This article (2017) examines the history of LSD experiments within the US army and their frequent short and long-term side effects and complications that have, according to the author, not received enough attention in the recent resurgence of interest in psychedelics.
Extensive LSD testing was conducted by the US Army at Edgewood Arsenal and other locations from 1955 to 1967. A number of different reports have been produced describing the health effects of this testing, including the Veterans Health Initiative Report in 2003. By and large, these reports gloss over and minimize the short and long-term side effects and complications of this testing. However, the reports themselves document frequent, severe complications of the LSD. These side effects were regarded by the Army as having been directly caused by the LSD exposure. In view of the current resurgence of interest in hallucinogens within psychiatry, the sanitized version of the effects of LSD exposure on US soldiers needs to be replaced with a more accurate account.
Ross frames the historical LSD testing carried out by the US Army (principally at Edgewood Arsenal and Fort Detrick) within a broader history of chemical and biological (CB) weapons research and contemporary renewed psychiatric interest in hallucinogens. Earlier research and official reports document extensive human testing of CB agents from the Second World War through the 1960s, and the author emphasises that these experiments were sometimes presented as ‘‘defensive’’ while involving toxic agents in quantities and contexts that suggest broader, potentially offensive programmes. The introduction notes that documentation of the Army’s LSD work is intertwined with CIA and Air Force projects (for example MKULTRA and related programmes) and that available military follow-up data make the Army an important locus for assessing long-term health effects. The stated purpose of the paper is to challenge the Army’s claim that its LSD experiments produced no lasting harm. Ross sets out to re-examine Army and other government documents (including the Veterans Health Initiative (VHI) material, NRC reviews, a Senate Committee report, and the US Army Medical Department follow-up study) in order to demonstrate that these sources actually record frequent and sometimes severe short- and long-term complications attributed to LSD exposure. The review also raises the contemporary ethical question of whether any classified testing or use of hallucinogens in interrogations might presently be producing long-term harm.
Papers cited by this study that are also in Blossom
Oram, M. · History of Psychiatry (2016)
The extracted text does not present a formal methods section with a prespecified search strategy or inclusion/exclusion criteria. Instead, Ross conducts a document-based historical review centred on government and military reports and archival material. Key sources cited in the narrative include the 2003 Veterans Health Initiative (VHI) study guide, the National Research Council (NRC) three-volume review from the early 1980s, the 1994 Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs report (103-97), and a US Army Medical Department (USAMD) LSD follow-up study initiated in 1978 and reported circa 1980. The author synthesises timelines, numerical summaries, and case-level material drawn from these official reports. Where available, epidemiological and neuropsychological testing results reported by the Army (for example, Halstead-Reitan neuropsychological test outcomes) are extracted and summarised. However, the paper does not report systematic criteria for document selection, a search date range, or independent risk-of-bias assessment in the manner of a formal systematic review; the approach is historiographical and interpretive, based on close reading of primary government reports.
Historical and programme-level findings: The VHI and other documents reconstruct a long chronology of US CB agent testing from the Second World War through the 1960s and early 1970s, including testing of mustard gas, Lewisite, sarin, VX, LSD and other psychochemicals. The VHI reports that, in the 1950s and 1960s, hundreds to thousands of service members were exposed in a wide variety of experiments; concrete figures given include 741 soldiers exposed to LSD and 6,270 individuals cited for other chemical tests, though Ross emphasises that these figures appear inconsistent and likely undercount the total number exposed. The Senate Committee report (1994) summarises findings across five decades and concludes that many DOD experiments occurred without adequate informed consent, documentation or long-term follow-up and that personnel were sometimes coerced. US Army follow-up study data: The USAMD follow-up study identified 741 individuals who had received LSD from 1955–1967, of whom 55 were excluded as Air Force personnel leaving 686 Army veterans. By study end, 220 subjects had been examined directly and another 100 returned questionnaires (320 subjects, 47% of the 686). The investigators could confirm LSD exposure for 281 of these. Ross cites a contemporaneous Army memo (Dirks, 1975) estimating at least 1,500 soldiers had received LSD, suggesting the roster used by the follow-up study underestimates true exposure. Exposure and dosing: Reported single doses ranged broadly from 28 to 5,250 micrograms; 176 subjects received a single dose, 43 received two doses, 12 received three, and 2 received five, while dose counts were unknown for the remainder. Ross highlights that the upper end of this range is orders of magnitude above typical street doses reported in the 300–400 microgram range. Mortality and cause-of-death data: Of the 281 confirmed LSD recipients, 24 had died by the time of follow-up. Reported causes included heart disease (10), gunshot wounds (4, including at least one confirmed suicide and one suspected suicide), aircraft crashes (2), cancer (2), respiratory failure secondary to ALS (1), acute alcohol intoxication (1), emphysema (1), and unknown causes (3). Ross and the report's authors note that the observed number of self-inflicted deaths exceeded expectations based on population rates. Neuropsychological and clinical outcomes: The Halstead-Reitan neuropsychological battery was administered to 172 LSD-exposed individuals; 55 (32%) were classified as having ‘‘mild impairment’’ and 95 (55%) were judged normal on that battery. Investigators attributed impairments to various aetiologies including neurological disorder, psychiatric disorder, alcohol abuse, head trauma, exposure to toxic chemicals, illicit drug use, and hypertension. Self-reported and investigator-classified long-term effects included 76 subjects reporting one or more long-term adverse reactions attributed to LSD, with 12 classified as possible long-term effects and 55 meeting Army criteria for probable long-term LSD effects (note that the Army excluded effects with onset more than two years after exposure from the ‘‘probable’’ category). Specific symptom patterns and case material: Reported sequelae included flashbacks (24 subjects, 18 of whom had multiple flashbacks), depression (9 subjects, with one suicide attempt and two cases of suicidal ideation), dissociative episodes including dissociative fugue, anxiety, nightmares, paranoia, alcohol and polydrug abuse, episodic withdrawal, acute confusional states, seizure disorder, persistent headaches, tinnitus, transient impotence, phobic reactions (for example new-onset specific phobias), and recurrent hallucinations. Ross reproduces numerous individual case vignettes from the USAMD report documenting a spectrum from transient post-exposure symptoms to chronic psychiatric and neurological disability, social and occupational deterioration, and repeated hospital admissions. Discrepancy between conclusions and data: The USAMD report’s summary concluded that the LSD-exposed group ‘‘appeared to generally parallel both in type and frequency’’ the findings expected in a comparable male population. Ross argues that the numerical results and case series in the same report contradict that reassurance, pointing to elevated rates of neuropsychological impairment, documented long-term symptoms, suicides and patterns of chronic psychiatric morbidity among this cohort.
Ross interprets the assembled government documents as evidence that the official, sanitised account of US Army LSD testing downplays both the frequency and severity of adverse outcomes. He emphasises that many authoritative reports (VHI, NRC, Senate Committee, USAMD) nonetheless document toxic exposures, inadequate screening and informed consent, coercive recruitment practices in some cases, and a chronic absence of systematic long-term follow-up for test subjects. The author highlights internal inconsistencies in official figures (for example differing tallies of the number of LSD recipients) and raises concern that the roster and follow-up capture only a minority of those exposed, undermining the validity of reassuring conclusions. Positioning relative to prior work: The paper situates its findings against earlier government and scholarly reviews that have described large-scale CB testing and some long-term harms from agents such as mustard gas and organophosphates. Ross notes that the Edgewood LSD work was embedded in a broader programme that included CIA projects (MKULTRA) and Air Force-funded research, and that Army documentation provides unique follow-up material not available for those other programmes. Limitations and uncertainties acknowledged in the text: The extracted material does not provide a formal methods statement for the author’s review, nor does it permit precise assessment of denominators for exposure; the Army follow-up itself had substantial attrition (less than half of identified Army recipients provided data) and possible misclassification of exposures. Ross also acknowledges that some subjects had pre-existing psychiatric or substance-use problems, which complicates causal attribution; he argues, however, that either these conditions indicate inadequate screening or they were exacerbated or precipitated by exposure. The text notes that the Army’s own classification rules (for example exclusion of late-onset effects from ‘‘probable’’ categorisation) may have minimised reported long-term harms. Implications the authors state: Ross argues for renewed scrutiny of historical military human experimentation and for organised medicine to review the ethics, consent procedures and the role of physicians in any ongoing classified experimentation. In the context of renewed clinical interest in psychedelic compounds, he contends that a more accurate historical account is necessary to inform ethical debate and to ensure appropriate protections, follow-up and care for exposed individuals.
Ross concludes that the ethics, consent procedures, safeguards and complications surrounding chemical and biological weapons experimentation — including LSD testing by the US Army — warrant review by professional medical organisations. The paper states that half a century of US Army experimentation produced documented harms to experimental subjects and that these harms, together with inadequate screening, follow-up and disclosure, justify an organised reappraisal of physician involvement and protections for human subjects.