DR. HAROLD A. ABRAMSON IS DEAD; AUTHORITY ON ALLERGY AND ASTHMA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404720002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: October 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0404720002-4
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1 Octo'bsr
Dr. Harold A. Abramson Is Dead;
Authority on Allergy and Asthma
By JOAN COOK
I Dr. Harold A. Abramson, who pia
neered in the study of eczema and asthma
and was one of the first Americans to do
research on the effects of the halluco..
genic drug LSD, died of cancer Monday
at his home-in Cold Spring Harbor, L.I.
He wag 80 years old.
Dr. Abramson, a psychiatrist and aller-
gist, was engaged in private practice and
i was the director of psychiatric research
of the South Oaks Hospital in Amityville,
L.I., at the time of his death. He was also
a consultant in research psychiatry at the
state psychiatric center in Central Islip,
L.I.,.and consultant to the Community
Hospital In Glen Cove, L.I. .
He was a co-founder and vice president
of the Asthmatic Children's Foundation.
of New York, which opened in 1952, a co-
founder of the Asthma Care Association
of America in.1954 and a co-founder of the
Asthmatic Publications Society in 1953.
He was the founding editor of the Journal
of Asthma Research In 1962 and was its
editor in chief until his death.
The C.I.A. Experiment
Dr. Abramson's' name figured in the
case of Dr. Frank Olson, an Army bio-!
chemist who bad committed suicide after!
being an unwitting participant in a Cen-'
tral intelligence Agency experiment with
LSD in 1933. The case was reopened in
1973 and Dr. Abramson, who had treated
Mr. Olson at the request of the C.I.A.
after be had begun having bad reactions
to the drug, sent a telegram to the Senate'
health subcommittee in which he re-
ported that he had done work an LSD with
the C,I.A. 22 years earlier at Mount Sinai
Hospital in New York..
"This research," he said, '.was sup-
ported by the Geschikter Foundation at
I its inception and later by the Macy Foun-
dation." '
Research by Dr. Abramson contrib-
uted to the so-called Cronus-complex!
theory of severe, chronic asthma in chil-,
dren, which postulates mutual psycholog.
ical engulfment between mother and
child.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0404720002-4