The so-called "cursed bread" incident was a mysterious poisoning that struck the small picturesque southern town of Pont-Saint-Esprit. In the summer of 1951, the "curse" resulted in five deaths, 300 illnesses, and 30 severe psychiatric cases leading to the victims being locked up in mental asylums. Nearly 60 years on, a US journalist, Hank Albarelli, claims that the CIA was behind the poisoning. However, US historian Steven Kaplan says Albarelli's theory lacks "solid evidence". In an investigative book entitled "A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments" published in 2009, Albarelli claimed that the CIA conducted large-scale chemical tests in Pont-Saint-Esprit without the knowledge of the town's inhabitants. Albarelli's also accused the CIA - in cahoots with the US Army - of poisoning bread with LSD so as to test its effects on the unsuspecting local populace.
The so-called "cursed bread" incident was a mysterious poisoning that struck the small picturesque southern town of Pont-Saint-Esprit. In the summer of 1951, the "curse" resulted in five deaths, 300 illnesses, and 30 severe psychiatric cases leading to the victims being locked up in mental asylums. Nearly 60 years on, a US journalist, Hank Albarelli, claims that the CIA was behind the poisoning. However, US historian Steven Kaplan says Albarelli's theory lacks "solid evidence".
In an investigative book entitled "A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments" published in 2009, Albarelli claimed that the CIA conducted large-scale chemical tests in Pont-Saint-Esprit without the knowledge of the town's inhabitants. Albarelli's also accused the CIA - in cahoots with the US Army - of poisoning bread with LSD so as to test its effects on the unsuspecting local populace.
Informed opinion seems to tend to regard this report as rather a crock. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
Wouldn't put anything past those dipheads but with the destruction of the internal files - real or feigned - it's impossible to prove, as the author admits, through documentary evidence. The only way to adduce a proof is by systematic questioning of the living inhabitants of Pont-Saint-Esprit to determine if there were tourists and/or visitors in the town at the time of the incident and what they did during and after the incident. If it was a CIA "experiment" they would have had to have observers for data collection.
Without such a non-paranoid 'explanation' can be made: the Sandoz and CIA conversations were part of the known MK-ULTRA Project but rather than the CIA causing the incident they used it as a way to gather data when it happened.
Though not probative, I think many of the posts in the BB thread I linked to above make a pretty compelling circumstantial case for rye ergot poisoning. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
