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Harold Alexander Abramson | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1899-11-27)November 27, 1899 |
| Died | September 29, 1980(1980-09-29) (aged 80) |
| Alma mater | Columbia College (BA) Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (MD) |
| Known for | Early advocate oftherapeutic LSD |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Clinicalallergist |
Harold Alexander Abramson (November 27, 1899 – September 29, 1980) was an American physician (clinicalallergist), remembered as a proponent oftherapeutic LSD. He played a significant role in theCIA'sMKULTRA program to investigate the possible applications for LSD.
Abramson graduated fromColumbia College in 1919, receiving anM.D. from theCollege of Physicians and Surgeons in 1923. As a medical student, he was awarded the Meyerhof Prize in 1921.[2] He specialized inallergy medicine.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Abramson traveled widely, and was affiliated with laboratories atJohns Hopkins andHarvard, as well as theKaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin.[2] He also began long affiliations with laboratories atMount Sinai Hospital andCold Spring Harbor. Returning to P&S, he became assistant professor of physiology from 1935 to 1942[2] and joined the staff at Mount Sinai Hospital inNew York City in 1941, cultivating an interest inasthma andpulmonary disease, and where he was the first ever to useaerosolizedpenicillin.[3]
In 1942, theLong Island Biological Laboratories research project, headed by Harold Abramson, was established in part with funds from theJosiah Macy Jr. Foundation and support from the War Department. Abramson was then a Major in the Technical Division,Chemical Warfare service of theUnited States Army.[4]
He was on military leave from 1943 to August 1946, and during this period he earned the United States Army'sLegion of Merit "for vital contributions to the Chemical Warfare Service and thus to the war effort" for work involving aerosolpenicillin.[2]
He returned to P&S in September 1946, and became Assistant Clinical Professor ofPhysiology from 1948 to 1957. During the 1950s, Abramson was involved in LSD research conducted at Mount Sinai and funded by the CIA, and he appears in the Church Commission's investigation of CIA practices. His later career was spent at Mount Sinai Hospital and other hospitals in theNew York area,[2] finally leaving Mount Sinai Hospital in 1959.[citation needed]
While at Mount Sinai Hospital in 1953, Abramson proposed an $85,000 study to the CIA on the effects of LSD on unwitting hospital patients. This was the same year that the MKULTRA program was established. Funding for the project was funneled through the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.
Abramson was anattending physician in connection with the alleged LSD-induced suicide ofFrank Olson, aU.S. Armybiological warfare scientist who was surreptitiously given LSD as part of the CIA'spsychotropic drug research, although the Olson family contests the circumstances of his death.
Beginning in 1954, Abramson published a series of articles on the effects of LSD onSiamese fighting fish. He is said to be the person who influenced many members of theCybernetics Group to turn to LSD, includingFrank Fremont-Smith, head of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation. (The Cybernetics Group, originally named The Conference on Feedback Mechanisms inBiology and theSocial Sciences, was started in 1946). He was also an organizer of the six international LSD conferences, the first being held in 1959.
On October 31, 1965, he delivered a speech titled "LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism" at the Sixth Emil A. Gutheil Memorial Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Psychotherapy in New York.[5]
Abramson edited the proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism, published in 1967 asThe Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. The conference took place at the South Oaks Hospital inAmityville,New York, May 8–10, 1965.[6]
Together withM. Murray Peshkin, he founded theJournal of Asthma Research, and remained its editor for seventeen years until his death.[7]
He also worked as director of research at South Oaks Psychiatric Hospital inAmityville, New York, and a consulting research psychiatrist at State Hospital in Central Islip.
Abramson died on September 29, 1980.[2]
Abramson was portrayed byBob Balaban inWORMWO0D, the 2017 six-partdocudramaminiseries directed byErrol Morris.[8][9]
Reports
Books
Books (as editor)
Book contributions
