Pubdate: Fri, 09 Dec 2011 Source: Richmond News (CN BC) Copyright: 2011, Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc. Contact: http://www.richmond-news.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1244 Author: Michelle Hopkins, Richmond News AUTHOR FINDS SOLACE WRITING ABOUT HORRIFIC PAST Gina Rossi Released Her Memoir About Her Time Institutionalized in the '50s, '60s At 16, Gina Rossi's life would become a living nightmare, one that seems unthinkable today. At 69, the longtime Richmond resident has finally released her memoirs in a book titled, Disposable Minds, Expendable People. Rossi, a slight woman with short brown hair and beautifully expressive brown eyes, spoke to the News to share her amazing story of survival and triumph. Her manuscript tells the horrifying true story about how a teenage girl became a ward of the state and was subjected to years of experimental drugs, one sanctioned by our own government. That she is alive today to tell her story is a miracle, according to her husband Ralph Rossi. It is well documented that during the 1950s and '60s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was conducting mind control experiments on unsuspecting patients in Montreal with the blessing of both the Canadian and American governments, as well as McGill University. Many books have been written over the years, as well as a heart wrenching four-hour CBC mini-series documentary called The Sleep Room (January 1998). Rossi wrote her book on the insistence of her doctor - whom she can't name for legal reasons. "It was truly cathartic for me," she said softly. "He kept telling me, 'You have to make people aware, they have to know what went on.' "They used people like me as Guinea pigs ... I was a test subject in the 1950s and 1960s in a cruel conspiracy." Her jails were the Royal Victoria Hospital, which includes the Allan Memorial Institute, stately buildings on the slopes of Mount Royal in the heart of Montreal. The culprits of these shocking experiments were the infamous Dr. Ewen Cameron, his collaborator Dr. Heinz Lehmann, head of research at the Allan, along with a team of psychiatrists and surgeons. To find out how Rossi came to be an unwitting victim of horrific mind control experiments, you need to know about her childhood, of which she writes about extensively in her book. Rossi grew up in Montreal, one of two girls to a mother she described as physically and mentally abusive and a caring, loving father. By all accounts, Rossi said, her mother hated her; for what she can only guess. Rossi imagines that it's because her mother thought children should be still and quiet, not have any imagination, of which she possessed a vivid one. Her mother tried and succeeded in getting "rid" of Rossi from the time she was six. "Mom couldn't cope with me and would often give me tranquilizers," she said. At six, her mother packed Rossi a small suitcase and said they were going on a streetcar ride with a friend. It was a ruse. Her mother actually took her to The Children's Home in Lachine, Quebec - a missionary home for boys and girls run by the United Church of Canada. "When my dad found me months later, he took me home .... My mother was furious, and tried once again to get rid of me. My father stayed with her because he didn't want her to get custody of us." At 10, Rossi's father died suddenly of a heart attack. In her book, she described that day as "one of the most horrific memories of (her) life." Unbeknownst to that little girl, her life would become even worse. In the early fifties, Quebec children either orphaned or from broken homes were placed in institutions such as Summerhill, a nondenominational home for young girls. "After my dad died, my mother did not want to care for me or have me around, so I was sent to Summerhill," she said. "I lived there until I was 15. It was a prison to me." At 16, Rossi became ill. "It looked to doctors as if I had hepatitis," she said. "Because my mom was on welfare, I became a ward of the state and sent to Royal Victoria Hospital for six weeks." A few days after being discharged from the hospital, Rossi was admitted into the Allan Memorial Institute for three months. Over a three-year period, she would be admitted there seven times. "I later found out I was being medically induced to appear like I had hepatitis to keep me in the system to test the use of experimental drugs and psychiatric treatment," she said. "I was always drugged. "The doctors actually taught me how to inject myself six times a day." In her book, Rossi described dark days when "(she) was too weak to think, let alone have a conversation. It was a constant struggle trying to keep awake while being heavily sedated." That's how Ralph Rossi met his future wife, drugged and thin to the point of anorexic, at a private school run by nuns. "I was 18 and Gina, 17, when I went to repair the electronics for the Grey nuns. By this time, Gina was living in a private school, Maria Goretti Centre, but was an out-patient of the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH))," said Ralph Rossi. "I saw her watching television and I was attracted to her beauty, but I also saw a troubled girl." Rossi's days consisted of going to RVH for a routine of blood tests, injections, pills, analysis by doctors, interns and medical students. Her life was a fog of pain, weakness and drug addiction. Meanwhile, days after Ralph saw Rossi, mutual friends of theirs introduced them. The unlikely pair fell in love. "Ralph took me to his own doctor who told Ralph that I was in a government program and it was best not to interfere." Ralph added, "He also told me in private that Gina was very damaged and may not survive." (The Rossis were told by their lawyer not to divulge the physician's name.) The family doctor finally relented and helped Gina get off the drugs. "He was a family friend of Ralph and he really saved my life," added Rossi. It took a year and half to wean her off the cocktail of drugs her body was accustomed to. In total, she was steadily drugged with 12 to 16 barbiturates and tranquilizers over three and a half years. Rossi firmly believes the doctors at one point gave her LSD - a potent mood-altering drug. "There was a particular nurse who worked with Dr. Cameron that I think gave me LSD when I was 16 years old," said Rossi. "I remember having vivid nightmares while on LSD." When asked why it took so long to pen her biography, Rossi said, "Although I never loved my mother, I forgave her. I couldn't write the book until after her death." Her mother, who lived with Rossi and her family for four years in the early '80s, died in a nursing home at the age of 86. "Although she was a horrible mother, and awful to me, she was a fantastic grandmother," said Rossi, a sad smile on her face. "I really feel that she wasn't mentally responsible because she had a brain injury as a child." Today, Rossi suffers from digestion problems and has fought and won her battle with cancer. "I have not had hepatitis since I left the hospital in May 1962," said Rossi, of being wrongly diagnosed with hepatitis. "Tests could not conclude that I ever had hepatitis. "How is it possible that these tests came out negative, considering I was diagnosed and treated at length for hepatitis at the Royal Victoria Hospital?" Her husband, her champion and she calls her saviour, said of his wife of nearly 50 years, "I don't know why Gina survived so well without becoming incredibly bitter, because so many other victims did. She's really pure in so many ways, naturally kind and very benevolent." Besides placing the blame on the doctors, Ralph Rossi places a lot of the culpability on the pharmaceutical companies. "The pharmaceutical companies are the most powerful lobbyists ... multi-billion dollar companies that sanction drug experimentation on unsuspecting people," he said. Today, Rossi and her husband love to spend time with their four children and nine grandchildren. "I have a good life and wonderful children," she said, with a smile on her face. "Although, the drugs have had negative effects on my body and possibly my children, I am living a fairly normal life." Disposable Minds, Expendable People is available in Richmond at any Chapters store, as well as Indigo, Barnes and Noble and soon as an E-book. A portion of the sale from each book will benefit the Vancouver's Yaffa House, which provides supportive home living for Jewish people suffering from mental illness. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.