Harold Blauer, an American tennis player, dies of an overdose of MDA (code name EA-1298) during an army-sponsored drug experiment. The army was working to develop new “truth serums” or incapacitating agents and injected Blauer with 500 mg MDA IV.
Blauer had checked himself into the New York State Psychiatric Institute for depression following his divorce. Dr. James Cattell administered MDA injections to Harold Blauer, who died within two hours of his fifth and final injection. Edgewood Arsenal provided MDA to Dr. Cattell as part of a research program exploring the possible use of MDA and MDMA as interrogation tools. Cattell later reported “We didn’t know whether it was dog piss or what it was we were giving him.”
Blauer’s wife won $18,000 in damages in a legal suit against the state in 1955, but the army successfully hid its involvement. In 1987, Blauer’s daughters win a law suit against the federal government for $700,000 over it’s role in their father’s death.
After Blauer’s death, Edgewood terminated its investigation into MDA and MDMA.
References:
Lee MA, Shlain B. Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion. Grove, 1985.
