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March 8, 2010 Very bad trip in Pont Saint Esprit In 1951, an entire village in the Gard hallucinates for a week. A U.S. journalist claims to have solved the mystery: the village had been sprayed with LSD by the CIA to a secret experiment. return on this media www.ina.fr At least five dead, more than thirty people and hospitalized nearly three hundred patients. In August 1951, a tragic shakes a large peaceful village on the banks of the Rhone, Pont-Saint-Esprit. What begins as an ordinary food poisoning collective peak a few days later in a night of pure madness, hallucination scenes worthy of a painting by Bosch, a "Night of the Apocalypse", in the words of a local physicians, Dr. Gabbai. Recently, France 3 exhumed this incident as a fiction filled with errors, Bread of the devil, although the telefilm s'inspirât essentially the outstanding work of an American historian Steven Kaplan, Bread cursed (Fayard ) in 2008. After years of investigation, Kaplan remains frustrated: none of the tracks followed - ergot, fungicide, water, mycotoxins - sets any definite explanation. In a book published in the United States in late 2009, the journalist Hank Albarelli incidentally says he pierced the mystery. The crisis experienced by madness Pont-Saint-Esprit came from a secret experiment on the effects of LSD conducted jointly by the U.S. military and CIA. "I have snakes in my stomach!" The case of "bread maudit" begins August 17, 1951. The waiting room of three doctors in town are full. Twenty patients visiting the clinic for gastrointestinal symptoms appear: nausea, heartburn, vomiting, diarrhea. Will be added in the days following severe stress and insomnia. For many patients, after remission of 48 hours, the symptoms get worse, culminating in crisis hallucinatory inhabited, among others, by fire and animals. After a site survey for Look magazine, an American journalist, John Fuller, described in an article published in 1968 scenes of collective hallucination. One worker, Gabriel Validire out to his roommates: "I am dead! My head is copper and I have snakes in my stomach! "A young girl feels attacked by tigers. A boy of 11 years, Charles Granjhon, trying to strangle his mother. On 24 August, the situation becomes unmanageable. A man jumped from the second floor of the hospital, screaming: "I'm an airplane." Fractured legs, he falls short and fifty meters on the boulevard before it can catch up. Many hospitals are seized with unbearable hallucinations. Others hear the heavenly harmonies. Very quickly, the clues point the alleged culprit: the best bread baker in the village, Roch Briand. In an article published by the British Medical Journal less than a month after the start of the drama, Dr. Gabbai wrote: "The frequency of mental symptoms brings to mind the old name of the disease ergotism. That disease ergot, a fungus parasite of grasses. Current Middle Ages, the disease has disappeared in France since the eighteenth century. But ergotism hardly explain all the clinical symptoms observed. Dr. Gabbai Giraud and Professor, Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier, called in, make a fast parallel with research conducted in Switzerland at the same time in the laboratory by Sandoz Albert Hofmann and that led to the discovery by chance LSD, synthesized from ergot. The judge hearing the case referred to the criminal trail of contamination of bread with "a form of synthetic ergotine very harmful". Albert Hofmann, who made the trip, endorsed in the first track or ergot alkaloid closely related to LSD. But once back in Basel, the laboratory rejects the hypothesis without appeal. For its part, the U.S. agency United Press reported the intriguing findings of a U.S. laboratory to whom she forwarded the samples: "The experiments (including volunteers) by drinking bread spurred various doses produced no symptoms observed in patients of Pont-Saint-Esprit." Steven Kaplan regrets that at the time the press has not dug further track "Twilight, even obscure, U.S. Lab"! Suicide of a biochemist at the U.S. Army Two years later, the United States, a biochemist at the U.S. Army who worked on top secret programs committed suicide. According to the official version, he would have thrown the thirteenth floor of a hotel in New York. In investigating the suspicious death of the journalist Hank Albarelli has obtained documents from the CIA and the White House that cast a grim light on the events of Pont-Saint-Esprit. After the Korean War, Americans are convinced that their soldiers, prisoners of war were subjected to brainwashing. They then launch into a wide range of defensive and offensive programs on issues of mental manipulation of truth serum to mention prisoners or even on methods for "disability" the enemy and win battles without firing a single ball. It is confidential to the research supported by the CIA that Frank Olson worked in the SOD (Special Operations Department), Fort Detrick. Among the documents obtained by Albarelli the first transcribes a conversation between a CIA agent and U.S. representative of Sandoz. The latter insists mention the "secret of Pont-Saint-Esprit" and told the caller that it was not ergot but diethylamide (LSD D). Practices "unethical" of the CIA Albarelli in contact with former military or the CIA who knew Frank Olson. Two of them, "Albert" and "Neal", he explains, on condition of anonymity, that the history of Pont-Saint-Esprit is a joint operation of SOD and CIA. But when asked whether other secret services, for example French, participated in the experiment, it gets a pause. Scientists at Fort Detrick entrust the American journalist that the services operated by aerial spraying of a mixture containing LSD and the contamination of "local food". One of them explained that spraying was "complete failure". In 1975 a commission of inquiry headed by Nelson Rockefeller had begun to reveal the practice "unethical" CIA designations multiple Bluedbird, Artichoke, MK-Ultra, etc.. In 2000, Albert Neal and send Albarelli an identity card from the White House, certainly in relation to this commission, which mentions a "French Embassy" and spelling errors included, "Pont Saint Esprit incident (Olsojn) " This release raises as many questions as it provides answers. Without dismissing the case, Steven Kaplan wonders, for example, the choice of the guinea pig city: Pont-Saint-Esprit is in an area held by the left. Curious for a secret U.S. Cold War. "At that time we raised the possibility of an experiment designed to control a rebellion of the people," remembers Charles Granjhon, 71 years old today, who still lives in Pont-Saint-Esprit. "I almost caner. I wish I knew why. "He is not alone in wanting to know the truth. After the publication of his book, Albarelli learned one of his contacts that the DGSE had inquired about the case of Pont-Saint-Esprit in the U.S. State Department, which belie the French services. This article by Loic Chauvin appeared in the magazine lesInrockuptibles of Wednesday, March 3.
