Friday, 24 February 2006
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MI6 payouts over secret LSD tests

A "volunteers programme" started at Porton Down in 1916
Three UK ex-servicemen have been given compensation after they were given LSD without their consent in the 1950s.
The men volunteered to be "guinea pigs" at the government research base Porton Down after being told scientists wanted to find a cure for the common cold.

But they were given the hallucinogen in mind control tests, and some volunteers had terrifying hallucinations.

The Foreign Office said the secret intelligence body MI6 had made the settlements after legal advice.

The out-of-court settlements are thought to be under £10,000 for each of the men.

In a statement issued later to the BBC News website, the Ministry of Defence said it did not make any admission of liability in respect of the settlements.

The statement added: "The Ministry of Defence is very grateful to all those whose participation in studies at Porton Down made possible the research to provide safe and effective protection for UK Armed Forces."

A spokesman for the Foreign Office, which oversees MI6, said: "The settlement offers were made to the government on behalf of the three claimants which, on legal advice, and in the particular circumstances of these cases, the government thinks it appropriate to accept."

The men had volunteered for experiments at the government's chemical warfare research base at Porton Down in Wiltshire in 1953 and 1954.