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.