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The contents of the Project MKDELTA page were merged into MKUltra. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.
The section title "Experiments on Danes" currently states:
Unlike the US and Canada, Denmark had a centralized population register, allowing participants to be tracked over the course of several years. U.S. psychologist Zarnoff Mednick teamed up with Danish professor Fini Schulsinger to study schizophrenia progression in Danish orphans. The project grew out of QKHilltop and was later absorbed into MKUltra. In 1977, Schulsinger completed his doctoral dissertation on the project, but as MKUltra had been officially declared in the U.S. to have been discontinued with records destroyed, Schulsinger's thesis became a state secret. The children were required to undergo frequent and harsh mental health assessments for which there was no informed consent. In December 2021, radio documentarian Per Wennick discovered 36 boxes of MKUltra records stored at a psychiatric center in a Copenhagen suburb, but when he asked for access, the center shredded the records, in violation of Danish law.[1]
I have read the English translation of the source provided and a few other articles about this (e.g. [1][2][3]). Per Wennick has made a few different claims here: 1) the CIA experimented on Danish children, 2) he was the subject of experiments, 3) he found MKULTRA records, and 4) the MKULTRA records were destroyed when he asked for them. I don't see that he has any actual evidence, but this passage seems to be written with the assumption that all of this actually happened. Certainly, we have a WP:REDFLAG claim here. @LuckyLouie, TheTimesAreAChanging, and Rja13ww33: I'm pinging you because you all seem to have had some experience with this article or other CIA-related articles, but don't feel any obligation to comment. -Location (talk) 22:25, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A quick search shows that a few sources simply repeat WP:SENSATIONAL claims as fact, while most RS are more careful to qualify these allegations as "Per Wennick claims" [4]. Note that "International Policy Digest" may not qualify as an independent reliable source [5]. For such a big story, I'm not finding any of the mainstream journalistic sources covering it, which seems to indicate a WP:REDFLAG. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:47, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@LuckyLouie: It appears as though the DR article HERE (December 28, 2021) was effectively a press release announcing Per Wennick's DR-affiliated documentary HERE (December 27, 2021). Shortly afterwards, the story was picked up by various leftist/left-leaning sources, many of which are affiliated with the governments of Russia, China, and Iran. Examples include:
Veterans Today - site blocked by Wikipedia (December 29, 2021)
Were you able to find any reliable sources, or sufficient sourcing to develop a blurb about these claims? -Location (talk) 15:58, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, I found no mainstream news outlets that have covered this story. Only the above sources (although I wouldn't call Russia Today or Veterans Today left or left-leaning, they are more straight up conspiracy-mongers). I can't even find a non-funky source to use to cite a "Per Wennick claims X" WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV sentence, so I think removing the entire paragraph is the best course of action until better sources arise. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:37, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Thanks for the feedback. -Location (talk) 16:41, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the following sentence from the lede:
Over 7,000 American veterans took part in these experiments non-consensually during the 1950s through 1970s, many of them suing later on.[1]
The cited article states:
Attorneys for the Vietnam veterans estimate about 7,000 troops were subjected to the secret experiments under a program codenamed 'MKUltra.'
Morrison & Foerster are the attorneys for the veterans, and https://edgewoodtestvets.org/ is their website for this lawsuit. I think we need a neutral source of information for these figures, particularly since this is conflating MKUltra with the Edgewood Arsenal human experiments (e.g. although Rochelle said he believed he was given hallucinogenic drugs, all other documentation about his complaints appear to discuss chemical and biological weapons testing rather than mind-control testing[6]). -Location (talk) 20:17, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Current Reverberations of MK Ultra in popular culture via extremist organizations and conspiracy theories[edit]
I would suggest adding or linking to some recent references to MKUltra in recent social media and propaganda materials. For instance, in this twitter image of a chat re children being removed from homes of adherents of Queen Didula Romana in Canada, children who reject the parents' beliefs are referred to as having fallen prey to MKUltra: https://twitter.com/MintTea778165/status/1742944212750901584/photo/3
It is apparently also being used as proof that the "Deep State" exists and is broadly manipulating people's behaviors and beliefs. The ramifications of both of these uses make MKUltra more than a historical footnote in current North American culture. Closcholar (talk) 17:38, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The right way to do this is to find reliable secondary sources that specifically discuss this phenomenon. It's not appropriate to make broad claims by pointing at individual tweets or similar material, and even if we had a million similar tweets, we'd still need secondary sources to support any claims in this article to avoid original research. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 01:57, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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