Montreal: Electric Brainwashing victim awarded $100,000
an...@mouse.com
experiments, further exploited by the Canadian govt. Only $100,000 for many
years of suffering and permanent disabilities! Cameron also subjected her
to insulin coma shock. I once interviewed Ms.Kastner about her case.
don
note: none of the Southam newspaper websites in Canada are accessible
without subscribing -- so I have typed this out from print
National Post
June 10, 2004
BRAINWASHING VICTIM WINS $100,000 RULING
Montreal cliic experimented with electroshock
by Jeff Heinrich
A woman has been awarded $100,000 in compensation after receiving
controversial electroshock treatment in a Montreal psychiatric
institute in 1953. "I'm stunned," Gail Kastner, 70, said
yesterday. After some reflection she added: "I'm pleased and
I'm numb."
The shock treatment turned the then 19 year old honours student
into a woman who sucked her thumb, talked like a baby, demanded
to be fed from a bottle and urinated on the floor. She was
ostracised by her affluent family and ended up living in poverty.
Ms. Kastner was left out of a 1994 federal compensatio package
for other victims of brainwashing because she was deemed to have
undergone less intense treatmet that had fewer long-term effects.
Now, a Federal Court judge has reversed that decision and
awarded her $100,000, the same Ottawa granted a decade ago to
77 other victims of Dr. Ewen Cameron, the director of the
Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal.
In 2000, Ms. Kastner sued the Allan Memorial for $4.2 million,
but lost. She tried to appeal, but with no success. The
federal compensation doesn't nearly equal what she could have
won. "It begs the question: if I'm awarded now, why was I
turned down in my lawsuit?" said Ms. Kastner, who lives alone
on a guaranteed income supplement of $1000 a month.
253 of Mr. Cameron's other patients also had their claims
rejected.
Carried out from 1950 to 1965, Mr. Cameron's now-discredited
"de-patterning" program of massive electroshock therapy and
drug-induced sleep was funded by the CIA and Canada's Health
Department.
Even though Ms. Kastner was an early patient, she was
"substantially", if not "fully" de-patterned like the others,
and so is entitled to compensation, Justice Michel Beaudry
wrote in his 9 page decision.
In 1953, Ms. Kastner was a 19 year old honours student from
a wealthy Montreal family. Suffering from mild depression
and anxiety, she was admitted to the Allan Memorial twice
for short stays and given electroshock treatments - 63 in all.
She was also put into comas by being injected with insulin
and given different drugs to induce sleep. The goal was to
"de-pattern" her brain so she could recover and lead a normal
life.
After the treatment, she spent decades of her life in the
dark about her past. On a trip to her home, school and
haunts from an affluent childhood in Shawinigan, nothing
rang a bell. That changed inn 1992 when she walked past a
newstand and saw a headline in the Montreal Gazette about
brainwashing experiments by Mr. Cameron. She then discovered
she had been treated at the institute.
Ms. Kastner got married in 1955, to an appliance salesman,
but he left her 10 years later, leaving her with their son
and no rent money. Over the years, she was ostracized by her
family, but she and her sister have since reconciled.
Now savouring a bittersweet victory in Federal Court, Ms. Kastner
wonders how far the new compensation will stretch after her
legal fees are paid. "I have such mixed feelings of anger and
satisfaction," Ms. Kastner said. "I don't end up with the
whole amount. But, nevertheless, it is closure."