Harold Blauer (1910 – January 8, 1953) was an American

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

player who died as a result of injections of 450 mg

3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine 3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine (also known as MDA and sass) is an empathogen-entactogen, psychostimulant, and psychedelic drug of the amphetamine family that is encountered mainly as a recreational drug. In terms of pharmacology, MDA acts mo ...

(code-named EA-1298) as part of

Project MKUltra Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weak ...

, a covert

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

mind-control Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwash ...

and chemical interrogation research program run by the

Office of Scientific Intelligence Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) also known as Scientific Intelligence Division was a department of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1963, it was incorporated into the Directorate of Science & Technology.http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAE ...

Tennis

Blauer lost in the round before the quarterfinals of the 1935 United States Professional Tennis Tournament 3–6, 3–6, 3–6 to tennis legend (and eventual tournament champion)

Bill Tilden William Tatem Tilden II (February 10, 1893 – June 5, 1953), nicknamed "Big Bill", was an American tennis player. Tilden was the world No. 1 amateur for six consecutive years, from 1920 to 1925, and was ranked as the world No. 1 professional b ...

Death

Blauer checked into the

New York State Psychiatric Institute The New York State Psychiatric Institute, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, was established in 1895 as one of the first institutions in the United States t ...

(NYSPI) in late 1952, seeking help for depression following a divorce. While at the facility, he was used as a test subject in experiments conducted by the Army Chemical Corps. The Army had a classified agreement with the psychiatric institute that allowed them to study possible chemical warfare compounds by administering the substances to patients.$700,000 Awarded to Estate of Army Drug Test Victim
The Los Angeles Times. 06 May 1987. Between November 1952 and January 1953, Blauer was given injections of various

chemical analogue A structural analog (analogue in modern traditional English; Commonwealth English), also known as a chemical analog or simply an analog, is a compound having a structure similar to that of another compound, but differing from it in respect to a c ...

s of

mescaline Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin. Biological sou ...

. He was first given relatively low doses of MDA (

), then DMA ( 3,4‐dimethoxyamphetamine), MDPEA (3,4‐methylenedioxyphenethylamine) and DMA once again. Blauer requested to withdraw from these treatments because he got strong hallucinations from the injections. Despite this, on December 30, 1952 at 9:53 a.m., he was injected with a fatal dose of 450 milligrams (mg) of MDA. The injection caused sweating, tremors, epileptic seizures and killed him in about 30 minutes. NYSPI has claimed that the overdose was accidental since the safe doses for these mescaline analogues were based only on a guess. On the same day as Blauer, another NYSPI patient was injected with MDA. She was given 150 mg instead of the planned 450 mg dose of MDA, because her reaction to MDA "...was so violent that the injection was stopped when it was only one‐third complete." Followed by the death of Blauer, animal tests were performed in 1953 to find out the

LD50 In toxicology, the median lethal dose, LD50 (abbreviation for "lethal dose, 50%"), LC50 (lethal concentration, 50%) or LCt50 is a toxic unit that measures the lethal dose of a toxin, radiation, or pathogen. The value of LD50 for a substance is the ...

values for the mescaline analogues (

MDMA 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), commonly seen in Tablet (pharmacy), tablet form (ecstasy) and crystal form (molly or mandy), is a potent empathogen–entactogen with stimulant properties primarily used for Recreational dru ...

and many other compounds) before some of them were tested on people. This was done, on behalf of the Army Chemical Warfare Corps, in secrecy at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. Dr Maurice H. Seevers, Director of the Department of Pharmacology at Michigan University in Ann Arbor, supervised these tests. The extent of Blauer's knowledge of the experiment is unclear, and after his death the experiment was covered up by the state of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, the

U.S. government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

and the CIA for 22 years. In 1987, a United States District Court judge awarded Blauer's estate over $700,000 in a ruling that described Blauer as a "guinea pig" whose medical records had been altered to disguise the actual cause of death.

Tennis

Death

See also

References

Further reading