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Andy Nguyen
By Andy Nguyen November 1, 2024

No, Kamala Harris’ mother Shyamala Gopalan did not work for MK-Ultra

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  • Vice President Kamala Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan, worked as a breast cancer researcher.
     
  • The mind control experiments called MK-Ultra, part of a clandestine CIA program, were conducted at McGill University’s Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal; they began and ended several years before Gopalan moved from Berkeley, California, to Canada for work.

Was Vice President Kamala Harris’ mother secretly involved in brainwashing and training assassins as part of the clandestine MK-Ultra program? That’s what one Instagram user says.

In an Oct. 28 Instagram reel, a man says Shyamala Gopalan "worked the MK-Ultra program" and was part of a covert operation involving the Canadian and British governments that "trained assassins and conducted brainwashing experiments." 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

The man cites conservative commentator Candace Owens as the source of his claim. Owens has pushed antisemitic conspiracy theories and falsehoods about the COVID-19 pandemic, and was recently banned from entering Australia for a planned speaking tour. 

Owens did not directly make the claim about Harris’ mother. Instead, it was the topic of an interview she conducted for her podcast with a man who appears to have originated the claim. 

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Yoichi Shimatsu, who is described by Owens as a former editor of The Japan Times, claimed in a Rense.com article that Gopalan was a key player in the MK-Ultra program while living in Montreal, working to help train brainwashed assassins on behalf of the British government. The article cites no sources.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League have said Rense.com promotes pro-Nazi views, antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denialism. 

We found no credible evidence linking Gopalan to MK-Ultra, a clandestine CIA program from 1953 to 1973 that sought to evaluate the effectiveness of drugs such as LSD as a method of mind control and psychological torture. 

PolitiFact reached out to the Harris campaign regarding the claim and did not receive a response by publication time. 

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Gopalan, who died in 2009, was a breast cancer researcher. The claim attempts to link her time working at a research hospital in Montreal and a series of CIA-funded psychological experiments that occurred in Canada during the 1950s and 1960s. 

In 1976, Gopalan moved Kamala Harris and her younger sister, Maya Harris, to Montreal to research breast cancer at Jewish General Hospital and teach medical school classes at McGill University. 

The experiments referenced by Shimatsu occurred at the Allan Memorial Institute, a now defunct psychiatric hospital at McGill University, and conducted by Dr. Ewen Cameron. Cameron believed a combination of psychedelic drugs, sleep deprivation and electric shock treatments could enable researchers to control a person’s mind, The New York Times reported

The experiments ended in 1964 and were funded by the CIA as part of MK-Ultra. 

We rate the claim that Harris’ mother "worked the MK Ultra program" and was "involved in secret mind-control experiments" Pants on Fire!

Our Sources

Instagram reel (archive), Oct. 28, 2024

PolitiFact, Candace Owens, accessed Oct. 31, 2024

The Washington Post, "Candace Owens departs Ben Shapiro’s website after antisemitic commentary," March 22, 2024

Business Insider, "Conservative commentator Candace Owens is using stunts and controversy to boost coronavirus conspiracy theories," April 15, 2020

Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "Conservative US commentator Candace Owens refused entry to Australia ahead of national speaking tour," Oct. 26, 2024

Candace Owens, "This Man Helped Kamala Harris. Then He Mysteriously Died" (archive), Oct. 28, 2024 

Rense.com, "Kamala's Mother Ran 'Planet Of The Apes' For The MK-ULTRA's Assassin Project," Oct. 4, 2024

Southern Poverty Law Center, "Jeff Rense: In His Own Words," April 27, 2015

Anti-Defamation League, "Rense Web Site Promotes Anti-Semitic View," March 17, 2009

History, MK-Ultra, Aug. 21, 2018

The New York Times, "The Rebellious Scientist Who Made Kamala Harris," Oct. 28, 2024

The New York Times, "Kamala Harris’s Life in Canada Was Marked by a Yearning for Home," Aug. 3, 2024

The New York Times, "Shattered by Montreal Mind-Control Experiments, but Undeterred in a Suit," June 15, 2024

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More by Andy Nguyen

No, Kamala Harris’ mother Shyamala Gopalan did not work for MK-Ultra

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