MindNet Journal - Vol. 1, No. 29 ================================================================ V E R I C O M M / MindNet "Quid veritas est?" ================================================================ Notes: The following is reproduced here with the express permission of the author. Permission is given to reproduce and redistribute, for non-commercial purposes only, provided this information and the copy remain intact and unedited. The views and opinions expressed below are not necessarily the views and opinions of VERICOMM, MindNet, or the editors unless otherwise noted. Editor: Mike Coyle Associate Editors: Walter Bowart Alex Constantine Martin Cannon Assistant Editor: Rick Lawler Research: Darrell Bross ================================================================ Excerpted from: Psychic Dictatorship in the U.S.A. By Alex Constantine Portland, OR : Feral House, 1995 Chapter Five Pages 97-111 "What is that Odor?" Mystery Fumes, the Poisoning of the Los Angeles County Commission for Women's Ritual Abuse Task Force & the Los Angeles Times Introduction: Cults, Chemo-Terrorism and the CIA After the deadly March 1995 subway gassing in Japan, 1,200 police and military troops raided the "sixth santium" of Aum Shinri Kyo, one of the country's 17,000 religious cults, in the shadow of Mount Fuji. Sporting chemical gear, they cut their way into the Kamikuishiki warehouse with circular saws and oxyacetylene torches. On the first floor, police stumbled upon a "Perfect Salvation Initiation," a yogic ritual that employed electrical skull caps to deliver four- to ten-volt shocks to the novitiate in an attempt to open his chakras, the body's centers of spiritual energy. Among the healing rites practiced by the sect was the imbibing and vomiting of whole gallons of water, electrical jolts and the "Christ Initiation," an arduous regimen of enemas and scalding hot baths. Former members of the sect, according to a Los Angeles Times report, "paint a chilling picture of psychological indoctrination ... sleep deprivation, mind control techniques and enforced isolation from the outside world. Access to family and friends - even newspapers and TV - is prohibited"1 The cultists exhibited an alarming degree of mind control. Police freed a screaming woman from a stainless steel pod, and fifty cult members were found sprawled unconscious in a chapel on the second floor, six others in a drug-induced coma.2 Police announced that the stockpile of noxious chemicals discovered at the compound was the source of the nerve gas released in a Tokyo subway, killing ten people and injuring 5,000, with 70 in critical condition. Sadly enough, the neurotoxic effect of the gas is likely to be severe. Medical research has shown that acute exposure to toxic levels of sarin (a poison developed at chemical laboratories in Nazi Germany as a war gas) produces prolonged changes in brain function.3 It was the first use of a chemical warfare agent on a large group of people by a non-military group4 (though the apocalyptic sect is believed to have had a hand in an unexplained sarin "leak" in the Japanese Alps in 1994 that left eight dead and sickened 212.5 "Birds dropped from the sky," one abashed correspondent wrote from Tokyo. "Dead dogs and cats lay in the gutters, and dead carp and yabbies floated to the surface of an ornamental pond"6). It was not the first time that a cult has been accused of waging chemical warfare on unsuspecting civilians. In Los Angeles, for example, a series of mysterious attacks on members of the local County Commission for Women's Ritual Abuse Task Force in 1992 led to complaints of nausea, blurred vision, dizziness, headaches and elevated blood pressure. Eight of these cases had been independently confirmed by blood tests - yet, incredibly, Los Angeles Times coverage made light of the victims, blaming the outbreak of symptoms on the fertile imaginations of professional paranoiacs.7 After all, allegations of abuse at McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach had been debunked. The expert opinions of reputable academics had shown that organized cult activity in southern California was non-existent, the zaniest of "urban legends." Hadn't they? Surely the task force was laboring under another bout of cult "hysteria." The Times reassured the community that, once again, a few fevered brains had made monsters where none existed. The newspaper adhered to its position even when Dr. Catherine Gould, chairwoman of the ritual abuse task force, fired off a letter of rebuttal, pointing out that the allegations were backed up by blood-test reports verifying that members of the group had, contrary to the Times report, been exposed to organophosphate poisons.8 The Times did not print the letter. Dr. Gould, a licensed clinical child therapist, countered that she had found it shocking a major metropolitan newspaper would "deliberately bypass the available data in favor of a series of emotional charges which essentially amount to a chorus of 'it couldn't be true.'" She also bemoaned the newspaper's "pattern of biased and inaccurate reporting" on ritual child abuse, a tendency to side with perpetrators of SRA and promote the small minority of psychologists - only one out of ten, in fact - who deride recovered memory therapy and have largely succeeded at discrediting therapists who work with children abused by mind control cults.9 This small but unremittingly "skeptical" school constitutes the pool of academic psychologists available to defense attorneys. They have received much play in the press, champions of the false memory theory of ritual abuse - though most are not licensed to practice child therapy. Ubiquitous in the media, this clutch of academic psychologists includes Drs. Richard Ofshe, Margaret Singer and Elizabeth Loftus of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, all of whom have made lucrative careers testifying on behalf of accused pedophiles. The therapists who actually treat the young victims are not sought out by reporters. This inequity, biased in favor of the false memory brigade, amounts to blanket censorship of all qualified professionals on the subject of ritual abuse. The press has thus become the sole domain of a small minority of defense psychologists. Lopsided media coverage of ritual abuse amounts to a virulent form of disinformation. The perpetrators and their hired guns in academia have a monopoly on the molding of public opinion. They are not representative, but they are quoted time and again by the press. Their bona fides are often in CIA mind control experimentation. These include UCLA's Louis Jolyon West (LSD experiments) and Berkeley's Margaret Singer (brainwashing studies), both "experts" on cults. Dr. Ofshe, who turns up constantly in the newspapers to call recovered memory therapy a "quack" science, writes monographs on mind control strongly influenced by Dr. West's academic writing. Dr. Martin Orne, an original board member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, studied hypnotic persuasion at the University of Pennsylvania for CIA and Naval Intelligence paymasters. What the Los Angeles Times neglected to tell its readership is that CIA behavior control scientists and the cults have formed an alliance. The Agency uses the cults to further the techniques and technology of mind control.10 In exchange, the CIA provides behind-the-scenes legal assistance and public relations. A perpetrator of ritual abuse, when nabbed, is often treated to friendly press coverage. In contrast, ritually abused children and their therapists have been targeted for harassment because they threaten perps, cults and the Agency alike with exposure. Competent psychologists are, in the public print, made to appear greedy, incompetent opportunists practicing a medieval science based on quack theories of memory. Stories critical of those in the field of ritual abuse often bear an uncanny resemblance to a CIA disinformation campaign - and that, if the truth be known, is no accident. Despite public pronouncements to the contrary, the CIA is still very actively engaged in mind control research. Communities around the world have been converted into laboratories. Cults in their midst are led by operatives trained in the techniques and technology of behavior control. And media disinformation conceals the work of this mind control fraternity. In January of 1992, Dr. Gould recalled in her letter to the Times, "I became aware of a strange pattern of illnesses [affecting] both Los Angeles therapists treating ritual abuse patients, and individuals engaged in support and advocacy work on behalf of ritually abused children and adults." The afflicted complained not only of a general malaise that might be expected to accompany a demanding career, but also such unusual symptoms as numbness in the face and extremities, blurred vision, muscle tremors and weakness, memory loss and even "incontinence." The first to complain of symptoms saw a physician, who diagnosed her as suffering from diazinon poisoning. (Diazinon, like the sarin unleashed in Japan, is an organophosphate.11) Independently, another member of the task force had a blood test performed at Kaiser Hospital in Los Angeles and was handed the same diagnosis. A third member of the group, an SRA survivor, was examined at the Glendale Adventist Medical Center and told that she had "organophosphate poisoning." Yet another member, a therapist suffering a constellation of toxic symptoms, bought a pesticide detection kit. She tested samples of food from the kitchen one evening when she discovered that her home had been broken and entered. A half dozen of the food samples proved positive for pesticide poisoning. The therapist (requesting anonymity) claimed in a letter to the task force, "our home has been broken into several times, even during the day when witnesses were on the property. Neighbors inform us of continual nighttime surveillance. We have been followed several times by a variety of vehicles. On at least three occasions the interior of our home has been splattered with blood, and two birds have mysteriously died."12 Concerns were raised at the panel's March 1992 meeting that some people engaged in helping ritual abuse survivors escape cult influence might be victims of pesticide poisoning. By that time, a number of therapists suffering from symptoms of organophosphate poisoning had contacted their physicians. Satanic cult survivors on the task force also exhibited symptoms of toxification, including a young woman and incest survivor - referred to here as M - who received the following recorded message from her sister shortly after taking a blood test: I talked to mom this morning - she's very upset! She said she had a phone call yesterday about a meeting and that she wanted to tell you that any files, any medical reports that you go or that anyone else goes looking for will not be found. We know what you're up to and you're not going to get away with it. I repeat, anything you look for - medical files, reports - will not be found. Don't do this.... I'm telling you this to beware - you're treading on thin ice - mom told me to tell you'd better be careful. You'd better watch who you talk to. Watch what you say, because you're marked and you know that. We know what school [your child] goes to. You'd better be there for him. You'd better watch out for him. Anything can happen. Have a nice day! Medical reports from clinics across the county vouch for members of the task force who reporting toxic effects. Still, the L.A. Times took the position that they were suffering paranoid aberrations. The adamant editors of the Times turned up their noses not only to the medical reports, but also to a number of letters from other therapists of ritually abused children in Los Angeles - they, too, exhibited symptoms of organophosphate poisoning. One mother of two, after leaving a local cult, contacted Gould's task force in November, 1992 about the L.A.Times story: "I was alarmed, since I had all the symptoms last year, as had my children." Another mother wrote to say that in February, 1985 she discovered that her youngest daughter had been sexually abused in a daycare center in the San Fernando Valley. Her daughter's intense emotional trauma persisted, though she frequented a therapist for over a year. Then the toxic siege began ... In 1988 I started to experience physical problems. I was severely tired much of the time. It felt as if I had been drugged. Soon after that I started to have occurrences of tachycardia (rapid heart beat), headaches, shortness of breath, loss of memory, blurry vision, sweats, and at times I noticed a strange odor in my clothing, not to mention the female problems I was having. Doctors tested me every which way and yet every test was negative. They told me I was suffering from stress. I argued that I felt drugged, that I had some kind of chemical imbalance. They insisted it was stress, and I was referred to various stress programs, given tapes to listen to and forced to leave a very lucrative job. In July 1989, I was put on disability. Today I am considered permanently disabled. Early in 1992 it was suggested to me that I might be a victim of pesticide poisoning. Truth is I didn't believe it. I was afraid my doctor would think I was crazy. I eventually did go to him and asked his opinion. I was surprised at what he told me in a phone conversation the next day. He had consulted with two other doctors, and it was their opinion that I was suffering from chronic pesticide poisoning.13 Having amassed a bulky file of medical documentation to establish that members of the task force had been poisoned, Dr. Gould was still reluctant to contact the local press until she'd gathered enough evidence to convince even the most obstinate skeptic. In Los Angeles, the legal victory of Ray Buckey on molestation charges, after a five-year travail of public debate, had prompted a heated backlash against child therapists. The task force was still collecting medical evidence and discussing possible courses of action when Stephanie Sheppard, a cult survivor, broke ranks and phoned the L.A. Times and a local television station to "blow the lid" off the group's "psychotic" belief they'd been poisoned. Ms. Sheppard's admission was made to therapist David Neswald prior to a meeting of the panel. Dr. Neswald recalls that Sheppard "apparently mistook me for Dr. Papanek and called me out to the hallway to speak privately."14 The agonizing irony in the confusion of identity is that Dr. Paul Papanek has long been a medical champion for the spraying of technical-grade malathion (an organophosphate and known neurotoxin) in densely-populated Southern California neighborhoods, a practice he commends as safe and effective to rid the region of periodic medfly infestation, despite growing evidence that the insecticide has adverse, often severe effects on human health. A mother of two, referred to here as N.R., once sought advice from the task force when she suspected her two daughters had been abused. She struggled with an undiagnosed illness for a year before it occurred to her that the cause might be a poison. She phoned the task force office and was referred to Stephanie Sheppard, then acting "contact person" on questions concerning toxins. Sheppard, the woman complained, "proceeded to question me at length," and gave several "lectures about how all of these symptoms I was having could be from other causes, including 'getting old' (I am forty)." N.R. became "very suspicious of her intentions and did not wish to talk to her again."15 After a routine blood test, Ms. R.'s physician received not one, but three phone calls from Stephanie Sheppard. She asked how the tests had come out, and informed him that she seriously doubted anyone on the task force had been poisoned. When Stephanie rang N.R., "I told her that I had found out that she had called my doctor and that I was very angry. Her voice took on a tone that was obviously aimed at shaming me for questioning her. I told her in a strong voice not to call again and I hung up." Alarmed, she called the clinic, only to discover that Stephanie had called there repeatedly for a copy of the blood test results. (As it happens, the test proved negative. This means little, though, because Mrs. R. learned later that it was a test capable of detecting only high levels of toxicity from recent exposure.) Ms. R. complained to the task force that her doctor had "no experience with ritual abuse. Now she certainly has a first-hand experience of cult attempts to sabotage all exposure of their violent harassment techniques. I am totally outraged." She characterized Stephanie Sheppard's intrusions as "a total red alert" to "infiltration." But the quickest cuts, the harshest treacheries, were yet to come - from the Los Angeles Times. British journalist Piers Brendon, in The Life and Death of the Press Barons, found in the course of researching the book in 1983 that "as an integral part of the country's power structure, the Times tends to overlook its public responsibilities."16 But then, dodging responsibility is something of a tradition in the press, Brendon observed: "The First Amendment was drafted on the understanding that newspapers would be voices crying in the wilderness. It did not matter how raucous or even how deceitful they were." The very paragon of this principle is the L.A. Times. Catherine Gould is cautious of the press. She and other therapists working with ritual abuse victims have been repeatedly besmirched for shattering the spell of public denial woven by the media around any mention of ritual child abuse or cult mind control. "We considered it too early to make any kind of definitive determination about the nature or extent of the poisonings," Dr. Gould says, "and had in no way thought to publicize our concerns at this time." She was still collecting medical reports when the Times came a-calling. A cursory treatment of the story was written up by staff reporter Aaron Curtiss and appeared on December 1, 1992. It was founded solely on allegations, not hard evidence. Curtiss promised the group a follow-up story based on the medical data they'd collected. Gould agreed to turn over the blood test results. But the Times pulled a switch. Curtiss phoned Gould to say he'd been pulled off the story. It was instead assigned to John Johnson, the author of an earlier biased pooh-poohing of ritual abuse that appeared in the Times on April 23, 1992.17 Dr. Gould was still aching with resentment at the paper for printing Johnson's condescending denial of underground cult activity in Los Angeles. Gould told Curtiss that she saw no purpose in working with Johnson. Curtiss passed on Gould's concerns to his editor. The next day Curtiss called to say that his editor had agreed that Gould could give the medical reports to the Times and expect fair treatment. He assured her that the information would be accurately reflected in the story written by Johnson. Thus assuaged, she turned over the medical reports. Quite suddenly, without explanation, Curtiss went incommunicado. Gould phoned the Times repeatedly over the next ten days - Curtiss refused to either take or return her calls. Gould had a cold sensation in the pit of her stomach that the paper would debunk the poisonings. "I was appalled," Gould later wrote to editors of the Times, "when the article appeared on the front page of the 'Metro' section with none of the available data in it. The article represents a breach of ethics on the part of John Johnson and the Los Angeles Times, and a breach of promise made by a staff member." The Times story that appeared on December 13, 1992 glossed over the medical evidence entirely, depicting the task force as a collection of paranoiacs who "claimed they are slowly being poisoned by those who want to silence them." The paper noted that there were "43 reported victims of the alleged poisoning," but "so far, there is no proof that anyone was poisoned and skeptics abound." Johnson cited as example Dr. Paul J. Papanek, chief of the county's toxins epidemiological program and the most reviled public official in L.A. County - the very "authority" who has repeatedly sanctioned malathion spraying in Southern California despite overwhelming medical data, a multitude of case histories and strident city hall testimony indicating that the pesticide is harmful to humans. Dr. Papanek "attended a recent task force meeting and branded as 'outrageous' the poisoning claims." He sharply faulted the commission for not attending to "common sense rules of evidence." On the heels of this "controversy," nameless authorities had "begun an investigation into the activities of therapists and an acupuncturist linked to the poisoning claims by task force members." Other "skeptics" were "turning up the heat for answers.," Johnson reported, among them Tom O'Connor, executive director of the Board of Psychology. "Are they diagnosing diazinon poisoning?" O'Connor asked. "That's beyond the scope of their license. This sounds like some sort of mass hysteria." Another categorical denial came from Stephanie Sheppard, who "said she checked out the claims of pesticide poisoning and found no facts to back up the allegations." The Times had only to cite the medical reports supplied by Catherine Gould to silence these critics of the task force. The spurning of the blood tests reduced the story to a transparent smear, probably to discredit Gould and other therapists treating victims of ritual abuse. The deliberate distortions of most news reports on cult conditioning of children blurs public perception of the issue, and contributes to the continued vulnerability of children to a most heinous form of abuse. If anything is more ludicrous than the atrocities described by victims, it is the confabulistic tales advanced by false memory advocates in the press. The abysmal ethics of the Times in its handling of the task force poisonings extended to the paper's reports on a related story, the logic-defying "Mystery Fumes" case in Riverside, California. The half-dozen accounts of the case published by the newspaper were the exclusive domain of staff writer Tom Gorman. In February, 1994 six emergency room attendants at Riverside Hospital fainted after inhaling an "ammonia-like" odor discharged by the blood of Gloria Ramirez after drawing a sample with a syringe. "In the ensuing confusion," Gorman reported, "two people unaffected by the fumes tended to her as she went into full cardiac arrest. Within minutes, the 31-year-old woman - suffering from cervical cancer and weakened by nausea - died." State health officials and toxic specialists had no idea what prompted the incident, and Gorman reported that the Riverside Fire Department's hazardous materials squad found nothing peculiar in air samples taken from the emergency room.18 (Five months later, however, Gorman reversed himself and reported that a chemical compound derived from ammonia had been found in the air samples.19) Dr. Huberto Ochoa, director of the emergency room staff, noticed white crystal spikes in the syringe used to draw blood from the dying Gloria Ramirez. "I'd never seen anything like it," he said. OSHA technicians detected an unidentified derivative of ammonia in Ramirez's body bag.20 Nevertheless, one state hygienist blamed "stress" or "anxiety." This explanation, however, failed to account for the profound memory loss of Maureen Welch, a respiratory therapist. The strain of overwork seemed a lame explanation for the gangrenous knees of nurse Julie Gorchynski after her blood had been contaminated, killing the supply of oxygen to her bones. She also suffered from breathing difficulties, muscle spasms and other symptoms reported two years earlier by members of the task force. In fact, the New York Times noted, medical professionals held that 'the toxic substance that felled the emergency room workers may have been an organophosphate, a chemical used in pesticides and military nerve gas."21 (On the West Coast, the heirs of General Otis Chandler never once raised the possibility that Gloria Ramirez may have been exposed to organophosphates, quite possibly to avoid linking Dr. Gould's task force with the mystery fumes case in the minds of readers.) "I had chemical burns in my throat and nose," Gorchynski told reporters, "lungs working at half capacity, biopsies showing dead knees, a drop of enzyme levels and crystals in my blood as well. It's all medically documented."22 But the Los Angeles Times - which had ignored medical data in its reporting on the poisonings of ritual abuse task force members - also neglected to discuss Julie Gorchynski's medical examinations. The hospital's own blood tests detected organophosphates, but the local press refused to report this critical fact for many months. The Times wasn't the only local news outlet to spin a cloud of disinformation around the mystery fumes case. Dean Adell, a local talk show doctor for KFI, an AM radio station in Los Angeles, dismissed the incident as "mass hysteria."23 This diagnosis outraged Dr. Ross Kussman, Gorchynski's physician, who called the radio station to explain that the hospital personnel displayed symptoms of toxicity. "It doesn't fit the grounds for mass hysteria," Kussman said. "Julie became very ill from the toxin, developed pancreatitis and hepatitis, which are known to kill bone tissue." Dr. Adell scoffed, as though this diagnosis was the most preposterous abuse of medical science he'd ever heard. What poison could possibly account for Gorchynski's litany of symptoms? he asked. "Organophosphates are well known to cause pancreatitis," Dr. Kussman offered. He explained that pancreatitis, in turn, is a known precursor of bone necrosis, the condition afflicting Dr. Gorchynski's knees. Adell asked why health authorities hadn't arrived at the same conclusion. "Because," Kussman returned, "the County was uncooperative in helping us find out where it came from." (Gorchynski also claimed that county authorities were "stonewalling" her.) "Trust me," Dr. Adell, an optometrist, snorted with psychic confidence, "there ain't no fumes!" This appeared to be the official position of the Times as well. Gorman parroted the statements of state health officials when, two weeks later, they too attributed the swooning at Riverside Hospital to "mass hysteria" (failing to point out that this is formally considered to be a "diagnosis-by-exclusion" - meaning that if no other cause is detectable, mass hysterics could account for a spread of physical symptoms.24) At any rate, this explanation didn't wash well in the public print. But before the sighs died down, another diagnosis was offered by Riverside County Coroner Scotty Hill. The coroner released a report from Lawrence Livermore labs - a few days before ballots were cast in Hill's run for re-election - concluding that the noxious fumes discharged by Gloria Ramirez were created internally from the bodily absorption of the pain remedy DMSO chemically transformed by her unique biochemistry into dimethyl sulfate, a lethal chemical warfare agent.25 But the DMSO theory had as many gaping holes in it as "mass hysteria." "DMSO is commonly used," Dr. Kussman says, "and they're saying now that everyone who uses it emits a nerve gas?" The Ramirez family fervently denied that the patient had ever used DMSO. Besides, said Ron Schwartz, an attorney in the case, "the coroner's office is still saying that she died of cervical cancer, but now they're saying she created a chemical warfare agent that didn't hurt her. That doesn't make sense to me." The Los Angeles Times neglected to report a second outbreak of mystery fumes that further decimated the DMSO hypothesis. After initial treatment at Riverside Hospital, two of the poisoned hospital employees were transferred to Parkview Hospital, according to a local television news report.26 "What few people know," an excited reporter announced from Parkview, "is that four of the workers who treated them here were ill themselves. A poison expert examined the four new patients - he said the same symptoms at two different hospitals argues against a DMSO reaction, and points to an entirely different poison." Lawrence Livermore chemists may have also overlooked an outbreak of mystery fumes in Bakersfield a week after the Riverside poisonings. The emergency room at Mercy Hospital was evacuated after doctors inserted a breathing tube in the trachea of a 44-year-old woman struggling with shortness of breath. As at Riverside, emergency room personnel noticed a gaseous cloud rising from the patient. They complained that a potent chemical odor originating with the patient's blood left them with burning eyes, nausea and headaches.27 The growing list of tenuous explanations contributed to suspicions of a cover-up. These were augmented by the announcement that the syringe used to draw blood from Gloria Ramirez had been thrown away.28 And in the course of lawsuits filed by the Ramirez family, Dr. Gorchynski, nurse Sally Balderas and attorneys for Riverside County filed a court motion to destroy all of the evidence gathered from the contaminated emergency room. As it was, entire barrels of evidence had been kept secret from the Ramirez family. They and others filing suit had no chance to have the contents of the barrels examined by toxicologists. An attorney for Sally Balderas complained that he had not been notified that the county wanted to destroy the evidence, or even that a hearing had been scheduled. Judge Richard Van Frank refused to give the county its way, ruling that interested parties work out a plan for the evidence before the hearing continue.29 Coverage of the mystery fumes case by the Los Angeles Times did not extend to the evidentiary hearing. The residents of L.A. were not told that the very "stonewalling" officials charged with investigating a case of mass poisoning wanted to burn every scrap of evidence to minimize "storage costs." By suppressing significant details (medical evidence documenting a toxic assault on the ritual abuse task force, or symptoms of organophosphate poisoning in the mystery fumes case) the Times plays an insidious game. The newspaper has clearly distorted the chemo-terrorism of cults in the southern California with a disinformation gambit that shields the culprits and defames victims (Gloria Ramirez?) for breaking out, talking to reporters, striking back or otherwise interfering with domestic intelligence cult operations. - Alex Constantine Notes: 1 Teresa Watanabe and Carol J. Williams, "Japan Sect Uses Pain to Impel Faith," Los Angeles Times, March 25, 1995, p. A-1-D. 2 Jonathan Annells, "Temple of Doom," London Times, March 26, 1995, p. 1. 3 B. Boskovitch and R. Kusic, abstract to "Long-Term Effect of Acute Exposure to Nerve Gases Upon Human Health," in Mass Mind Control of the American People, compiled and edited by Elizabeth Russell-Manning, published by Russell-Manning, San Francisco, 1992, p. 90. 4 There have been scores of military gassing incidents. In 1969, for instance, the accidental release of nerve gas in Okinawa hospitalized 25 Americans (see Sterling Seagrave. Yellow Rain, M. Evans, New York, 1981, p. 260-61). Non-military accidents are not all that uncommon either: In 1976, the explosion of a factory owned by a subsidiary of Hoffman-LaRoche discharged a cloud of fumes that sickened and disfigured children of Seveso, Italy for life (see John G. Fuller, The Poison that Fell from the Sky, Random House, New York, 1977). 5 Annells. 6 Ben Hills, "Police, Scientists Still Baffled by Japan Nerve Gas Deaths," The Age (Australia), August 20, 1994. 7 John Johnson, "County Panel Scrutinized for Satanic Claims," Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1992, p. B-1. 8 Catherine Gould, letter with medical verification to the Los Angeles Times, December 17, 1992. Copies are available from the L.A. County Commission for Women's Ritual Abuse Task Force office. 9 Randy Noblitt, "Multiple Choice: Which of the Following is Most False: (A) The Memory, (B) The Syndrome, (C) The Foundation?" Newsletter of the Society for the Investiga-tion, Treatment and Prevention of Ritual and Cult Abuse, vol. 1, no. 3, Fall/Winter 1993-94, pp. 3-5. The percentage of psychologists who believe recovered memory therapy to be effective is about 88%. The proportion is the same in Great Britain, according to one survey released last year. On January 1, 1995, the Sunday London Times reported that "the first expert investigation into 'recovered memory syndrome' in Britain reveals that nine out of ten psychologists believe the technique of searching for buried sexual trauma can produce accurate memories." 10 Jonathan Vankin, in Conspiracies, Cover-Ups and Crimes (1992), cites a lecture by Joe Holsinger, an aide to late Congressman Leo Ryan, at a psychology conference in Berkeley, noting: "the possibility is that Jonestown was a mass mind control experiment by the CIA." Holsinger offered as evidence "The Penal Colony," an essay written by a U.C. Berkeley psychologist. "The Berkeley author of the article ... believes that rather than terminating MKULTRA (the Agency's mind control program), the CIA shifted its programs from public institutions to private cult groups, including the Peoples' Temple" (p. 176). 11 Shirley Briggs, Chemical Classes of Pesticides, Hemisphere Publishing Co., 1972, Washington, D.C., p. 213. Immediate effects of organophosphate poisoning include behavioral disturbances, muscle twitching, headaches, nausea, dizziness, anxiety, memory loss, weakness, tremor, abdominal cramps, blurred vision, slowed heartbeat and incontinence. 12 Anonymous attachment, Dr. Gould's letter to the L.A. Times. 13 Letter to Myra Riddel of the L.A. County Commission for Women's Ritual Abuse Task Force, December 15, 1992. On file in the task force archives. 14 Dr. David W. Neswald, letter to Dr. Myra Riddell, task force chairwoman, December 10, 1992. Neswald found Ms. Sheppard's behavior "rather suspect." 15 N.R. in a letter to the task force, November 30, 1992. 16 Piers Brendon, The Life and Death of the Press Barons, Atheneum, New York, 1983, p. 232. 17 John Johnson, "Satanism: Skeptics Abound," Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1992, P. A-1. 18 Tom Gorman, "Family Claims Woman was Victim, Not Cause, of Fumes," Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1994, p. A-3. 19 Tom Gorman, "6-Month Probe Fails to Solve Mystery of Hospital Fumes," Los Angeles Times, August 16, 1994, p. A-21. 20 Tom Gorman, "Victims of Fumes Still Ill, and Still Seeking Answers," Los Angeles Times, April 14, 1994, p. A-1. 21 B. Drummond Ayres Jr., "Elaborate Precautions Taken for Autopsy in Mystery Fumes Case," New York Times, February 25, 1994, p. A-17. 22 Tom Gorman, "'Mystery Fumes' Doctor to File $6-Million Claim," Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1994, p. A-1. 23 Dean Adell program, KFI-AM (Los Angeles), August 8, 1994. 24 Kussman. 25 Tom Gorman, "Lab Suggests Mystery Fumes Answer," Los Angeles Times, November 4, 1994, p. A-1. 26 Mystery fumes update, late evening news broadcast, KNBC-TV, Los Angeles, November 26, 1994. 27 "Fumes Again Sicken People," Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1994, p. A-3. 28 Tom Gorman, "Syringe Used in Fumes Case Lost," Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1994, p. A-3. 29 Pat Murkland, "Bid to Destroy Fumes Evidence Lost," Corona (Calif.) Press-Enterprise, January 12, 1995, p. B-1.