Cameron had been hoping to correct schizophrenia by erasing existing memories and reprogramming the psyche. He commuted from Albany to Montreal every week to work at McGill’s Allan Memorial Institute and was paid $69,000 from 1957 to 1964 to carry out MKUltra experiments there, the Montreal experiments. In addition to LSD, he experimented with various paralytic drugs and electroconvulsive therapy at thirty to forty times the normal power.[23] His “driving” experiments consisted of putting a subject into a drug-induced coma for weeks at a time (up to three months in one case) while playing tape loops of noise or simple statements. These experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and postnatal depression; many suffered permanent debilitation after these treatments.[24] Such consequences included incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and thinking their interrogators were their parents.[25] His work was inspired and paralleled by the psychiatrist William Sargant, who was also involved with the Intelligence Services and experimented extensively on his patients without their consent, causing similar long-term damage.[26] Several of the children who Cameron experimented on were sexually abused, in at least one case by several men. One of the children was filmed numerous times performing sexual acts with high-ranking federal government officials, in a scheme set up by Cameron and other MKULTRA researchers, to blackmail the officials to ensure further funding for the experiments.
On Cameron:
Donald Ewen Cameron (24 December 1901 – 8 September 1967)[1] — known as D. Ewen Cameron or Ewen Cameron — was a Scottish-born psychiatrist who served as President of the American Psychiatric Association(1952–1953), Canadian Psychiatric Association (1958–1959),[2] American Psychopathological Association (1963),[3] Society of Biological Psychiatry (1965)[4] and World Psychiatric Association (1961–1966).[5] In spite of his high professional reputation, he has been criticized for his abuse of minors, administering electroshock therapy and experimental drugs to patients without their informed consent. Some of this work took place in the context of the Project MKUltra mind control program.
President of the WORLD Psychiatric Association.