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The CIA is notorious for its Cold War-era experiments with LSD and other chemicals on unwitting citizens and soldiers. Details have emerged in books and articles beginning more than 30 years ago.
But if military veterans have their way in a California law suit, the spy agencys quest to turn humans into robot-like assassins via electrodes planted in their brains will get far more exposure than the drugs the CIA tested on subjects ranging from soldiers to unwitting bar patrons and the clients of prostitutes.
Victims have sought justice for years, in vain. Now, almost 40 years later, a federal magistrate has ordered the CIA to produce records and witnesses about the LSD and other experiments allegedly conducted on thousands of soldiers from 1950 through 1975, according to news accounts.
The CIA claims that at least some of the documents should remain classified as state secrets. But Magistrate Larson told the agency to come back with a better rationale, a "supplemental declaration explaining with heightened specificity" why the documents should be protected after all these years.
New research suggests patients with disorders such as obsessive-compulsive behavior, depression, Parkinson's Disease and Tourette's syndrome might be helped by having deep brain stimulation devices implanted in the brain. Sending electric current through a thin, wire electrode implanted deep in the brain could do what a cardiac pacemaker does for the heart. Researchers say there is new evidence that a procedure called "deep brain stimulation," or DBS, can treat a variety of obsessive compulsive disorders, or OCD, and some severe forms of depression.
After drug and behavior therapy failed to help his psychiatric patients, Dr. Benjamin Greenberg found DBS made a difference. "Based on the evidence that we have now, it is about as effective as the lesion procedures have been, which is just over half the patients will be better enough to make it worth doing," says Greenberg, who takes a cautious approach in deciding whether to employ the procedure. He believes it should be used only after all conventional psychiatric treatments have been exhausted.
The surgically implanted electrodes are not a cure. The wires in the brain only improve the functioning of the patients who are otherwise disabled by their compulsions. "Compulsions are things you do in response, usually, to your obsessions," Greenberg says. "There are things that somebody could see like washing their hands, counting or touching arranging things over and over again or they can things that are hidden checking things mentally or even praying silently."
So far about 70,000 people worldwide have had deep brain stimulation devices implanted. Over the past 10 years, only about 70 patients in the United States have undergone deep brain stimulation to treat their OCD. The technology has also been used in patients with severe depression who have not responded to other treatments. And it has been deployed experimentally against Parkinson's disease, helping to reduce the characteristic tremors. But medical experts say deep brain stimulation is still a long way from being a standard clinical treatment for mental disorders.
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It’s been said that while everyone loves learning something new, people don’t always like being taught. A scientist from Colorado is working to change that. Professor John Cohen still remembers his very first lecture, decades ago. "My slides didn’t work and I talked too fast and nobody knew what I was talking about and my knees were knocking. It was awful."
That’s not the case today. In 40 years as a professor of Immunology, Cohen has received nearly 30 Excellence in Teaching Awards from the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "Dr. Cohen is incredibly enthusiastic in his lectures," says one of his students. "Very knowledgable." "He’s one of the best lecturers I’ve ever heard," says another. A third medical student agrees. "You just can’t help it to usually pay attention."
Cohen's approach is to not only help his students understand immunology, but also to allow them to enjoy learning about it. He thanks that first, awful lecture for his teaching success today. "What I did figure out was, I’ve got two choices, like everyone else," he says. "I can go on saying, oh my God, that was awful, I’m going to do as little teaching as I possibly can because I’m no good, I hate it, and they hate me, or I’m going to become better at it."
Bringing high-tech science down to earth
