Merged US may close Cuba Embassy over 'health attacks'

[dann]

Tom Cotton Questions Biden Nominee About ‘Havana Syndrome’ Treatment For Government Employees (DC News Net, Feb 15, 2022)
Tom Cotton Questions Biden Nominee About 'Havana Syndrome' Treatment For Government Employees (The Hill on YouTube, Feb 15, 2022)

(from 2:25 to 4:10)

 

[dann]

Still?!

On the one hand, the world is witnessing an AI arms race to dominate adversaries, while on the other, AI is being used to serve humanity.
(...)
Recently, scientists have found that AI can be used to study impacts of diseases on the human body and how these diseases can ‘alter the human body.’
(...)
One such potential use could be studying the cause and impact of the so-called ‘Havana Syndrome’. In the United States, four more cases of this syndrome were reported in Europe this year. According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the government is investigating the matter. The ‘Havana Syndrome’ was first reported in Cuba in 2016, in which 16 US officials fell sick to a possible acoustic attack having symptoms ranging from hearing loss to mild brain injuries. Since, the cause and impacts of this mysterious illness remains unconfirmed, and microwave weapons are suspected to be a prime cause, this AI tool ‘TDAExplore’ could be used to study it.
Revolution in Health Sector with AI Developments (Modern Diplomacy, Feb 9, 2022)

What is this even supposed to mean? "In the United States, four more cases of this syndrome were reported in Europe this year."
And no, the "possible acoustic attack" wasn't possible, the sound of (even very loud) crickets doesn't cause hearing loss and brain anomalies aren't brain injuries. And both the cause and the impacts of this allegedly mysterious illness are clear.
Bring it on, AI!

 

[dann]

The Hum

Excellent article!

The cases in Havana who not only heard but even recorded the sound of crickets have already been explained, but what about those spies and diplomats who heard other sounds and felt strange vibrations or pressure?
I think the Hum explains them. And notice all the other symptoms that accompany the Hum!

In the early hours of the morning Yvonne Conner, a 50-year-old resident of the suburb of Holmfield, was woken up in her Victorian stone terraced house by a strange, low humming sound that throbbed in her ears.
(...)
It turned out, to her great relief, that she wasn’t losing her mind: all over Halifax, others were hearing it too. People I spoke to compared the sound with a diesel engine idling, a vacuum cleaner, a washing machine, something vibrating. “It’s like you can hear a car coming, but it never gets there,” according to Holmfield resident Gemma Redford. However they characterised the noise, the debilitating effects people told me about were the same. Anxiety, headaches, sleeplessness, tension, despair, fears they were going insane.
(...)
In fact, Conner didn’t just find other people hearing this humming in Halifax. She found people hearing it all over the world.
(...)
The problem was said to be so bad that it was causing nosebleeds.
The Hum is a global phenomenon. “I feel as if my bed were electrically charged. The pillow, the mattress and my whole body vibrate,” one hearer in Germany reported in 2001.
(...)
An alarmingly frequent simile that hearers use to describe their experiences is “as if my head was going to explode”.
(...)
Hearers of the Hum run into similar problems (as people reporting a pain), but with an additional downside that, unlike chronic pain, the problem of hearing a weird noise that only a tiny percentage of the population hears seems, to some people, sort of funny. It’s the problem sufferers of the still unexplained Havana syndrome have too, an air of the ridiculous. This is not helped by news stories of recordings that turned out to be the mating call of a cricket.
(...)
If not outright laughed at, Hum hearers are familiar with being told, by people with expertise no less, that they’re ignorant or insane. In 1994, Jonathan Hazell, head of research at the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, was asked by The Independent about the Hum. “It’s rubbish,” he said. “‘Hummers’ are a group of people who cannot accept that they have tinnitus.”
(...)
The audiologist David Baguley has argued that the more people focus on anxiety caused by a mystery sound, “the more the body responds by amplifying the sound”.
The international mystery of ‘the Hum’ (Financial Times, Feb 11, 2022)

At one point, the author of this article, the journalist Imogen West-Knights, even manages to hear the Hum herself, which only goes to show how contagious this kind of thing is. But read the whole, rather long, article for the proper, tentative solution to the mystery!
At least for now, it hasn't been paywalled yet.

 

[dann]

There is an excellent video about the 'Havana Syndrome' in the second season of Oliver Stone and Danny Glover's series of documentaries The War on Cuba - Season 2:

Cuban journalist Liz Oliva Fernández investigates the mysterious health incidents reported by U.S. diplomatic personnel in Havana in 2017. The incidents — characterized as “sonic attacks,” “microwave attacks” and the “Havana Syndrome” — led to the shuttering of the U.S. Embassy and opened the doors to a barrage of devastating sanctions imposed by Trump and maintained by Biden.

(Belly of the Beast on YouTube, Nov 5, 2021 - 21:21 min.)

 

[dann]

Robert Bartholomew's Newsroom article (see post 1270) has also been published by the The University of Auckland, Feb 11, 2022)

 

[dann]

Havana Syndrome - The Regurgitation!

High-ranking Homeland Security officials in the Trump administration say they were overcome with feelings of vertigo, confusion and memory loss while on White House grounds and in their Washington, D.C.-area homes. The incidents and symptoms they describe are similar to the "Havana Syndrome" that has been reported by American diplomats in foreign countries since 2016.
The officials spoke to 60 Minutes for a new report airing Sunday. Other stories of officials being stricken were corroborated by former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who fears there is a threat to the highest levels of the U.S. government.
"If we were at war and an adversary could disable the president and his top advisers, or commanders in the field, it could render us extraordinarily vulnerable," Bolton told correspondent Scott Pelley. "We don't know that that's the threat we're facing. But I would much rather focus on finding out the answer now, rather than finding out later when it may be too late."
Unexplained injuries similar to previous "Havana Syndrome" cases afflicted U.S. officials on White House grounds (CBS News, Feb 17, 2022)

So if we were at war and if we imagine that an imaginary adversary in this imaginary war could do something imaginary, that would be bad, so let's imagine it now rather than later when we know what it actually is, which will prevent us from imagining all the things that we are hell-bent on imagining.

 

[dann]

Two teasers for 60 Minutes on Sunday, Feb 20:

Senior national security officials say they were stricken with vertigo, confusion and memory loss both at home in Washington and on the grounds of the White House. 60 Minutes reports, Sunday.
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton on "Havana Syndrome" (60 Minutes on YouTube, Feb 17, 2022)

"It's a very complicated issue, you know, dealing with a whole range of incidents which have… different kinds of explanations for them as well," Burns said. 60 Minutes reports, Sunday.
CIA Director William Burns on "Havana Syndrome" investigation (60 Minutes on YouTube, Feb 17, 2022)

'They got dizzy and confused both at home and at the White House? Isn't it obvious that nobody but Putin could be behind a sinister plot like this?!'

 

[dann]

Still regurgitating ...

And it immediately turns into news that Bolton is worried. (In some articles, he is even alarmed.)

A senior adviser to former US leader Donald Trump says he fears that if the technology to cause “Havana syndrome” exists, it could be used against the president.
Former US official worried by risk of ‘Havana syndrome’ at White House (Guardian.ng, Feb 18, 2022)

Who cares that the alleged risk has turned out to be non-existent, right?!

Havana Syndrome: Mystery Illness “Havana Syndrome” Could Make US Vulnerable: Ex Official (Maharash Pradesh, Feb 18, 2022)
No, it couldn't.

Havana Syndrome: Thriller Sickness “Havana Syndrome” May Make US Weak: Ex Official (SNBC.online, Feb 18, 2022)
'Thriller Sickness, indeed!

Former high-ranking Homeland Security officials in the Trump administration report experiencing symptoms during their time in Washington similar to "Havana syndrome" reported by American diplomats working abroad, CBS News reports.
Multiple officials told "60 Minutes" for a report that will air Sunday that they experienced confusion, memory loss, and vertigo[/hilited] during their time in the administration when they were living and working in Washington, D.C. Trump Homeland Security Officials Report Symptoms Similar to 'Havana Syndrome' (Newmax, Feb 18, 2022)

I could think of more likely reasons why former officials in the Trump administration got dazed and confused than ray guns. I can also think of reasons why memory loss might come in handy in that context ...

 

[dann]

Is Havana Syndrome Fatal? No, It Isn't.

Is Havana Syndrome Fatal?
While no one has died from Havana Syndrom yet, the symptoms being reported are very severe.
"It's not easy to talk about our health because it's an invisible injury," a victim told NBC News.
Havana Syndrome's Cause Still Unknown as Cases Reported from White House (Market Realist, Feb 18, 2022)

Yes, unlike what you would expect from a pulsed microwave energy weapon, the alleged injury is invisible! And not fatal ...

 

[dann]

Mass Psychogenic Illness: The Unacceptable Diagnosis

In Skeptical Inquirer, Stuart Vyse writes about MPI and why it is so hard for many people to accept as a diagnosis:

First, people often mistakenly believe they are being accused of mental illness. This is wrong. The very fact that the symptoms typically start with an index case and spread to larger and larger groups of people suggests it is not a mental illness.
(...)
Second, once it reaches “epidemic” proportions, people band together, creating an advocacy group in search of someone to blame. The media play an important role in the process.
(...)
Third, we are no longer in an age—if we ever were—when people passively accept the diagnoses of medical professionals. Rather than leaving the prescribing of medicines up to our doctors, we watch endless drug commercials on television and are urged to “ask your doctor if ______ is right for you.” Getting good health services in the United States often requires being very assertive, and almost everyone has a story about having to fight with insurance companies to get coverage.
Mass Psychogenic Illness: The Unacceptable Diagnosis (Skeptical Inquirer, Feb 16, 2022)

 

[dann]

Chris Gilbert has been to a "recent University of Texas symposium on Havana Syndrome" where a panel of specialists told her "about how to differentiate Havana Syndrome from other medical conditions":

* Persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD). People with PPPD complain of chronic dizziness and unsteadiness, but they usually have neither ringing in their ears nor headaches. The symptoms are frequently triggered by a viral infection or head trauma.
* Vestibular migraines. People with vestibular migraines have a history of migraine headaches and experience balance problems. However, people with vestibular migraines don’t have problems perceiving linear accelerations, both horizontally and vertically (sensed through the action of otolith organs in their inner ears). On the other hand, as professor of otolaryngology Dr. Walter Kutz explained, problems perceiving linear acceleration are characteristic of several people with Havana Syndrome.
* Traumatic brain injury (TBI). Patients with TBI have a history of one or several head traumas and radiological MRI findings are usually different than in Havana Syndrome patients.
* Other syndromes, such as functional neurological disorders. However, as with these other disorders and the three above conditions, symptoms of functional neurological disorders don’t disappear when sufferers leave a room and reappear when they reenter that same room.
New Insights on Havana Syndrome (Psychology Today, Feb 18, 2022)

Please correct me if I am wrong, but in the category "Other syndromes ...", I assume that the 'Havana Syndrome' sufferers 1) have left the room by now, and 2) that their symptoms have not yet disappeared. Otherwise, they would no longer suffer from the 'syndrome', would they? It seems to refer to the fact that some of the 'syndrome' sufferers claimed to have been hearing particular sounds (later analyzed based on recordings as the sounds of crickets) in one room only. Why is this phenomenon supposed to be somehow extraordinary to 'Havana Syndrome' sufferers? It happens to me all the time, and it doesn't make me think that I suffer from anything or am under attack.

Unless Chris Gilbert got something wrong in her summary of the symposium, it sounds to me as if the panel of experts are clinging to the cricket sounds as the one thing that defines the alleged 'Havana Syndrome' and makes it "unique to the 21st century," thus requiring unique "21st-century explanations and solutions."

- - - -

For some reason, Gilbert refers to one of the alleged 'syndrome' sufferers as Marc P. I seriously doubt that anybody interested in this case is unaware of this guy's very conspicuous full last name. He has been extremely upfront and out there with his story and his full name.

I am a little surprised that this particular panel of alleged experts, after the interim CIA report in January, still seems to insist that more than two dozen Americans are part the group of people that might have reason to believe that their symptoms are anomalous:

We know more than 250 people (State Department and other American personnel) reporting similar symptoms to Marc’s. All these symptoms are considered part of Havana Syndrome/Anomalous Health Incidents.

 

[dann]

With the new CBS 60 Minutes report coming up tomorrow, I think it is time to reread this article from three years ago:

On Sunday, March 17 2019, CBS 60 Minutes broadcast an alarming report on the Cuban/Chinese, sonic/microwave/neuroweapon attack on US embassy staff and their families. The report is an example of how a once credible press has been supplanted by tabloid sensationalism and fearmongering. The program featured interviews with staff and family members at the US embassy in China who believe they have suffered traumatic brain injury from an energy beam weapon of some kind. This included interviews with a man who had Parkinson’s disease; a woman who developed a rash and experienced dizziness, auditory and vestibular symptoms that accompany many common illnesses; her young toddler who fell down more than once, and a person with preexisting traumatic brain injury, which even the US State Department agrees could not have been caused by the supposed brain-damaging energy beam.
CBS 60 Minutes Sensationalized Report on a Sonic or Microwave Weapon Harming US Diplomats (R. Douglas Fields, March 21, 2019)

For some reason, the Chinese are no longer accused of being the perpetrators ...

 

[dann]

I don't think I have posted this one before. For some reason, I didn't notice it last year:

The report confirms what has been widely reported in the media—that in late December 2016, the first individual (reported in the media to be a CIA officer) went to the medical unit in the U.S. Embassy in Havana for evaluation of “vestibular disturbances, vision changes, cognitive deficits, auditory symptoms, sleep impairment and headaches.”
(...)
Although the Department of State commissioned the CDC investigation at the end of 2017, it did not provide CDC analysts with unredacted medical records for evaluation until eleven months later, in November 2018.
“The primary steps of an epidemiologic investigation are to establish the existence of an outbreak and verify the diagnosis,” the report stated in its conclusions. “However, one challenge with this investigation is the lack of a well-defined diagnosis and an uncertain source of exposure attributable to the physical symptoms experienced by USG employees….”
CDC Report on the ‘Havana Syndrome’: Medical Mystery Remains Unresolved (National Security Archive, Feb 2, 2021)

The Figure 2. Case Classification Process (12/3/2019) of "95 Person's Records Reviewed" is particularly interesting.

The National Security Archive asks for all relevant documents to be declassified:

With the Biden administration in place, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s newfound emphasis on transparency, the opportunity to solve the mystery of the ‘Havana Syndrome’ now exists, according to Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Archive’s Cuba Documentation Project. “The secrecy surrounding the ‘Havana Syndrome’ has undermined the ability of Congress, the public, and afflicted U.S. government personnel to obtain long-overdue answers,” Kornbluh said. “The Biden administration can advance both the need-to-know and the right-to-know by declassifying the documents.”

 

[dann]

Robert Bartholomew:
"As we have seen with the Havana Syndrome panic, anxiety and stress can result in genuine physical symptoms, and this may be part of what’s happening in needle spiking episodes."
But this is from a new article about a different social panic, The British Needle-Spiking Panic (Psychology Today, Feb 20, 2022).
However, it is interesting to see how much different social panics have in common.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Robert Bartholomew:
"As we have seen with the Havana Syndrome panic, anxiety and stress can result in genuine physical symptoms, and this may be part of what’s happening in needle spiking episodes."
But this is from a new article about a different social panic, The British Needle-Spiking Panic (Psychology Today, Feb 20, 2022).
However, it is interesting to see how much different social panics have in common.

I'm currently half wondering if this "imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine" is a social panic, since it's been "imminent" for quite a while.

 

[Bob001]

With the new CBS 60 Minutes report coming up tomorrow, I think it is time to reread this article from three years ago:
...

Report now on line. Senior officials, including Olivia Troye and Miles Taylor, believe that they were targeted on White House grounds and elsewhere, and some have endured long-term consequences.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-white-house-cabinet-60-minutes-2022-02-20/

 

[Bob001]

I'm currently half wondering if this "imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine" is a social panic, since it's been "imminent" for quite a while.

Well, the Russians invaded part of Ukraine in 2014 and have never stopped fighting. They have recently moved many thousands of troops to the Ukrainian border and constructed field hospitals. Ukrainian officials are calling for help. So maybe it's more than somebody's imagination.

 

[dann]

Report now on line. Senior officials, including Olivia Troye and Miles Taylor, believe that they were targeted on White House grounds and elsewhere, and some have endured long-term consequences.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-white-house-cabinet-60-minutes-2022-02-20/

Yes, believing something has long-term consequences.

 

[dann]

Well, the Russians invaded part of Ukraine in 2014 and have never stopped fighting. They have recently moved many thousands of troops to the Ukrainian border and constructed field hospitals. Ukrainian officials are calling for help. So maybe it's more than somebody's imagination.

There's a thread about this theme. From what I've heard, actual Russian troops are actually there with actual weapons. Very much unlike the 'syndrome'.

 

[dann]

Report now on line. Senior officials, including Olivia Troye and Miles Taylor, believe that they were targeted on White House grounds and elsewhere, and some have endured long-term consequences.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-white-house-cabinet-60-minutes-2022-02-20/

Havana Syndrome: High-level national security officials stricken with unexplained illness on White House grounds (CBS News, 60 Minutes, Feb 20, 2022)

I have watched the whole thing now. It is a masterpiece of manipulation, excelling in the use of weasel words like "may" and "if". Most of all, it reminds me of those 'documentaries' about UFO abductees, conjuring up the idea that sinister aliens are out there probing and abducting innocent earthlings, without saying so outright.

Take a look at this attempt to make CIA's Mr. Burns commit to the delusion:

Scott Pelley: What line is crossed if a hostile actor is doing this in Washington, D.C.?
William Burns: Oh, that-- that would be a pretty profound line to be crossed if in fact that were the case; if we were ever able to develop concrete evidence that that were the case. But we do not have evidence of that at this point.
Scott Pelley: You understand how frustrating your comments must be to some of these people who believe they know exactly what happened to them, on what day and at what time, and what happened to their children. And yet, the director of the CIA is saying we can't connect the dots. We don't know enough yet.
(...)
The iron gates of West Executive Avenue, by the West Wing, went up in 1951 after the attempted assassination of Harry Truman. Seventy years later, there is evidence the gates may have been breached by an invisible threat.

There is evidence that something may have happened? The evidence is as strong as the evidence presented by UFO abductees who also believe they know exactly what happened to them, on what day and at what time.

The combination of the words evidence and may and again with the words believe and know exactly would be hilarious if this weren't an attempt to give credence to the lie that American diplomats and spies are being attacked. And CBS is hell-bent on conflating the lie with reality: On the one hand, the 'syndrome' sufferers do know exactly on what day and at what time they started feeling ill. On the other hand, they believe they were attacked.
A serious report would try to make this distinction clear. 60 Minutes does the opposite.

I will return with comments about other parts of the 'report'.