Front Burner - The “brain school” that experimented on Indigenous children

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

In 2014, a U.S. brainwave scientist claimed he could increase people’s creativity and cure their traumas. And he got permission to experiment on Indigenous children in Canada, offering an all-expenses-paid trip to Victoria, B.C.But a decade later, some study participants say the testing they went through — which included staff attaching electrodes to their heads and being asked to talk about the most traumatic moments of their lives — wasn’t what they signed up for and may have left side-effects.We hear from CBC’s Geoff Leo about what his investigation turned up and why critics are demanding more accountability and transparency over how the study was approved in the first place.Help us make Front Burner even better by filling out this audience survey.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. When Chyna Gallarneau was 12, she came home from school in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan with a brochure for something called Brain School. It sounded too good to pass up. An all-expenses trip to Victoria, B.C. for her and her mom for a week. The study claimed it could lead to an increase in creativity and intelligence, more happiness and joy, healing

from all of their traumas. I begged her to go because I was so excited. But when Chyna and her mom Alma arrived, it wasn't what she expected. Locked in a dark room for more than half the day, listening to scary trumpets. And then I'm thinking, oh my God, this place is really weird. I was like, this place, this place really sucks. I just want to get it done. I want to get it over with. I want to go home. Those scary trumpets she's talking about are the sounds of her own brainwaves. Sixty people, mostly indigenous kids between the ages of 12 and 15 from Prince Albert and the adult that they brought with them, took part in this study by the BioCybernaut Institute from Sedona, Arizona, run by Dr. James Hart. They spent hours isolated in dark rooms,

hooked up to electrodes, listening to those sounds, followed by group discussions where they relived their deepest, darkest traumas. And this wasn't happening when these types of brain experiments later found to be exploitative. Were popular, the 60s and 70s. This was just 10 years ago. Now some of the participants of the study are speaking out about their experiences along with some experts who say the study should

never have been approved. To expose a child to that process is abuse. In my eyes, that's abuse. I'm joined by Jeff Leo, a senior investigative reporter with CBC Saskatchewan, to talk about how this study came to be and what the lasting impact has been on the people who took part in it. Hi Jeff, thanks so much for taking the time. Yeah, happy to do it. So let's start here. This Brain School program, what is it exactly? So it's something that students in Prince Albert were invited to take part in. It was officially called the Prince Albert School Study. And students from four schools in Prince Albert were invited to take part, kids 12 to 15 years old. And these were

schools that were primarily inner city schools with high populations of Indigenous kids. And the basic idea was they were able to take part in brain school, which was a chance for them to, you know, work on themselves, work on their brains to improve their lives, make themselves smarter, more resilient. There was also a component where there was some vitamins being offered as well through the program. And just tell me a little bit more about the origins of this program. I understand it uses this technology called neurofeedback technology. And what is that? Yeah. Yeah. So it's pretty interesting technology. So the basic idea,

technicians take electrodes and they stick them, they glue them to your head, and then the computer is able to read your brainwaves. And then with neurofeedback, you have your brainwaves fed back to you, either visually or in the case of BioCybernaut, the company doing this study, through sounds. So you have little speakers all around your head, and they're feeding back your various brainwaves to you in the form of sounds. Very strange sounds, a little spooky sounds. They were described by China as scary trumpets. So what happens is as your various brainwaves become more active, the sound gets louder. As they become less active, the sound gets quieter. And through the program, they teach you how to

control your brainwaves. And if you can control your brainwaves, according to James Hart, he says, you know, his mantra is brainwaves rule. He says, if you can control your brainwaves, you can control your life. And that's what they're trying to teach you to do through this bio-cybernaut seven-day brainwave training program. Right. And you mentioned James Hart. This is the doctor that was behind this program, this brain school that was offered to these kids. And just tell me a little bit more about him. Who is he? What kind of benefits does he tout to this program? Yeah. So James Hart is a psychologist.

He's been in the neurofeedback game for like 40 years, researching and promoting this technology. He runs the BioCybernaut Institute in Sedona. So it's not surprising that Sedona became home to a most unusual scientist, Dr. James V. Hart. For decades, Dr. Hart has been one of the world's preeminent researchers into human brainwaves, the tiny electrical impulses that constantly emanate from the deepest and oldest portion of our magnificent brains. And he touts this technology as being able to fix most things in your life, to make you happier, to make you smarter, make your IQ improve, make you more creative, better relationships, overcome addictions, overcome trauma, overcome some mental illness like schizophrenia, for example.

Overcome trauma in your life. And this is all from the brochure that was handed out to these students. The level of promise is amazing. And it doesn't stop there. He also talks about how it can help you connect with the spiritual world and give you, you know, sort of, let's say, surprising powers. With the right brainwaves, you can do anything. Levitate, walk on water, walk on fire.

And he says in his sessions, it's not uncommon for people to see angels and interact with them. Huh. Okay. And this guy has like somewhat of a profile, right? He's been on CNN, hooking up Sanjay Gupta with these electrodes, Tony Robbins, that really famous life coach and motivational speaker has spoken positively about him and his company, BioCybernaut. My dear friend, Dr. Jim Hart, and his BioCybernaut program is extraordinary. I've been through it myself. My wife, Sage, has. Members of my family have. And we found it to be truly extraordinary. But it is not for the faint at heart. Unless you're dead serious about really taking things to the next level, don't bother. Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's, he is a mini celebrity. He's a relentless advocate. He's everywhere online

has been pushing this, you know, as I said, for decades, uh, there's dozens of podcasts, uh, people that have interviewed him and people flock to this treatment. It's almost like wellness tourism. It's like a whole thing, right? $15,000 a session is what people pay for this. And people were there. I went to Sedona. I was there at the world headquarters for BioCybernaut. And there was a bunch of people there who were taking this training. One of them had their Bentley parked out front, like worth a few hundred thousand dollars. So he is effectively targeting a fairly high-end how it came to be then that this treatment was offered to, you know, mostly indigenous preteens and teens 10 years ago in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Of all places, exactly. Well, so what happened was a teacher, an Indigenous teacher from Prince Albert took Heart's training program, and she loved it and found it life-changing. And

she thought, you know, we have a great need in Prince Albert. I'd love to see students and teachers go through that. And so she reached out to BioCybernaut and asked, can you do something? And Hart saw an opportunity. I found a, he wrote in a journal about this study just as it was getting going. And he noted that the schools up there have 85% Aboriginal students, he wrote, and many teachers are Aboriginal. So it would be a really good case study. A lot of drugs, a lot of absenteeism. So he saw an opportunity to target a specific population who is experiencing trauma and maybe turn things around. When I spoke with him, he said, we have a novel group. We have a powerful technology.

Let's see what happens. Huh. And you mentioned that this is $15,000 for a week of treatment, I guess. And how was it offered to the students? Yeah. So this brochure, the thing that really jumped out for students was that it's all expenses paid. You're going to go on a trip to Victoria, BC, put up in a bed and breakfast for a week, an opportunity for some tourism, and an opportunity to improve your brain and improve your life.

And so, yeah, this was a super attractive prospect, especially for China, who we heard off the top. China had never been out of the province. China had never been on a plane. She couldn't believe and was so excited about the chance to do this and also the chance to improve herself, to improve her life. I spoke with her mom, Alma, and, you know, Alma says, look, we've been through a lot as a family. Both me and my daughter's dad were chronic alcoholic and drug addicts. We divorced when Chyna was like a year and a half years old. we divorced when China was like a year and a half years old. And I quit the life and I quit the drugs and I raised the girls. And I always believed in therapy and I believed in healing and I believed in getting better.

You know, she had come through a lot of that and really believed in investing in yourself and believed in, you know, investing in self-help. And so she saw this as an opportunity. She was skeptical. No, they made it sound more like it was going to be like an enjoyable, you know, vacation where we go learn to get healthier. I was like, where's the catch?

There's a catch in here somewhere. There's got to be a catch in here. But she also was happy to see her daughter, you know, pushing for something like this. And she thought, well, if maybe this could help, let's do it. And talk to me a bit about what happened when they got there and maybe like how their expectations met the reality. Well, they didn't really have much in the way of expectations. They did not really know what was going to happen. They had sort of brain school, holiday, self-improvement, Victoria in their minds when they got on the plane.

The first morning, they walk into a room and they sit down and these technicians start putting electrodes on their heads and with these wires and everything. And it kind of freaks them out. Alma was wondering, like, are you going to are you going to shave my head? Like what's happening here? They weren't expecting this at all. Then they were told they would be placed into these little dark rooms with speakers around their heads all by themselves for hours a day where they would be listening back to their own brainwaves. And then that's, you know, precisely what happened. I understand that Chyna was also told that she had special brainwaves.

Tell me about that. She was told that with her specifically, they had detected that she had some special brainwaves, unusual brainwaves that not everybody has, that made them think that she could go for extra training and learn how to harness these brainwaves. Essentially, she was told that with these brainwaves, you can potentially alter physical events, like change the course of a hurricane. Huh. Huh. Okay. They told her, you know, you could be a part of like a group of sort of superheroes.

Right. I don't know. So bizarre. Jeff. Yeah. You know, I, there were these group therapy sessions that they had to take part in as well.

And what happened there? So the participants all go into a room and they lay on beds and they have a group discussion. And they talk about some of the most traumatic moments in their lives. People that have hurt them. People that have harmed them in some way, people who they struggle to forgive. And they talk about, how can you think about this differently? How can you get past this trauma? and through the brain training program, they were told, you know, we can see your emotions through your brain waves, and we can see how you're reacting to certain stimuli,

and what we want to do is kind of change the way you react to these traumas in your life, help you think about them differently. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix.

I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together.

To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Jeff, I feel like the obvious question is like, who funded the $15K per participant who paid for it? Yeah, so it was paid for by Alan Markin. The flights, the room and board, the program fee. Alan Markin's a billionaire, a philanthropist from Alberta. He's a former oil executive, part owner of the Calgary Flames. And yeah, so he paid the bill for this. Flames. And yeah, so he paid the bill for this. He has taken bio-cybernauts training in the past and found it really helpful, beneficial for himself. He told me in an email,

Hart says that Markin did this because he's a philanthropist. And so he agreed to fund this program to see if it could do some good. Now, in an email, Markin did tell me through his lawyer that while he did agree to fund this study, he says that Markin and his company was never involved in the direct supervision of BioCybernaut's work. And they also say that they had not been told of any problems with the study. As far as they knew, everything went well. Before we move on, I also want to hear about the experience of one more participant, and that is a woman named Letitia Laughlin. And just tell me a bit about what happened to her and her experience, what she told you. Letitia went through the training.

We talked to her. She's in her early 20s now. But she had very clear memories about her own experience. She said she went there as, you know, a happy, carefree 12-year-old, and she came home and things had changed. Yeah, I did actually feel a lot different because before I didn't really feel like I didn't have as much anxiety before. But after that experience, I started getting anxiety attacks and I just felt more sad.

Yeah, I just wanted more sad. Yeah. And just wanted to distance myself from people too. She doesn't know, you know, if this program caused these changes, but she said she knows that the girl who went to the training is not the same girl who, you know, kind of developed later on after the training. What about Chyna and her mom Alma?

Did they feel like there were lasting impacts? Alma said she's often wondered and has often thought about that program and about the impact it has. and about the impact it has. She says for herself, for her daughter, for others that she knows, people were not doing as well after the program as they were before. She talks about how China became suicidal. She talks about how she herself, Alma herself, you know, was, you know, went into depression. And she says, look, we don't know if this program caused that. There's lots of challenging circumstances in our lives and all of that. So we're not blaming the program,

but I wonder if it had an impact. Has the doctor behind this, Dr. Hart, like responded to how people feel about what happened to them there, you know, all those years ago? Yeah, so I did raise these issues that Alma, that Letitia raised with me. He didn't comment on them. But he did say his form of neurofeedback has no side effects, only positive life-changing effects. He says that's because he does things properly. And if you do things properly, then this can be life-changing. I know that you have spoken to different scientists, researchers, experts about this

study and about his methods and take me through whether or not they agree with his position there. Well, they agree that neurofeedback can be helpful, but they also say there can be harms. It's a powerful technology. It affects the brain and there can be side effects. There can be adverse reactions. So the experts say neurofeedback can be effective for specific conditions, say things like PTSD or ADHD, where you can help people to change their destructive thinking patterns. But it needs to be part of an overall therapeutic approach. The experts I talked to are concerned about Hart's approach. His innovation in neurofeedback is that his treatment is an intense dose of neurofeedback over a short period of time.

So it can last hours a day. For the kids, a couple of hours a day. And experts say that's too much. One researcher, Annette Rogel, said her research showed that between six to 10 minutes at a time was optimal. In Hart's approach, the participants alone in the room watched through video monitors by Hart's staff. But experts say, no, no, that's dangerous. You need to have the practitioner in the room working with the person. Monitoring them remotely is potentially problematic. I feel like it's probably worth mentioning here that this is probably going to sound quite shocking to a lot of people.

And given the history of unethical medical research done on Indigenous people, I think this might be particularly shocking. Yeah. I mean, every expert I talked with had a hard time wrapping their heads around how this could have been approved. Clearly, a serious mistake was made. You know, one thing that is missing from the REB application is an actual description of what the research process is. That is totally unacceptable. We're talking about medical research on kids. There's no description anywhere in the REB application that actually talks about what that is. But it's actually the heart of the experiment.

I don't want to be associated with it because I thought it was whacked. It was bonkers. Obviously, the specifics weren't in the application, because if it was in the ethics application, it wouldn't have got approved. weren't in the application, because if it was in the ethics application, it wouldn't have got approved. What do we know about the approval process and who ultimately ended up approving it and how much information they were working with at the time? In 2013, after this Indigenous teacher asked Hart, can you come and do your training here? Hart and his team started talking to the school division about working with them to get access to students. And they were told the only way we would take part in this is if you get ethics approval from a university. That's it. No ethics approval. We're not taking part.

So they filed an ethics application to the University of Regina saying, would you approve us to have access to these students to do brain training, to do some vitamin administration? And the University of Regina approved approved it through freedom of information i was able to get a hold of that application and i read through it and the thing that jumped out to me most from that document was what it didn't say so So what it did say was, we'd like to do bio-cybernaut seven-day alpha brainwave training. What it didn't do was describe what is that? What does that involve? What does that look like? What are your goals? What are your methodologies? None of that was in there. So I brought it to a research ethics expert to say,

you know, what do you think of this? I mean, his conclusion was the same thing. He was baffled that the University of Regina approved a study that was not described. What has the University of Regina told you about what seems like a real kind of lack of oversight here? What have they told you about, you know, how this got approved? So initially, the University of Regina said it didn't want to talk about this at all, that, you know, these documents that I have are, in their view, confidential, Documents that I have are, in their view, confidential and that they did everything right. Everything was fine.

And there's nothing to see here. As I started explaining to them what I had learned, they started offering up more explanation. So they said, yes, we did review this study. Yes, we did approve it. But what we were approving was not the BioCybernaut brain training program. All we reviewed was a narrow part of this study. and deployment of a questionnaire that was administered to the participants in the study, but we didn't review bio-cybernaut's methodology. Now, experts say that is not good. You're, when you, when you, when a university plays any role in a study, it's obligated to make sure that the whole thing had been subject to ethics review. So the university has apologized and they say that they're changing their policies. policies. But, you know, do the women who were affected by this and the experts and researchers that you've talked to, do they feel like that's sufficient? Well, I did speak with Alma about this whole story. And, you know, she came forward after some soul searching. She was initially not super sure she wanted to talk to us because there were so many powerful people involved.

But eventually, she did. And she said she talked to me because she was hoping that maybe she could get some answers. She was hoping that maybe there would be some accountability here. And the experts that I've spoken with who've now watched our story have said that the apology is good and that the – we've changed our policies. That's good. But it's not enough. deep dive investigation, either do it internally, but in a very transparent way, or bring in an independent investigator to answer the question, what went wrong here? Because the experts say that the university appears to have violated policies that were in place at the time this

study was approved. So what went wrong? How did this happen? How did this get approved? And how can we make sure it doesn't happen again? Okay. Jeff Leo, thank you so much for this. You're welcome. All right, that is all for today. Front Burner was produced this week by Joytha Sengupta, Ali Janes, Matt Mews, Derek Van Der Wyk, and Ben Lopez-Steven. Sound design was by Matt Cameron and Marco Luciano. Music is by Joseph Chabison. Our senior producer is Elaine Chao.

Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and talk to you on Monday.