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'Havana Syndrome': Diplomatic Staff Malaise In Cuba & China—A Sonic Or Microwave Weapon?

New theory : Insectide poisoning.

The researchers found that since 2016, Cuba launched an aggressive campaign against mosquitoes to stop the spread of the Zika virus.

The embassies actively sprayed in offices, as well as inside and outside diplomatic residences — sometimes five times more frequently than usual. Many times, spraying operations were carried out every two weeks, according to embassy records.

Toxicological analysis of the Canadian victims confirmed the presence of pyrethroid and organophosphate — two compounds found in fumigation products.

There was also a correlation between the individuals most affected by the symptoms and the number of fumigations that were performed at their residence.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/havana-syndrome-neurotoxin-enqu-te-1.5288609
 
Who's keeping the list? It's getting rather long...
 
I'm somewhat doubtful to say the least. From the beeb article:

The Canadian study focused purely on Canadians and did not cover any US diplomats, their families or Cuban residents of Havana.
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That amounted to 10 people, from previous reports.
 
hunck said:
I'm somewhat doubtful to say the least. From the beeb article:



That amounted to 10 people, from previous reports.
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I'd guess their study is limited by subject availability.

From an initial pool of 40 diplomats and their families who showed symptoms :
Many will be American. Likely lots of paperwork involved importing diplomats as medical test subjects from the US.
Many will have made a full recovery from minor symptoms.
Some may not be available, say, still working in Cuba and can't take time off.

So even managing to get 10 of the affected subjects is probably quite good. Plus, they knew what they were looking for - traces of the toxins, neurological changes known to be caused by the toxins. They're also wanting to expand studies to Cubans.
 

Havana Syndrome: ‘Emotional trauma and fear’ most likely cause of illness among US diplomats in Cuba, not mysterious sonic weapons

‘There is no need to resort to exotic explanations,’ say scientists who suggest diplomats suffered ‘epidemic of psychogenic illness’


In mid-2017, bizarre and disturbing reports of mysterious sonic “attacks” affecting US diplomats in Cuba made headlines around the world.

More than 20 diplomatic personnel in Cuba were apparently affected by a range of unexplained health problems which typically began after hearing strange grating or vibrating sounds which they said were coming from a specific direction and occurred when they were at home or in hotel rooms. However, other people nearby couldn’t hear the sounds.

The US blamed Cuba for the mystery “attacks”, which worsened the already calamitous diplomatic rift between the two countries.


But new research suggests Cuba had no hand in the alleged incidents, and that no such purposeful targetting of the diplomats may have happened at all.

A report in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, authored by a leading sociologist and an expert in neurodegenerative diseases, suggests the concussion-like symptoms, which came to be known as “Havana Syndrome”, were caused by “emotional trauma and fear”.
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(c)The Independent. '19
 
Nemo said:
Havana Syndrome: ‘Emotional trauma and fear’ most likely cause of illness among US diplomats in Cuba, not mysterious sonic weapons

‘There is no need to resort to exotic explanations,’ say scientists who suggest diplomats suffered ‘epidemic of psychogenic illness’


(c)The Independent. '19
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This is what Bartholomew has been saying since 2017. It's still the most plausible explanation - not a preferred one, not one that is comfortable to accept, and one that is complex and situational; but there have been no findings that support any other exotic cause. It's very home-grown. I long for the day when society and the medical fields accept these complex stress-related illnesses as genuine.
 
Frankly the whole situation seems a lot like an incidence of infrasound. The US Embassy in Havana was built in 1977 which is now quite a while ago, and while the building isn't "old", it is old enough to be experiencing unusual vibrations, especially if there are plenty of pipes and electronic devices working inside it. Add to this the stress of the job, and a subsonic "dread" frequency could be problematic, as it will cause the same stress as feeling watched by an unseen predator for the whole working day. The question then becomes whether the Cubans did this deliberately, or someone else did it deliberately, or it is simply a "sick building" patient cluster.
 
AlchoPwn said:
Frankly the whole situation seems a lot like an incidence of infrasound. The US Embassy in Havana was built in 1977 which is now quite a while ago, and while the building isn't "old", it is old enough to be experiencing unusual vibrations, especially if there are plenty of pipes and electronic devices working inside it. Add to this the stress of the job, and a subsonic "dread" frequency could be problematic, as it will cause the same stress as feeling watched by an unseen predator for the whole working day. The question then becomes whether the Cubans did this deliberately, or someone else did it deliberately, or it is simply a "sick building" patient cluster.
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Many people show no effects from infrasound (though there are not many tests that have been done), so that idea fits with some having issues and not others. However, many of the distinct symptoms supposedly experienced - strange vibrations in the ear (not in the gut, as with infrasound), hearing loss, unspecified brain damage - do not correspond. It's actually rather amazing at how many different ideas have been proposed and none fit (crickets, microwaves, toxins). But more importantly, the actual effects have not even been established. There were no before and after to compare and a large enough study with control groups is not feasible. And, it seems reasonable that the illness doesn't have just one cause but has been grouped together by social forces.
 
I tend to agree that this malaise may not involve a single problem, and I've long suspected there's an element of mass hysteria among at least some of the alleged victims.

The recent revelation concerning pesticide spraying preceding the "outbreak" adds a whole new dimension to the possibilities / probabilities.
 
Reports of such malaise have spread to China as well. An independent study of one case from China indicates brain effects, but there still aren't any clear clues pointing to a particular cause.
New details on diplomat's mysterious brain injury linked to 'sonic attacks'

Doctors shared details Thursday about what happened to the brain of one diplomat who may be a victim of the so-called sonic attacks that have impacted dozens of people in Cuba and China.

Researchers revealed the results of an independent brain analysis of Mark Lenzi, a US diplomat who was stationed in Guangzhou, China, in 2017 when he started experiencing unexplained symptoms including headache, difficulty reading, irritability, as well as memory and sleep problems. ...

Among the MRI findings: 20 brain regions with "abnormally low" volumes, including regions involved in memory, emotional regulation and motor skills that may correlate with Lenzi's symptoms, doctors said. Of the 107 regions they looked at, they also found three that had bigger volumes. They said the parts of the brain with low volume may reflect brain injury, and those with high volumes could be evidence that other parts of his brain have compensated.

These tests, however, do not reveal the cause. That remains a mystery.

"There's no smoking gun," said Dr. Edward Soll, medical director of The Concussion Group and a radiologist who was among those who evaluated Lenzi's brain scans. Still, looking at the compendium of evidence, "it would be hard not to conclude that there was serious damage to this gentleman's brain," he added. ...

The "sonic attacks," as they have come to be called, are first known to have befallen US government personnel in Havana, Cuba, starting in late 2016. The US State Department announced last year it was looking into similar events in China, expanding a health alert there. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/19/health/sonic-attack-brain-study/index.html
 
US officials targeted on American soil, across the world by purported sonic attacks

Four years ago, dozens of American officials stationed in Cuba started to hear odd cracks and humming in their ears – punctured by rushes of nausea, headaches, cloudy vision, memory loss, disequilibrium, and lethargy – all critical indicators of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI).

The phenomenon was quickly dubbed the “Havana syndrome.” And while similar symptoms have been documented by U.S. government employees in other places abroad, reports emerged this week suggesting that the potential sonic attacks might be far more pervasive than what was publicly known. In turn, more fingers are pointing toward Russia as being behind the global barrage of possible sonic attacks.

“There are a number of Americans who have fallen ill now, and we need to know why and who is behind it,” [said] Dan Hoffman, a former CIA Moscow bureau chief.

In June that year [2018], U.S. government staffers and intelligence officials in Guangzhou working specifically on Russian influence issues were sent back stateside following increasing anecdotes of illness and fatigue. Some said the onset of sickness also befell family members and began in late 2017.

“The safety and security of U.S. personnel, their families and U.S. citizens is our top priority,” a statement from the U.S. State Department read at the time. “The U.S. government has not yet determined a cause or an actor.”

While the administration did also launch an investigation concerning the matter in Cuba, withdrew the majority of its staffers coupled with a travel advisory, framed the happenings as “targeted attacks,” and expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from Washington, no real evidence of Cuban wrongdoing ever surfaced.

Then in November [2019], as per GQ, an unnamed White House staffer was additionally targeted by a man who exited a parked van and passed the staffer as she walked her dog in Arlington, Va. She later informed officials that she was riddled with intense headaches and face prickling, and even her canine companion started suffering from a sudden seizure.

In a separate case months earlier, an unnamed American diplomat and his family purportedly heard similar mysterious sounds and fell ill while stationed in Philadelphia. Both the diplomat and his wife reported feeling pressure in their head before finding their children moving bizarrely and “in unison” in their sleep, GQ reported.

The New York Times this week underscored that the “most compelling evidence” implicating Moscow stems from publicly available data in which CIA investigators were able to access location information from private companies, and affirmed that in each sonic-like case in 2019, “individuals believed to be FSB (Russian) agents were within the range of the CIA officers who had been hit.”

https://nypost.com/2020/10/22/us-of...-across-the-world-by-purported-sonic-attacks/

maximus otter
 
CIA Officer Visits Moscow, Returns With Mysterious, Crippling Headaches

During 26 years at the CIA, Marc Polymeropoulos spent a lot of time in rough places, like war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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But he never suffered any harm until December 2017, when he was sound asleep at a Marriott Hotel in Moscow near the U.S. Embassy.

"I was awoken in the middle of the night," recalled Polymeropoulos, 51. "I just had incredible vertigo, dizziness. I wanted to throw up. The room was spinning. I couldn't even stand up without falling down. I had tinnitus ringing in my ears."

He suspected a bad case of food poisoning and carried on with his 10-day trip. The visit included meetings with senior Russian intelligence officials, a common practice despite the long history of tense relations between the two countries and their spy agencies. But a second bout hit a few days later. Polymeropoulos canceled his remaining meetings and felt fortunate to make it back onto a plane to the U.S.

But a couple of months after he returned from his Moscow trip, in February 2018, he began suffering crippling migraines that still plague him constantly.

"I started this kind of an incredible journey of seeing multiple doctors, multiple MRIs and CT scans and X-rays," said Polymeropoulos. "Ultimately a neurologist diagnosed me with occipital neuralgia."

This nerve inflammation in the back of the head would explain his headaches, though it's not clear what caused it.

He says a CIA colleague who traveled with him to Moscow in 2017 suffers similar ailments. In addition, several CIA officers working on Russia issues elsewhere in the world have also been afflicted, he said.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/27/9272...ysterious-crippling-headaches?t=1603878322310

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
CIA Officer Visits Moscow, Returns With Mysterious, Crippling Headaches

During 26 years at the CIA, Marc Polymeropoulos spent a lot of time in rough places, like war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

undefined_custom-163b38838819e3d7262a11761ab766e8e887cff3-s1400-c85.jpg


But he never suffered any harm until December 2017, when he was sound asleep at a Marriott Hotel in Moscow near the U.S. Embassy.

"I was awoken in the middle of the night," recalled Polymeropoulos, 51. "I just had incredible vertigo, dizziness. I wanted to throw up. The room was spinning. I couldn't even stand up without falling down. I had tinnitus ringing in my ears."

He suspected a bad case of food poisoning and carried on with his 10-day trip. The visit included meetings with senior Russian intelligence officials, a common practice despite the long history of tense relations between the two countries and their spy agencies. But a second bout hit a few days later. Polymeropoulos canceled his remaining meetings and felt fortunate to make it back onto a plane to the U.S.

But a couple of months after he returned from his Moscow trip, in February 2018, he began suffering crippling migraines that still plague him constantly.

"I started this kind of an incredible journey of seeing multiple doctors, multiple MRIs and CT scans and X-rays," said Polymeropoulos. "Ultimately a neurologist diagnosed me with occipital neuralgia."

This nerve inflammation in the back of the head would explain his headaches, though it's not clear what caused it.

He says a CIA colleague who traveled with him to Moscow in 2017 suffers similar ailments. In addition, several CIA officers working on Russia issues elsewhere in the world have also been afflicted, he said.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/27/9272...ysterious-crippling-headaches?t=1603878322310

maximus otter
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Vodka will do that to ye.
 
It's not surprising that this "syndrome" has expanded to include any malaise experienced by foreign officers in a strange country. These new cases are nonspecific and moving away from the original claims that they support the hypothesis that this has a psychological source, not a physical one.
 
The US State Department commissioned a study and analysis of the diplomatic malaise phenomenon. The committee conducting this study has released its report. The committee could not pinpoint a cause for the malaise, but their consensus was that directed microwave radiation was the most likely technology employed.
Report finds microwave energy likely made US diplomats ill

A new report by a National Academy of Sciences committee has found that “directed” microwave radiation is the likely cause of illnesses among American diplomats in Cuba and China.

The study commissioned by the State Department and released Saturday is the latest attempt to find a cause for the mysterious illnesses that started to emerge in late 2016 among U.S. personnel in Havana.

The study found that “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible” explanation for symptoms that included intense head pressure, dizziness and cognitive difficulties. It found this explanation was more likely than other previously considered causes such as tropical disease or psychological issues. The study did not name a source for the energy and did not say it came as the result of an attack, though it did note that previous research on this type of injury was done in the former Soviet Union. ...

In its report, the 19-member committee noted that it faced significant challenges in trying to get to the bottom of the medical mystery. Among them, not everyone reported the same symptoms and the National Academy of Sciences research did not have access to all the previous studies on the illnesses, some of which are classified. ...
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FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/politics-science-havana-cuba-china-8eee2de0d887e67d530d1a6f272d781c
 
Here are the bibliographic details on the National Academy's report. The full report (as a multi-part online presentation) can be accessed at the link below. A PDF file of the report is available to members / subscribers only.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020.
An Assessment of Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies.
Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
https://doi.org/10.17226/25889.
Description

In late 2016, U.S. Embassy personnel in Havana, Cuba, began to report the development of an unusual set of symptoms and clinical signs. For some of these patients, their case began with the sudden onset of a loud noise, perceived to have directional features, and accompanied by pain in one or both ears or across a broad region of the head, and in some cases, a sensation of head pressure or vibration, dizziness, followed in some cases by tinnitus, visual problems, vertigo, and cognitive difficulties. Other personnel attached to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China, reported similar symptoms and signs to varying degrees, beginning in the following year. As of June 2020, many of these personnel continue to suffer from these and/or other health problems. Multiple hypotheses and mechanisms have been proposed to explain these clinical cases, but evidence has been lacking, no hypothesis has been proven, and the circumstances remain unclear.

The Department of State asked the National Academies to review the cases, their clinical features and management, epidemiologic investigations, and scientific evidence in support of possible causes, and advise on approaches for the investigation of potential future cases. In An Assessment of Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies, the committee identifies distinctive clinical features, considers possible causes, evaluates plausible mechanisms and rehabilitation efforts, and offers recommendations for future planning and responses.
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SOURCE:
https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25889/a...yees-and-their-families-at-overseas-embassies

FULL REPORT (Online Presentation):
https://www.nap.edu/read/25889/chapter/1
 
I’ve never been a big fan of “mass hysteria” as an explanation for mysterious events. Maybe for prepubescent girls screaming at a boy band concert but not for mature intelligent adults working in the diplomatic corps or intelligence services. These people did not experience a subtle malaise, they had almost disabling symptoms that were novel to them and apparently some had lasting brain damage. What’s so unbelievable about a new weapon using known technology? Does anyone really think that the Russians or CCP would be above that sort of thing?
 
IamSundog said:
I’ve never been a big fan of “mass hysteria” as an explanation for mysterious events. Maybe for prepubescent girls screaming at a boy band concert but not for mature intelligent adults working in the diplomatic corps or intelligence services. These people did not experience a subtle malaise, they had almost disabling symptoms that were novel to them and apparently some had lasting brain damage. What’s so unbelievable about a new weapon using known technology? Does anyone really think that the Russians or CCP would be above that sort of thing?
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The evidence has been entirely underwhelming. Even the medical papers have been highly criticized. It's not clear if any "brain damage" was associated with these incidents because there were no controls in the study. I'm having a very hard time accepting that there is a novel device aimed in a highly specific way at just diplomats in at least two separate countries that has not been uncovered and causes an array of inconsistent symptoms or pathologies. Stress was clearly a factor and there may be multiple factors that are being lumped together to create a "syndrome". I am not at all convinced but I don't have the time or expertise to dive into the new NAS report to see if they can explain all those things. It appears they had a rough time of it.
 
Stress may be a frequent compounding problem in most ailments, but that doesn't mean it's always the only cause. How many people with celiac disease were told it was all in their heads before the illness became well-known? My own agonizing back pain was dismissed as stress until I convinced my doctor to order an MRI. (Surprise! I had a bad disc.)

Correctly diagnosing transient bodily damage from some sort of novel, nonlethal incapacitating device would be difficult at best. A typical neurologist or ER doctor would have little or no experience with the effects of sonic or electromagnetic weapons.

The "weapon" could be as subtle as software that causes the target's computer screen to blink in headache-inducing ways. How do you test for the aftereffects of that?
 
As a follow-on, it's worth noting that the people alleging symptoms are not random members of the general population. They are diplomatic and intelligence personnel of a country with many capable enemies.

Does everyone remember the Stasi (Stasi - Wikipedia)? A certain world leader keeps their legacy very much alive, and has no qualms about more or less openly meddling with US elections, among other things.

The signature Stasi move was to "biodegrade" their enemies through targeted gaslighting. For example, they would surreptitiously enter people's homes and move things around, secretly arrange failures in the target's work, or plant evidence of an affair for the target's spouse to discover.

Given that we live in a time of heightened diplomatic tensions, I think it is entirely plausible that intelligence agencies might practice "biodegradation" upon one another.
 
U.S. troops increasingly vulnerable to directed-energy attacks, Pentagon tells lawmakers

The Pentagon warned lawmakers this week about the growing and urgent threat of directed-energy attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East and elsewhere, according to four people briefed on the matter.

iu


Two Defense Department officials briefed members of the House Armed Service Committee about the phenomenon in a classified setting on Wednesday, the people said, and told lawmakers they are increasingly concerned about the vulnerability of U.S. troops in places such as Syria, Afghanistan and various countries in South America.

Briefers pointed to Russia as a likely culprit, the people told POLITICO, but didn’t have a smoking gun, citing difficulties in attributing the attacks. One person familiar with the briefing said the briefers also pointed to China as a possible culprit, and didn’t know for sure who was behind the attacks.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told lawmakers during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that he has seen "no evidence" of such attacks against U.S. troops in his area of responsibility, which includes the Middle East and Afghanistan.

People affected by attacks report symptoms including acute ringing and pressure in the ears, as well as loss of hearing and balance, fatigue and residual headaches. Some victims have suffered long-term brain damage.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/22/troops-directed-energy-attacks-484246

maximus otter
 

Russian spy unit suspected of directed-energy attacks on U.S. personnel​

CIA Director William Burns is now receiving daily briefings on the investigation.

U.S. officials suspect that a notorious Russian spy agency may be behind alleged attacks that are causing mysterious health issues among U.S. government personnel across the world, according to three current and former officials with direct knowledge of the discussions.

90


The building of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, also known as Russian military intelligence service or GRU, in Moscow

Officials do not have a smoking gun linking Russia’s military intelligence unit, the GRU, to the suspected directed-energy incidents, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly. The intelligence community has not reached a consensus or made a formal determination. However, officials have told lawmakers that they have intensified their investigation in recent weeks to include all 18 federal intelligence agencies, and that it is focused on the GRU’s potential involvement, according to a congressional official briefed on the matter.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/10/russia-gru-directed-energy-486640

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:

Russian spy unit suspected of directed-energy attacks on U.S. personnel​

CIA Director William Burns is now receiving daily briefings on the investigation.

U.S. officials suspect that a notorious Russian spy agency may be behind alleged attacks that are causing mysterious health issues among U.S. government personnel across the world, according to three current and former officials with direct knowledge of the discussions.



The building of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, also known as Russian military intelligence service or GRU, in Moscow

Officials do not have a smoking gun linking Russia’s military intelligence unit, the GRU, to the suspected directed-energy incidents, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly. The intelligence community has not reached a consensus or made a formal determination. However, officials have told lawmakers that they have intensified their investigation in recent weeks to include all 18 federal intelligence agencies, and that it is focused on the GRU’s potential involvement, according to a congressional official briefed on the matter.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/10/russia-gru-directed-energy-486640

maximus otter
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Sounds as though it might have closer links to catching the common cold when you read the story so-far.
In fact, if it turns out that the incidents are caused by a so-called beam from Microwave pulses, then it may well have more to do with the effects as depicted in the Skinwalker Ranches strange findings!
 
The "US officials" are just talking out their asses these days. This is entirely speculation. It would not be the first time, nor the last, that know-it-all officials ignored actual experts in knowledgable fields in order to push their own pet ideas.

Maybe the microwave weapons are onboard the tic-tac UAPs?
 
Another article.

... It took about two hours for his speech to begin to return. When he checked out of the hospital, the next day, he still had a pounding headache, but was soon able to go back to work. Several days later, a colleague called him to discuss suspected cases of the Havana Syndrome, a mysterious ailment that had first affected dozens of U.S. officials in Cuba, and which now appeared to be spreading. The N.S.C. official didn’t think that he was suffering from the Havana Syndrome; it seemed outlandish that someone would be struck while on the grounds of the White House. But, as his colleague described some of the more severe cases that had been reported, it occurred to the official that this might be his problem. “Look, this is probably nothing,” he told his colleague, “but what you described sounds kind of like what happened to me.” ...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/are-us-officials-under-silent-attack
 
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