Class Action Lawsuits Against McGill University and the CIA Over MK Ultra

In the wake of the Cold War, the CIA began a secret program to find ways to mind control their agents. They funded an army of psychiatric institutions to experiment on people with psychedelic drugs, sensory deprivation and electroshock therapy. The project was known by the code name MK Ultra.

During MK Ultra, many patients suffered extreme personality changes, incontinence and amnesia. Some even had multiple personalities developed. They were subjected to torture and sexual abuse that was often very intense. This was all done without their consent.

MK Ultra was based on experiments that had been conducted in Nazi concentration camps and Japanese vivisection labs. The CIA recruited scientists who had worked in the camps, along with psychiatric experts to run the experiments. The victims were never informed that the experiments were for the CIA and they were not given any legal protections. They were forced to sign waivers and gave up their rights to privacy, allowing the doctors and psychologists to publish anything they wanted about the patients.

Many families of the survivors of MK Ultra have now launched class-action lawsuits against the government of Canada and McGill University. They are seeking compensation and a public apology. The statute of limitations has already elapsed in some cases, but the families are determined to get justice.

The claims of SRA Survivors are SRA Survivors MK Ultra similar to historical witch crazes, with a few key differences: 1) allegations are made in an era when information is easily disseminated; 2) mere accusations become equated with factual guilt; and 3) the pendulum swings both ways as those who deny the accusations become accused themselves. Skeptics point to a number of similarities between SRA and child abuse theories from the 1970s, including an epidemic of claims of satanic ritual abuse in day care settings.

The stories of SRA Survivors gained credibility through the association with the diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). It is now understood that MPD is an iatrogenic disorder, caused by the trauma of dissociated childhood memories. However, MPD still remains in the primary psychiatric diagnostic manuals and is used by therapists to validate SRA Survivors’ claims.

The MK-Ultra experiment on LSD, approved by Sidney Gottlieb in June of 1953, ended in 1963 when the CIA Inspector General forced the agency to follow new research ethics guidelines and bring all their MKUltra experiments to an end. In the aftermath, a small group of psychiatrists continued to use psychedelic drugs on non-consenting subjects until they were stopped in 1974 by the Church Committee of Congress and Gerald Ford’s United States President’s Commission on CIA activities, also known as the Rockefeller Commission.