of the four national 'heavyweight' UK papers, along with the Guardian, the Times, and the Independent).

[msanthrope]

40. I'm not confused--any newspaper that denies global warming is a joke....

let us not forget the Telegraph's role in 'Climategate', shall we?

But let's not quibble---why would anyone at DU take a "fairly right-wing and conservative" source seriously?

[Spider Jerusalem]

41. That's part and parcel of their political stance, though.

Doesn't mean they aren't necessarily credible on other things. (It was the Telegraph that broke the biggest UK press story of last year on Parliamentary expenses, to name an example.)

[msanthrope]

43. The newspaper that denies global warming has no scientific credibility.

This story is about science....which is why it's unsurprising that the Telegraph chose crazy conspiracy over documented science.

5 seconds on the google got me this contemporary medical report---

which, of course, the Telegraph neither bothered to address or refute.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2069953/

[Spider Jerusalem]

44. Actually this isn't about science, it's about US intelligence agencies conducting covert tests...

of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs on the citizens of an ally. Nice try though.

[msanthrope]

45. Right---because the explanation of medical phenomena doesn't involve science?

Ironically, and sadly, you've mirrored the Telegraph's response to global warming--there, they simply dismissed the relevant science, and screamed 'CONSPIRACY!'

I get it--science is difficult. Better to dismiss it entirely and claim something else did it. (see, creationism.)

[reggie the dog]

54. as someone who regularly reads the UK press I back up what you say

the telegraph is right wing, but nothing like fox right wing

[FedUpWithIt All]

46. That is untrue. n/t

[John Q. Citizen]

14. Here's more info on the book

http://firedoglake.com/2010/01/23/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-h-p-albarelli-jr-a-terrible-mistake-the-murder-of-frank-olson-and-the-cias-secret-cold-war-experiments/

[MineralMan]

4. Well, the author of that dissidentvoice article

has written books of stories and poems. If that isn't adequate as credentials, I can't imagine what would be. :sarcasm:

No footnotes. No citations. No references any of us could examine. And, yet, we are supposed to take this as truth? Why?

This is the worst sort of non-journalism. It might even be true, but without credible sources, there is no reason to assume that it is true.

[RKP5637]

6. Here is a little more I found about the same incident...

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

[msanthrope]

38. Quoting the Telegraph is like quoting the National enquirer....

Here's a contemporary British Medical Journal account...it's ergot.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2069953/

[RKP5637]

42. Thanks for the link to British Medical Journal! Great info.!

:hi:

[reggie the dog]

55. that journal is from 1951 when most people writing for the

journal knew nothing about LSD

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. No footnotes. No citations. No references...

Have you read the book he wrote that the article is based on?

If not, how can you make that claim?

[MineralMan]

25. I was speaking about the article. I don't read conspiracy theory

books. The author of this article included no direct citations...only a reference to the author of the book.

[RaleighNCDUer]

27. Which was, of course, the point of the article - to advertise the frikkin book.

duh.

[Freddie Stubbs]

24. Because it plays into our fears and prejudices

[nichomachus]

8. In 2010, the entire state of Arizona went mad

[HubertHeaver]

9. That was because of the heat, man.

Dry heat, but still HEAT.

[nichomachus]

20. But it's a dry hate!

[olegramps]

57. I heard it was Spanish Fly.

[MineralMan]

11. Well, after doing a little further research, I find that Mr. Albarelli's

book is a hot topic on the conspiracy theory sites, but not so much anywhere else. Oh, well...

[laughingliberal]

12. Rec nt

[frazzled]

13. Highly doubtful

Steven Kaplan (Goldwin Smith Professor of European History at Cornell University), in his book Le Pain Maudit, has dismissed Albarelli's theory as an "unethical" and "harebrained" conspiracy theory:

Steven Kaplan, a US historian specialising in French food history and the author of the 2008 book “Le pain maudit” told FRANCE 24: “I have numerous objections to this paltry evidence against the CIA. First of all, it's clinically incoherent: LSD takes effects in just a few hours, whereas the inhabitants showed symptoms only after 36 hours or more. Furthermore, LSD does not cause the digestive ailments or the vegetative effects described by the townspeople.”

Furthermore, Kaplan deems the whole notion “harebrained”. “It is absurd, this idea of transmitting a very toxic drug by putting it in bread," he said. "As for pulverising it , that technology was not even possible at that time. Most compellingly, why would they choose the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit to conduct these tests? It was half-destroyed by the US Army during fighting with the Germans in the Second World War. It makes no sense.”

The CIA conspiracy theory is not the only one put forth to explain the events of 1951. The most common hypothesis blames the bakery of Pont-Saint-Esprit, the idea being that some unknown fungus affected the rye used in making the bread, bringing on ergotism, a form of poisoning that can psychologically affect those who ingest it. However, without more evidence, this theory remains flimsy – ergotism has not existed in France since the 18th century.

The mystery remains unsolved. And according to Kaplan, no clear answer will be forthcoming without new evidence.

http://www.france24.com/en/20100311-gard-france-cia-usa-pont-saint-esprit-lsd-cursed-bread-baker-poison-illness

Other explanations:

The causes of the outbreak have never been identified with certainty but several explanations have been proposed. The first hypothesis at the time was that the mass-poisoning was an outbreak of ergotism. Later investigations focused on mercury poisoning due to the use of Panogen or other fungicides used to treat grains and seeds.<2> As pointed out by Simon Cotton (Chemistry Department of Uppingham School), there are well-documented instances of mercury-poisoning due to such products:
There was a serious epidemic in Iraq in 1956 and again in 1960, whilst use of seed wheat (which had been treated with a mixture of C2H5HgCl and C6H5HgOCOCH3) for food, caused the poisoning of about 100 people in West Pakistan in 1961. Another outbreak happened in Guatemala in 1965. Most serious was the disaster in Iraq in 1971–72, when according to official figures 459 died. Grain had been treated with methyl mercury compounds as a fungicide and should have been planted. Instead it was sold for milling and made into bread.<3>
Nevertheless the symptoms exhibited by victims in Pont-Saint-Esprit are not entirely consistent with this hypothesis. In 1982, a French researcher pointed to Aspergillus fumigatus as a potential culprit.<4> This mycotoxin is produced in grain silos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont-Saint-Esprit

However, I realize it's impossible to argue against conspiracy theories: they are conspiracy theories precisely because it is impossible to disprove them (making them, in theoretical terms, of course, impossible). So carry on. When all else fails, it's most certainly a CIA plot.

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. Talk about incoherent - Kaplan's dismissal of the CIA theory.

LSD does NOT take effect in 'just a few hours' - it takes effect in less than an hour, if ingested. Of course, it taking '36 hours' would be appropriate if it was put into a food supply that would be eaten over a period of time - if the tainted bread is eaten 35 hours after purchase, it would take 36 hours.

The technology of 'pulverizing' certainly did exist at that time - it is nothing more than grinding a base into which the drug was infused into a powder fine enough to be dispersed as an aerosol - technology that's been around since WW1. And, besides, the quoted CIA memo says it did NOT work, which is why they then moved on to putting it in food.

The fungus that generates ergotism is NOT an 'unknown fungus' - it is very well known, and is the basis for the discovery of LSD - and there have been outbreaks of ergotism since the 17th century, despite what Kaplan says (if indeed that is Kaplan's claim - looks more like an assertion of the writer of the article), and the symptoms of ergotism are similar, but not exactly matched, to this outbreak but close enough to blame it on the baker.

Knowing the CIA's revealed history of similar incidents (dispersing a virus in the subways to track urban spread of biological weapons?) why would you doubt this?

[frazzled]

29. Your counterarguments are weak

First, Kaplan doesn't point to an "unknown fungus" as the cause of the (potential) ergotism: that statement is from the France 24 (a French TV station) author. Next, ergotism is one of only several explanations given in the second passage.

When your main source of reading is rense.com, I know it's hard to read carefully.

[RaleighNCDUer]

32. You mean like mercury poisoning?

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/mercury-poisoning-symptoms.html

Funny, no mention of hallucinations at all. And the effects are long-lasting and systemic, not temporary, as with ergotism or LSD dosing.

That article is nothing but an attempt to steer people away from looking at what DID happen.

Again, with the CIA's known track record, why would you doubt this?

EDIT:

And does this sound like the events described?

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

It's all about establishing doubt of the facts, by throwing out other theories which you say conflict, whether they do or not.

[TexasProgresive]

15. Sounds more like ergot poisoning to me

Ergot forms on rye and LSD is an ergot derivative.

[Webster Green]

19. Yeah, I don't know why they're calling it an "unknown fungus"

It's well known. Ergot (Claviceps purpurea) is indeed a precursor to LSD.

I've found plenty of it growing on wild rye grass in Humboldt County, CA.

[closeupready]

18. Tuskeegee experiment.

>>The Tuskegee syphilis experiment<1> (also known as the Tuskegee syphilis study or Public Health Service syphilis study) was a clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama, by the U.S. Public Health Service. Investigators recruited 399 impoverished African-American sharecroppers with syphilis for research related to the natural progression of the untreated disease, in hopes of justifying treatment programs for blacks.<1>

The 40-year study was controversial for reasons related to ethical standards, primarily because researchers failed to treat patients appropriately after the 1940s validation of penicillin as an effective cure for the disease. Revelation of study failures led to major changes in U.S. law and regulation on the protection of participants in clinical studies. Now studies require informed consent (with exceptions possible for U.S. Federal agencies which can be kept secret by Executive Order<2>), communication of diagnosis, and accurate reporting of test results.<3><<

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

[HCE SuiGeneris]

26. Ugg.

There are no boundaries for these criminal covert organizations. ;(

[RKP5637]

60. And obfuscation works well muddling what were, might have been, facts...

[peacefreak]

28. Day of St Anthonys' Fire by John Fuller

published in 1968 or there about was written about this incident. He said it was blamed on ergot poisoning. Wish I still had my copy.

[MineralMan]

30. Yes. I read that book back in the late 60s.

[RaleighNCDUer]

33. Yes, it was blamed on ergot poisoning, even though there was nothing

to indicate it - no contaminated grain was found, no other bakeries had any contaminated flour. Nothing. If it was from contaminated rye, it would be reasonable to expect to find that contamination distributed in the region and not confined to a single store. And why was it not traced back to the farmer who grew the grain?

The official explanation is lacking.

[dionysus]

59. that was an awesome book

[bobbolink]

31. Not surprised, just appalled and ashamed.

Yet, if we try to say this to the average Joe, we will be branded as "conspiracy nuts".

I am terminally ashamed of my country.

[reggie the dog]

56. here in france it was in the press

and people were kind of just like "oh yeah, the cia, they do all kinds of crazy shit"....

[nashville_brook]

34. WARNING! graphic image of Depleted Uranium exposure (seriously, you've been warned)

(on second thought -- click the links for images -- too horrible)

the point of this story:

With the current catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, it appears that the chicken has come home to roost. Our government does not police, but has always enabled and abetted, these out of control corporations. Now it twiddles its thumbs as British Petroleum dumps nearly a million gallons of Corexit into the ocean. Diluting the evidence, this solution was designed only for public relations, even as it made the situation much worse. Imagine Agent Orange in the water. Thousands of people are already sick, with millions more to come. Also, there is no discussion of how this will affect our neighbors like Mexico, Cuba and the Bahamas, not that the people in charge ever gave a damn about foreigners, or our soldiers, or our poor. They can declare you a hero even as they kill you. Look at what happened with the first responders at Ground Zero. Look at what happened to Pat Tillman.

As the government takes over the clean up effort, look for familiar contractors to show up ready to fatten their pockets. We pay to get sick, then pay to feel slightly better. Maybe they’ll even market the contaminated seafood. Coming to a store near you, well oiled and seasoned, Corexit Fish Sticks©. Up yours.


Maybe the LSD narrative doesn't ring your bell -- how about the depleted uranium narrative?

Depleted Uranium is radioactive waste. Dr. Rosalie Bertell explains:

DU bursts into flame on impact. It reaches very high temperatures, and becomes a ceramic aerosol <…> Ceramic (glass) is highly insoluble in the normal lung fluid, and when inhaled, this ceramic particulate will remain for a long time in the lungs and body tissue before being excreted in urine <…> The presence of DU eight years after the Gulf War exposure, means that the internal organs: lung, lymph glands, bone marrow, liver, kidney, and immune system have experienced significant localized radiation damage.

The First Gulf War lasted just six months, yet a quarter of the 697,000 American troops who participated soon reported symptoms of what became known as “Gulf War Syndrome.” Compared to 114 killed by enemy fire, thousands would perish from Depleted Uranium. As expected, the Pentagon denied everything, and only a handful of congressmen, like Cynthia McKinney and Dennis Kucinich, made a fuss. Ignoring the swelling body of evidences against Depleted Uranium, the Pentagon went on to use it in Kossovo in 1999, Afghanistan starting in 2002, and Iraq from 2003 until today.

click here for images of Depleted Uranium exposure:

http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=depleted%20uranium%20birth%20defects&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/102009Lindorff.shtml


Depleted Uranium Weapons: The Dead Babies in Iraq and Afghanistan Are No Joke

by Dave Lindorff
Originally published in This Can't Be Happening yesterday, 19 October 2009

The deformed and dead babies in Iraq should make us demand a cleanup of Iraq and Afghanistan, medical aid for the victims, and a ban on all depleted uranium weapons.
The horrors of the US Agent Orange defoliation campaign in Vietnam, about which I wrote on Oct. 15, could ultimately be dwarfed by the horrors caused by the depleted uranium weapons which the US began using in the 1991 Gulf War (300 tons), and which it has used much more extensively--and in more urban, populated areas--in the Iraq War and the now intensifying Afghanistan War.



Depleted uranium, despite its rather benign-sounding name, is not depleted of radioactivity or toxicity. The term “depleted” refers only to its being depleted of the U-235 isotope needed for fission reactions in nuclear reactors. The nuclear waste material from nuclear power plants, DU as it is known, is what is removed from the power plants’ spent fuel rods and is essentially composed of the uranium isotope U-238 as well as U-236 (a product of nuclear reactor fission, not found in nature), as well as other trace radioactive elements. Once simply a nuisance for the industry, that still has no permanent way to dispose of the dangerous stuff, it turns out to be an ideal metal for a number of weapons uses, and has been capitalized on by the Pentagon. 1.7 times heavier than lead, and much harder than steel, and with the added property of burning at a super-hot temperature, DU has proven to be an ideal penetrator for warheads that need to pierce thick armor or dense concrete bunkers made of reinforced concrete and steel. Once through the defenses, it burns at a temperature that incinerates anyone inside (which is why we see the carbonized bodies of bodies in the wreckage of Iraqi tanks hit by US fire). Accordingly it has found its way into 30 mm machine gun ammunition, especially that used by the A-10 Warthog ground-attack fighter planes used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan (as well as Kosovo). It is also the warhead of choice for Abrams tanks and is also reportedly used in GBU-28 and the later GBU-37 bunker buster bombs, each of which can have 1-2 tons of the stuff in its warhead. DU is also used as ballast in cruise missiles, and this burns up when a missile detonates its conventional explosive. Some cruise missiles are also designed to hit hardened targets and reportedly feature DU warheads, as does the AGM-130 air-to-ground missile, which carries a one-ton penetrating warhead. In addition, depleted uranium is used in large quantities in the armor of tanks and other equipment. This material becomes a toxic source of CU pollution when these vehicles are attacked and burned.

While the Pentagon has continued to claim, against all scientific evidence, that there is no hazard posed by depleted uranium, US troops in Iraq have reportedly been instructed to avoid any sites where these weapons have been used—destroyed Iraqi tanks, exploded bunkers, etc.—and to wear masks if they do have to approach. Many torched vehicles have been brought back to the US, where they have been buried in special sites reserved for dangerously contaminated nuclear materials. (Thousands of tons of DU-contaminated sand from Kuwait, polluted with DU during the US destruction of Iraq’s tank forces in the 1991 war, were removed and shipped to a waste site in Idaho last year with little fanfare.) Suspiciously, international health officials have been prevented or obstructed from doing medical studies of DU sites in Iraq and Afghanistan. But an excellent series of articles several years ago by the Christian Science Monitor described how reporters from that newspaper had visited such sites in Iraq with Geiger-counters and had found them to be extremely “hot” with radioactivity.

The big danger with DU is not as a pure metal, but after it has exploded and burned, when the particles of uranium oxide, which are just as radioactive as the pure isotopes, can be inhaled or ingested. Even the smallest particle of uranium in the body is both deadly poisonous as a chemical, and over time can cause cancer—particularly in the lungs, but also the kidneys, testes and ovaries.

[Major Hogwash]

47. Wow, I never heard of that. Christ, we have been a sick nation for decades.

I don't know what the CIA was designed to do, but I'm sure this wasn't it.

[eridani]

48. Not ergot poisoning?

That was implicated in the Salem witch insanity, I think.

[RandomThoughts]

49. To hurt the hippy movement.

The CIA started the tests that led to the acid crazy at the end of that era. Some have said they pushed the Acid to hurt the anti war movement. It is in the Church report from 1977 that they distributed acid in 140+ colleges.

I think there are some things that make people think in terms of things being nuts, but I really don't think it has anything to do with CIA. And probably many CIA people are nuts also.


The easiest way to know something is not a conspiracy is to know that people are mostly good, and someone would say what is going on if there was a conspiracy.

My guess on the CIA types is most of them get derailed by false doctrines of things like Pets, Ant farm, Aliens, Time Travel, or stuff like that, and that can make things difficult for some.


Then there are some that believe in 'big brother' doctrine. That story is from someone that flunked room 101, the very first coarse in a college program. Although I don't think I would want to be in that school, I also don't give the view from George Orwell as worth much, except good learning on what not to do in some things. Don't agree to do bad to think you will achieve good, and don't agree to sit at a diner without hope. And don't be mad at Hana, or feel too hurt, if it seems she is treating you wrong. Many things to learn, not to do, from that book.

I will say I have seen some stuff they or some other group have probably done to distort other things, but I ignore them, and do not mind since I don't play the game.


I will say it is difficult to maintain empathy in concepts that are not consistent, so that would be my assumption of things like isolation or distortions intent. It takes much thought and feeling to maintain empathy while having questionable information streams like TV or Internet.

[maryf]

50. k&r nt

[reggie the dog]

51. this was in the news here in France a few months ago

I discussed it with my history teacher collegues and I did a lesson about it with my students. Many people I talked to were horrified to find out that the usa did this without consent from the french while others think the french went along with the idea but destroyed all evidence of the collusion.

[reggie the dog]

52. If it is all good and moral to give people LSD without their knowledge

why cant I buy my own lsd in the store??? Why is it illegal for me to eat my own lsd???? (i hope my friends get me some good acid this summer !)

[dionysus]

58. pu the tinfoil down. argot poisoning.

[glitch]

61. If the CIA had any credibility they could effectively deny this.nt

[arikara]

62. Inflicting harm on a friendly nation is not a "twist" at all...

consider that they sprayed Winnipeg with something that made people sick back in 1953. This one is documented and out there. How many of such actions are still to be found out?

[Dragonbreathp9d]

63. Dangerous?

I will give you that in this case, yes, it was, but only because the people were not privy to the information. LSD is actually pretty safe, as long as the people know about it and are smart about it. But overall, this story doesnt surprise me in the least, and I guess that is the truly sad part about it.