"the Shop" in Today's Society
The novel Firestarter gives a fictional account of a secret government agency called "The Shop", which experimentally gave a drug called Lot 6 to volunteer college students for a quick two hundred bucks. This drug caused hightened extra sensory capabilities, but, the effects of these abilities ended in suicide for most of the students involved. Although this agency is a figment of Steven King's imagination, it raises the question does such an agency exist? Are volunteers subjected to experimental drugs and tests without being properly informed, or even without their consent? Congressional record states that the United States government has been involved in mind control experiments from the 1950's thru the 1970's. The government currently denies that there is any ongoing classified behavior control experimentation, at this time. However, there is a great deal of evidence that this experimentation has taken place in the past.
In Alexander Caron's book, Human Experimentation, he states that in 1953, the CIA began a series of highly sensitive experiments which attempted to alter human behavior using biological and chemical agents. This project was called MK-ULTRA. This project went as far as to drug test subjects with LSD to see if it could provide the power of suggestion under hypnosis.
According to the October 22, 1994 edition of The Seattle Times, there are at least 23,000 radiation victims of institutionalized, unethical experimentation and there are currently two agencies to aid survivors of mind control experiments. These agencies are the Advocacy Committee for Human Experimentation Survivors-Mind Control (home page: http://www.aches-mc.org) and Citizens Against Human Rights Abuse (home page: http://www.calweb.com).
The United States government has taken responsibility to the families of twelve human test subjects who where injected with plutonium and uranium-without their knowledge or consent-in the 1940's. However, instead of life sentences for the governement agents who approved these top secret tests, the government agreed to pay 4.8 million dollars in damages, out of the tax payers pockets. Two hundred thousand other individuals are demanding compensation for similar tests starting in the 1940's thru the 1960's. At a congressional subcommittee hearing in Washington D.C. on September 28, 1994. it was revealed that up to 50,000 American citizens have been endangered by secret defense related test between 1949 and 1969. It was also revealed that the Army released radioactive compounds into 239 American cities to study the effects that it caused. According to the testimony of the General Accounting Office, at these hearings, test have been conducted on prisoners, terminally ill patients, military personnel, and hospital patients (including children.) It seems unbelievable that a government could test on it's unwitting citizens, however, after the testimony of thousands of innocent American citizens, it seems that the ideas in Steven King's novel are not completely fictional.
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Some websites that were very helpful:
Advocacy Committee for Human Experimentation Survivors-Mind Control Home Page:
[Online] Available: http://www.aches-mc.org
Citizens Against Human Rights Abuse
Home Page: [Online] Available: http://calweb.com
DEEP BLACK MAJIC
Government Research into E.S.P and Mind Control
Home Page: [Online] Available: http://www.mindspring.com~txporter.htm
Copyright 1995, by Thomas Porter
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