Editing MKUltra (section)

==Experiments on Canadians==
[[File:Donald Ewen Cameron canmedaj01237-0046-a.jpg|upright|thumb|Donald Ewen Cameron, {{circa|1967}}]]
The CIA exported experiments to Canada when they recruited Scottish psychiatrist [[Donald Ewen Cameron]], creator of the "[[psychic driving]]" concept, which the CIA found interesting. Cameron had been hoping to correct schizophrenia by erasing existing memories and reprogramming the psyche. He commuted from [[Albany, New York]] to [[Montreal]] every week to work at the [[Allan Memorial Institute]] of [[McGill University]], and was paid $69,000 from 1957 to 1964 (US$766,936 in 2024, adjusted for inflation) to carry out MKUltra experiments there. The [[Montreal experiments]] research funds were sent to Cameron by a CIA front organization, the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, and as shown in internal CIA documents, Cameron did not know the money came from the CIA.<ref name=Marks1979>{{cite book |last=Marks |first=John |year=1979 |title=The Search for the Manchurian Candidate |pages=140–150 |publisher=Times Books |location=New York |isbn=0-8129-0773-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/searchformanchur00john/}}</ref>{{rp|pages=141–142}}

In addition to LSD, Cameron also experimented with various paralytic drugs as well as [[electroconvulsive therapy]] at thirty to forty times the normal power. His "driving" experiments consisted of putting subjects into drug-induced comas for weeks at a time (up to three months in one case) while playing [[tape loop]]s of noise or simple repetitive statements. His experiments were often carried out on patients who entered the institute for common problems such as [[anxiety disorder]]s and [[postpartum depression]], many of whom suffered permanent effects from his actions.<ref name=Marks1979/>{{rp|pages=140–150}} His treatments resulted in victims' [[urinary incontinence]], [[amnesia]], forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents and thinking their interrogators were their parents.<ref>{{cite web |last=Turbide |first=Diane |date=1997-04-21 |title=Dr.&nbsp;Cameron's casualties |url=http://www.ect.org/dr-camerons-casualties/ |website=ect.org |access-date=2007-09-09 |archive-date=September 2, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902205951/http://www.ect.org/dr-camerons-casualties/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

During this era, Cameron became known worldwide as the first chairman of the [[World Psychiatric Association]] as well as president of both the [[American Psychiatric Association]] and the [[Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal|Canadian Psychiatric Association]]. Cameron was also a member of the [[Nuremberg medical tribunal]] in 1946–1947.<ref name=Marks1979/>{{rp|page=141}}

===Motivation and assessments===
His work was inspired and paralleled by the British psychiatrist [[William Sargant]] at [[St Thomas' Hospital]], London, and [[Belmont Hospital, Sutton]], who was also involved in the [[Secret Intelligence Service]] and who experimented on his patients without their consent, causing similar long-term damage.<ref>{{cite book |last=Collins |first=Anne |orig-date=1988 |year=1998 |title=In the Sleep Room: The story of CIA brainwashing experiments in Canada |publisher=Key Porter Books |location=Toronto |pages=39, 42–43, 133 |isbn=1-55013-932-0}}</ref>

In the 1980s, several of Cameron's former patients sued the CIA for damages, which the Canadian news program ''[[The Fifth Estate (TV series)|The Fifth Estate]]'' documented.<ref>{{cite web |title=MK Ultra episodes |series=40&nbsp;years of ''The Fifth Estate'' |website=Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) |url=http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/40-years-of-the-fifth-estate/mk-ultra}}</ref> Their experiences and lawsuit were adapted in the 1998 television miniseries [[The Sleep Room (1998 film)|''The Sleep Room'']].<ref name="The Sleep Room at IMDB">{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138104/ |title=The Sleep Room |date=31 March 1998 |website=[[IMDb]]}}</ref>

[[Naomi Klein]] argues in her book ''[[The Shock Doctrine]]'' that Cameron's research and his contribution to the MKUltra project was not about mind control and brainwashing, but about designing "a scientifically based system for extracting information from 'resistant sources'. In other words, torture."<ref name=Shock>{{cite book |last=Klein |first=N. |author-link=Naomi Klein |year=2007 |title=The Shock Doctrine |publisher=Metropolitan Books |isbn=978-0-676-97801-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C0KIy92V58wC&pg=PA37 |via=Google Books |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=C0KIy92V58wC&pg=PA37 39–41]}}</ref>

[[Alfred W. McCoy]] writes, "Stripped of its bizarre excesses, Dr. Cameron's experiments, building upon [[Donald O. Hebb]]'s earlier breakthrough, laid the scientific foundation for the CIA's two-stage psychological torture method",<ref name=McCoy2006/> referring to first creating a state of [[disorientation]] in the subject, and then creating a situation of "self-inflicted" discomfort in which the disoriented subject can alleviate pain by capitulating.<ref name=McCoy2006>{{cite journal |last=McCoy |first=Alfred |author-link=Alfred W. McCoy |year=2006 |title=Cruel science: CIA torture and U.S. foreign policy |journal=Sticks and Stones <!-- : Living with uncertain wars, by Padraig O'Malley et al., eds. --> |pages=172–174 |isbn=1-55849-535-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dbGDjfx0XxcC&pg=PA173 |via=Google Books}}</ref>