While present day psychology testing is ethical, the past was a different story.
The CIA’s mind control programs were one of the most unethical scientific endeavors of the past century, on par with the human experimentation that occurred in Nazi concentration camps.
Equally disturbing as these experiments are how otherwise normal people were complicit in promoting this research. In my opinion, this is one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history involving the government and scientific community.
Most people believe these programs are a hoax concocted by conspiracy theorists. In reality, there is overwhelming evidence that these experiments occurred and that the government went to great lengths to cover them up. It is unlikely the public will ever learn the complete truth about these programs.
The CIA’s mind control programs ran from 1947 to the mid-1970s, when they began coming under scrutiny by the U.S. Senate. Their purpose was to create more reliable agents to use in espionage against the Soviets during the Cold War.
Mind control research occurred under a series of CIA programs, the most significant one being project MKUltra. Some others included Paperclip, BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, MKDELTA, MKNAOMI and MKSEARCH.
Mind controlled agents are unofficially referred to as “Manchurian candidates.” Manchurian candidates were created using a combination of the following techniques: drugs, torture, sensory deprivation, hypnosis and electronic brain implants.
Note that some of this torture was of a level of severity that most rational people have a difficult time comprehending.
It is difficult to say how successful these experiments were as the CIA destroyed most of the evidence when they came under investigation. However, the available evidence shows that they did have some success in creating Manchurian candidates.
Even though he is fictional, the character Jason Bourne from the Bourne film series is a great example of what a Manchurian candidate would act like.
Many subjects were experimented upon against their knowledge and/or consent. This violated both the Hippocratic Oath taken by medical personnel and the Nuremburg Codes established after World War II.
Subjects were pulled from a variety of backgrounds. The CIA operated a brothel that it used to lure in subjects who were subsequently experimented upon. The idea was that these subjects would be too embarrassed to come forward as it would involve admitting that they visited a brothel.
In other instances they simply abducted people, both American and foreign. These were typically marginalized people such as homeless, prostitutes, drug addicts or prisoners.
Some experimenters were medical doctors or college professors who were bold enough to use their own patients and students as subjects.
The ramifications of this scandal have affected academia, including North Dakota State. As students, most you of are familiar with the numerous requests through list serve e-mails to participate in experiments by NDSU professors.
You will notice that all of these e-mails come with an institutional review board approval number. The purpose of IRB’s is to have an independent party ensure that experiments involving human subjects are ethical.
They became a requirement in the 1970s after numerous scientific scandals came to light, including CIA mind control.
If you are not disturbed by the CIA’s mind control programs, then there is something wrong with you. As a scientific researcher, they permanently changed the way I view the scientific community.
I now take ethics more seriously than I used to. You should too. Our vigilance is one of the few safeguards we have against stopping travesties like this from occurring again.
You left-out illegal, unethical experimentation upon US military personnel. My father went through one of these programs in 1952, at Camp Carson in Colorado Springs. During this forced reconditioning, because of insubordination, he went through heavy, repeated electroshock therapy, hypnosis under heavy narcotic sedation (narcosynthesis), and possible insulin-shock therapy (SEE: HUMAN NATURE IS THE ENEMY OF THE STATE).
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/human-nature-is-the-enemy-of-the-state/
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I was not aware that these experiments extended to military personnel as well. The more I learn about government mind control, the more disgusted I become. I read your post by the way; none of what you said surprises me. In fact, it seems consistent with everything I know about the CIA’s mind control experiments.
Unfortunately we have a couple of really big problems regarding this today. There is a large “national security” exception for human experimentation and the Department of Health and Human Services sought comments some weeks ago before proceeding with what the intelligence committees requested. At the same time, there’s a similar problem with Freedom of Information Act in the changes proposed for that system.
http://www.bustle.com/articles/144482-conspiracy-theories-are-more-accepted-by-narcissists-with-low-self-esteem-study-finds-which-is-perplexing-in
This is a logical fallacy known as an ad hominem attack. Skeptics oftentimes dismiss a conspiracy theorist’s claims by attacking the theorist’s credibility. They seldom attack the theorist’s claims based on the objective value of their arguments. You are falling into the former, and philosophically unsound, group.