Survivor of CIA Mind Control Experiments Files Lawsuit Against Institutions

Sat Nov 15 2025 06:35:03 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

Lana Ponting, subjected to unethical CIA-backed experiments as a teenager, is now seeking justice through a class-action lawsuit against the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University.

Lana Ponting, who underwent invasive CIA mind control experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute at just 16 years old, has initiated a class-action lawsuit aimed at holding accountable the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University for their alleged roles in these unethical practices. The suit comes after years of psychological trauma stemming from her participation in the infamous MK-Ultra program, which has continued to haunt her throughout her life.

The first thing Lana Ponting remembers about the Allan Memorial Institute, a former psychiatric hospital in Montreal, Canada, is the smell - almost medicinal.

I didn't like the look of the place. It didn't look like a hospital to me, she told the BBC from her home in Manitoba.

That hospital – once the home of a Scottish shipping magnate – would be her home for a month in April 1958, after a judge ordered the then-16-year-old to undergo treatment for disobedient behaviour.

It was there that Ms Ponting became one of thousands of people experimented on as part of the CIA's top-secret research into mind control. Now, she is one of two named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit for Canadian victims of the experiments. On Thursday, a judge denied the Royal Victoria Hospital's appeal, paving the way for the lawsuit to proceed.

According to her medical files, which she obtained only recently, Ms Ponting had been running away from home and hanging out with friends her parents disapproved of after a difficult move with her family from Ottawa to Montreal.

I was an ordinary teenager, she recalled. But the judge sent her to the Allan.

Once there, she became an unwitting participant in covert CIA experiments known as MK-Ultra, which tested the effects of psychedelic drugs like LSD, electroshock treatments, and brainwashing techniques on humans without their consent.

At the Allan, McGill University researcher Dr Ewen Cameron drugged patients and made them listen to recordings, sometimes thousands of times, in a process he called exploring.

Dr Cameron would make Ms Ponting listen to the same tape recording hundreds of times, affirming messages that conflicted with her sense of self.

Medical records show Ms Ponting was given LSD, sodium amytal, desoxyn, and nitrous gas, leading to long-term psychological issues she continues to face.

The Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University have declined to comment due to the ongoing lawsuit, but for Ms Ponting, this legal action represents a vital opportunity to confront her past and seek justice for the suffering inflicted upon her and many others.