CIA filled French bread with LSD in experiment during 1950s

Pont-saint-esprit - The Central Intelligence Agency filled bread with LSD in the French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951, an investigative journalist found. Dozens of residents were admitted into insane asylums and one biochemist killed himself two years later.

During the summer of 1951, the residents of the French village Pont-Saint-Esprit suddenly became mysteriously affected by psychosis and witnessed hallucinations, which killed at least seven people and forced 50 others to be admitted into asylums. Hundreds of more were left afflicted by the mysterious outbreak of the acute psychotic episodes, while some have dubbed it the “cursed bread.” In one incident, reports the Telegraph, one man believed he was a plane and shouted, “I am a plane” before he jumped out of a second-floor window and broke his legs. Another man drowned himself because he believed he was being eaten by snakes. An 11-year-old boy attempted to strangle his grandmother and another man saw his heart escape through his feet and pleaded with his doctor to put it back in his chest. More than 50 years later, investigate journalist Hank Albarelli’s research claims that the hallucinations were part of a covert operation by the CIA and the United States Army’s top-secret Special Operations Division (SOD) in Maryland, according to Press TV. Albarelli says the bread had been poisoned with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide as part of a secret experiment, which prompted the mysterious suicide of SOD biochemist Frank Olson when he fell from the 13th floor of his window two years after the outbreak in France. However, bread wasn’t the only thing that was infected LSD; scientists in Maryland claim agents had sprayed LSD into the air and also local food products were contaminated. The UK Sun reports that the Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz investigated the issue in France but it reports that they secretly supplied the CIA with LSD. American news reports have reported that French intelligence officials are demanding the CIA for explanations but officials in the European country have denied this. In his investigation, Albarelli published a book in 2009 titled “A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments.”