Merged US may close Cuba Embassy over 'health attacks'

[dann]

Biden to send more personnel to U.S. Embassy in Havana:

The deployment of addition consular officers to Havana, a result of President Joe Biden's ongoing year-long review of policy on communist-led Cuba, would mark an initial phase of easing strict limits on visas imposed under former President Donald Trump.
(...)
The two people familiar with the matter declined to be identified because they were to authorized to disclose details. One said the plan was expected to be announced as early as Thursday by senior U.S. diplomats in Havana.
A State Department spokesperson said the administration was committed "to exploring options to ensure appropriate staffing at U.S. Embassy Havana" while maintaining security. "These options could include sending both temporary and longer-term personnel," the official added, declining to elaborate.
EXCLUSIVE U.S. set to announce increased staffing at Havana embassy to process visas-Sources (Reuters, March 1, 2022)

I guess this means that they no longer believe that any attack with microwave weapons ever took place in Cuba. I also assume that the new consular officers will be supplied with earplugs to help them sleep in spite of the sound of lovelorn crickets: The Cuban cricket crisis is the latest in a long history of human-animal misunderstandings. (The Atlantic, Jan 8, 2019)

 

[dann]

You know perfectly well about the documented brain damage. It’s been cited in this thread several times.

xjx388 hasn't been very forthcoming with documentation, but I assume that he is referring to the JAMA study as the one he allegedly "cited in this thread several times."

The reports of these symptoms are largely anecdotal, but apparently stronger objective data have now emerged, in a high-profile paper with a supporting editorial, in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The paper reports on 21 people, all US diplomats previously working in Havana, concluding that they exhibit neurological manifestations of unknown origin, which resemble mild cerebral concussion, yet with no evidence of brain injury, and possibly related to obscure acoustic stimuli. The evidence for this extraordinary claim rests in large part on the extensive neuropsychological testing of six of these 21 people, with significant cognitive impairments reported in all cases.

This article has attracted a lot of attention, but remarkably little scrutiny. A closer reading of the paper shows that the neuropsychological evidence presented in the Supplementary Material (eTable 2) is almost unbelievably flimsy. The six people assessed with the neuropsychological battery were tested with 37 tests split across 10 cognitive domains. In each domain, the person was considered impaired if their score fell below the 40th (fortieth) percentile in at least one of the tests. This threshold for impairment is inexplicably high.

By definition, 40% of people assessed on any test should score at or below the 40th percentile. Considering that each participant was given 37 tests, without any statistical correction for the number of tests administered, it seems unlikely that anyone would escape with a clean bill of cognitive health (for further analysis, see Della Sala & Cubelli, in press). As we have reported in a letter to the Journal of Neurology, we tested this intuition using a simple simulation. We substituted the authors’ raw data for randomly-generated test scores, and applied their bizarre diagnostic criteria (Further details of this simulation, including analysis code and graphical output, are available at https://osf.io/5b4sq/). Across a thousand repetitions of our simulation, the cognitive symptoms of this syndrome proved to have a worrying lack of specificity: everybody is affected.
Neuropsychological impairments that everybody has (The Psychologist, July 2018, Vol.31)

 

[dann]

From the University of Auckland, 10:02 min.
Robert Bartholomew is interviewed about the 'Havana Syndrome', but he is also asked about the current protests against Covid-19 restrictions in New Zealand and the nocebo effect:

Robert Bartholomew chats about his research into Havana Syndrome. Whakarongo mai!
Ready Steady Learn w/ Robert Bartholomew: March 1, 2022 (95bfm)

 

[dann]

March is Brain Injury Awareness Month!

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

xjx388 hasn't been very forthcoming with documentation, but I assume that he is referring to the JAMA study as the one he allegedly "cited in this thread several times."

To quote from what you quoted: "everybody is affected". So it's just part of the human condition then? Hmmmmmm.

 

[xjx388]

xjx388 hasn't been very forthcoming with documentation, but I assume that he is referring to the JAMA study as the one he allegedly "cited in this thread several times."

You missed the Penn neuro imaging study I have cited, at least twice now? The Canadian study? I think the problem is that you’ve hand-waved away everything as either the result of political pressure, bad science, “America bad,” or whatever.

In any case, the overarching point I have been attempting to make is pretty simple: we don’t know. Something appears to have happened to at least some people. The government isn’t being public with their findings and what they have come out with is often conflicting. But the fact remains that none of us, whether here on the forum or outside scientists who haven’t even seen the patients themselves, can make any statements with certainty.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You missed the Penn neuro imaging study I have cited, at least twice now? The Canadian study? I think the problem is that you’ve hand-waved away everything as either the result of political pressure, bad science, “America bad,” or whatever.

In any case, the overarching point I have been attempting to make is pretty simple: we don’t know. Something appears to have happened to at least some people. The government isn’t being public with their findings and what they have come out with is often conflicting. But the fact remains that none of us, whether here on the forum or outside scientists who haven’t even seen the patients themselves, can make any statements with certainty.

If that's the one I commented on there was no there there.

OK, I went back and revisited the citations and the discussion. Both Dann and I have pointed out the problems with your citations. And yes, every study has limitations. But every study doesn't have limitations that essentially negate the value of any of the findings. The findings do not support the conclusions.

 

[xjx388]

If that's the one I commented on there was no there there.

OK, I went back and revisited the citations and the discussion. Both Dann and I have pointed out the problems with your citations. And yes, every study has limitations. But every study doesn't have limitations that essentially negate the value of any of the findings. The findings do not support the conclusions.

I disagree. Not so much because you are wrong, per se, but more because there isn’t enough there there to draw any conclusions, whatsoever.

I’m not willing to simply hand wave this all away. The NAS paper, the Penn study, the Canadian study, the other JAMA paper…nothing in those studies can be used to draw conclusions either for a “syndrome,” or for crickets causing MPI. I’m certainly not willing to dismiss it all as “diplomats are suffering mental problems/prior injuries exacerbated by political maneuvering and evil American plots to attack Cuba/Russia/whoever.”

I began posting in this thread thinking that “energy weapons,” were a plausible cause -I mean, if a panel of experts at the NAS thinks it might be, who am I to gainsay? I have evolved my thinking to where such “weapons” are perhaps within the realm of possibilities but not entirely plausible. I just haven’t bought into this wild theory that the whole thing is some kind of false flag planted by our government. I still think there’s enough there to say that something happened to at least some of these people that may not be strictly some kind of mental/stress issue. I do think there are some documented abnormalities. As to what precisely caused those abnormalities, I cannot begin to speculate. And neither, really, can anyone else with any claim to even a smidgen of certainty.

That’s really all I’m saying.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I disagree. Not so much because you are wrong, per se, but more because there isn’t enough there there to draw any conclusions, whatsoever.

So there's not enough there to draw any conclusions yet you cited it supporting the claim physical findings were found that support the claim there is an actual Havana injury there?

I’m not willing to simply hand wave this all away. The NAS paper, the Penn study, the Canadian study, the other JAMA paper…nothing in those studies can be used to draw conclusions either for a “syndrome,” or for crickets causing MPI. I’m certainly not willing to dismiss it all as “diplomats are suffering mental problems/prior injuries exacerbated by political maneuvering and evil American plots to attack Cuba/Russia/whoever.”

I've been applying my own experiences as an occupational health nurse practitioner (board certified COHN-S). I've seen this kind of thing dozens of times, gone to conferences on it, worked with employees filing worker's comp claims for some of those kinds of complaints. There are many things they all have in common of which I have pointed out in this thread.

That your citations have not been convincing (you just said so yourself) doesn't mean I've hand-waved anything away. But you certainly don't need to believe me.

I began posting in this thread thinking that “energy weapons,” were a plausible cause -I mean, if a panel of experts at the NAS thinks it might be, who am I to gainsay? I have evolved my thinking to where such “weapons” are perhaps within the realm of possibilities but not entirely plausible. I just haven’t bought into this wild theory that the whole thing is some kind of false flag planted by our government. I still think there’s enough there to say that something happened to at least some of these people that may not be strictly some kind of mental/stress issue. I do think there are some documented abnormalities. As to what precisely caused those abnormalities, I cannot begin to speculate. And neither, really, can anyone else with any claim to even a smidgen of certainty.

That’s really all I’m saying.

Microwave weapons are a real thing. Secret undetectable weapons that can target individuals or rooms, not so much.

Like I said, you can believe what you want. Just don't try to tell us there is 'evidence' of actual injuries found in those studies. There is not, and you should review my responses to your citations for an explanation why there is not: poor methodology being the biggest flaw in the citations.


I recommend folks read some of the work of Peter Sandman on the topic. He's an expert in this field in particular, how to head off the problem.

Peter Sandman Risk Communication

He doesn't address Havana Syndrome directly, rather he address how to deal with these kinds of "syndromes" so you don't end up with things like this:

MSNBC: ‘Havana Syndrome’ victims devestated after CIA report on illness

Victims who have come forward reporting symptoms of ‘Havana Syndrome’ are devastated after the CIA reported that the syndrome is not the result of a sustained campaign by hostile power.

Think about it, there's no good evidence of any secret weapon. Should the CIA claim there is just to appease [humor?] these embassy workers?

 

[xjx388]

So there's not enough there to draw any conclusions yet you cited it supporting the claim physical findings were found that support the claim there is an actual Havana injury there?

No. I am using it to support the claim that there is something abnormal in their brain structure that isn’t present in healthy controls. It’s documented damage, not a documented “Havana injury.”

I've been applying my own experiences as an occupational health nurse practitioner (board certified COHN-S). I've seen this kind of thing dozens of times, gone to conferences on it, worked with employees filing worker's comp claims for some of those kinds of complaints. There are many things they all have in common of which I have pointed out in this thread.

Ok. But the people you worked with weren’t all suffering from MPI. They had actual work related injuries. You can’t possibly conclude that MPI is probable in the diplomat cases based on your experiences. I’ll have to look back but there was another paper I remember reading (maybe it was this one) that talked about the damage looking like concussions but without the proximate head trauma history.

That your citations have not been convincing (you just said so yourself) doesn't mean I've hand-waved anything away. But you certainly don't need to believe me.

Microwave weapons are a real thing. Secret undetectable weapons that can target individuals or rooms, not so much.

That we know of…

Like I said, you can believe what you want. Just don't try to tell us there is 'evidence' of actual injuries found in those studies. There is not, and you should review my responses to your citations for an explanation why there is not: poor methodology being the biggest flaw in the citations.

Again, there is damage found. Whether that damage was caused by an attack or a chemical or some other injury (whether in Havana or not) is not something the study was trying to determine.

I recommend folks read some of the work of Peter Sandman on the topic. He's an expert in this field in particular, how to head off the problem.

Peter Sandman Risk Communication

He doesn't address Havana Syndrome directly, rather he address how to deal with these kinds of "syndromes" so you don't end up with things like this:

MSNBC: ‘Havana Syndrome’ victims devestated after CIA report on illness

Think about it, there's no good evidence of any secret weapon. Should the CIA claim there is just to appease [humor?] these embassy workers?

No they shouldn’t. I think the media is to blame more than anyone else for spreading the whole “attack” narrative. But I do think it’s important to study this thing from all angles and not outright dismiss or conclude unless there is good evidence. I don’t think we are even close to that yet. I think it’s important to note that the CIA only said they couldn’t find any evidence linked to a foreign power in the vast majority of cases but left about two dozen or so cases open for further investigation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/politics/havana-syndrome-cia-report.amp.html

It remains possible there are actually a variety of possibilities at play here, including a mix of psychological/stress factors, non-“attack” injuries and yes, even some kind of attack.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No. I am using it to support the claim that there is something abnormal in their brain structure that isn’t present in healthy controls. It’s documented damage, not a documented “Havana injury.”

I'm not sure what you're missing but you are. Poor methodology meaning there wasn't a finding that specifically the people complaining of Havana syndrome had brain abnormalities.

Say you have a medical practice treating people with Havana syndrome and you have several people in the group (we don't know how big the group was) who have something else wrong with them. You send those people off to be tested with an MRI and there is something different about them. But that finding could be true if you did the same with a group of patients out of any neuro practice. If it's a big enough group you could easily find some that need a referral for an MRI and lo and behold there is something there. That doesn't mean people with Havana syndrome all have this brain abnormality. POOR METHODOLOGY, GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT.

Ok. But the people you worked with weren’t all suffering from MPI. They had actual work related injuries.

Yes they were all suffering to various degrees psychogenic illness. And no, they didn't have real work related injuries.

One person gets started, they have a headache and feel dizzy. Then another person says, "hey, so do I." And on it goes.

It might also be a single individual who claims they have multiple chemical sensitivities, or they are unable to work because the new carpet gives off fumes they are sensitive to. It might turn out that person is really pissed off at their boss, or how they were treated when they complained about the chemicals. Now the person grows that insult into months and months of a disability.

You will most often find there is some money involved (a lawsuit), or anger at being dismissed (now they are going to have ongoing symptoms to prove their complaints were valid).

The issues are complex, but the one thing they are not is a real injury.

You can’t possibly conclude that MPI is probable in the diplomat cases based on your experiences. I’ll have to look back but there was another paper I remember reading (maybe it was this one) that talked about the damage looking like concussions but without the proximate head trauma history.

You did this before claiming I couldn't be certain Dump had pathologic narcissism. Guess what, he does. (Not to get into the ethical argument you shifted to.) Yes, you can tell:

They don't have consistent symptoms between themselves.
There is no means of injury found and that means of injury wasn't physically valid.
They are taking time off (probably with pay) for this disability.

And so on.

That we know of…

Again, there is damage found. Whether that damage was caused by an attack or a chemical or some other injury (whether in Havana or not) is not something the study was trying to determine.

No there was not damage found. They studies were not reliable because they were so poorly done.

No they shouldn’t. I think the media is to blame more than anyone else for spreading the whole “attack” narrative. But I do think it’s important to study this thing from all angles and not outright dismiss or conclude unless there is good evidence. I don’t think we are even close to that yet. I think it’s important to note that the CIA only said they couldn’t find any evidence linked to a foreign power in the vast majority of cases but left about two dozen or so cases open for further investigation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/politics/havana-syndrome-cia-report.amp.html

It remains possible there are actually a variety of possibilities at play here, including a mix of psychological/stress factors, non-“attack” injuries and yes, even some kind of attack.

Again, just because you don't see it doesn't mean anyone is hand-waving off the syndrome.

The evidence of damage is not reliable, poor methodology, conclusion not supported by the findings.

 

[dann]

I began posting in this thread thinking that “energy weapons,” were a plausible cause ...

xjx388 doesn't even remember why he began posting in this thread: He was offended because the thread was about the 'Havana Syndrome' and not about "Cuba bad, USA good". He was entirely uninterested in the theme of the thread and only came here in an attempt to derail it:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13412756#post13412756
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13412935#post13412935
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13413788#post13413788
And then, "reading a bit more, he thought "that it's very probable there was an attack targeting personnel. Probably microwave attacks, which are entirely plausible," adding that "we", i.e. good ethical Americans, I assume, "have actual injured people."

It is adorable that he now seems to have come to terms with the word anomalies instead of injuries, but he still believes in reports from panels and commissions that had no access to a description of how the attack hysteria in the U.S. embassy community in Havana evolved, i.e. how the 'contagion' spread.

The Penn group didn't mention microwaves. Probably because they did not yet know that the alleged sounds heard by the alleged attack victims came from crickets, so they could still believe in a sonic attack.

Of the 21 patients tested, most findings were normal. Only three showed white matter changes: two were mild and one was moderate. White matter tract changes are common in an array of conditions ranging from migraine and depression to normal aging. While media leaks by members of the study team claimed that there were significant changes to white matter in the brains of the patients, their actual data did not live up to the hype. In fact, the findings are what one would expect in a group of 21 people who were randomly selected off the street.
Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria (Springer, March 2020)

Dr. Sergio Della Sala, editor of Cortex wrote that, based on the standards used by the study, "anybody tested - you, me, the Penn scientists, the JAMA editors, the US Embassy personnel," would seem to be impaired.

In reality, the manuscript submitted by the neurological team at the University of Pennsylvania failed to pass the review process unscathed. Prior to acceptance, in January 2018, one of us (Dr. Baloh) was given the manuscript to review. He recommended rejection and observed that their claims seemed more like science fiction than science, and noted numerous inconsistencies. For instance, some of the subjects did not hear the sound, and for others that did, it was very brief. Most reported hearing a high-pitched sound but few described it as low-pitched. The descriptions were all over the pace with terms like "humming,"* "grinding metal," "piercing squeals," and "buzzing." The symptoms were also very broad including fatigue, dizziness, unsteadiness, headache, tinnitus, hypersensitivity to sound, sleep disorders, and cognitive impairment. Most of the subjects were given a battery of eye movement and balance tests, many of which Professor Baloh helped to develop. While the authors claimed to have found indicators of brain and ear damage caused by the sounds, the evidence fell short. Dr. Baloh saw a familiar pattern. Every week in his dizziness clinic, he saw several patients with identical symptoms including the nonspecific test finding reported by the University of Pennsylvania team. The condition, which is more common than most people realize, is now called Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness. This recently described syndrome is a functional disorder of the nervous system featuring dizziness, headaches and balancing problems. The driving factor behind it is stress and anxiety. He told the JAMA editors that more details were needed about the sound exposure and patient symptoms.
Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria (Springer, March 2020)

*See post 1283.

The whole 'Havana Syndrome' started out with an unscientific idea based on nothing but fear and anxiety, they symptoms caused by that anxiety, ... and the sound of crickets. Ever since, research and investigation teams have been hand-picked, in the beginning, to find out what was actually going on, but increasingly to come up with results that support the attack idea, which was what caused the whole 'syndrome' in the first place. Along the way, one attack idea was dropped in favor of another when it became too comical (and yet, the victims of the cricket attack still insist on playing the recordings on TV!). Reports were kept secret when they pointed out that the 'syndrome' was mass psychogenic illness, and people were removed from investigations if they would not exclude MPI as a possible explanation.

xjx388's list of studies does not include the very first FBI report and the JASON study. He doesn't even seem to have looked into the criticism accompanying publication in JAMA.

 

[dann]

... some kind of attack.

xjx388 obviously can't see how ridiculous it is to insist on the possibility of an entirely unspecified attack. It is so damn obvious that even after five years, they have nothing! The alleged weapons have changed over time, as have the alleged perpetrators, but nevertheless, an attack still has to be considered plausible for the simple reason that some people like to imagine it and others have staked their academic reputations on having discovered a brand new syndrome!

If the alleged symptoms of damage caused by the alleged attacks were specific and consistent, that would at least give some credence to the idea, but as it is:
There ain't nobody here but us crickets!

 

[dann]

You missed the Penn neuro imaging study I have cited, at least twice now? The Canadian study? I think the problem is that you’ve hand-waved away everything as either the result of political pressure, bad science, “America bad,” or whatever.

There has been no hand-waving anything away from me. Unlike you, I have read the reports, the articles and the book, seen the media reports on YouTube and listened to the podcasts. The Cuba evil, America good bias was all you attempted to bring to the thread. And it is still all you base your bias for the plausibility of the attack idea on.

In any case, the overarching point I have been attempting to make is pretty simple: we don’t know. Something appears to have happened to at least some people. The government isn’t being public with their findings and what they have come out with is often conflicting. But the fact remains that none of us, whether here on the forum or outside scientists who haven’t even seen the patients themselves, can make any statements with certainty.

Hard-pressed, you resort to not knowing and demand that the rest of us pretend that we also don't know. But something doesn't appear to have happened to at least some people. Something actually did happen, but what happened was not an attack. The idea has now been dismissed for the vast majority of people affected by the syndrome. That it hasn't been dismissed for "at least some people" is not because evidence that something might have happened has turned up but because nothing has. Based on this nothing, you insist that the rest of us should join you in considering the attack idea at least plausible.

And it's a lie that we "haven't even seen the patients themselves." At this point, we have seen and heard the patients tell their tales and play their cricket tapes. We know their names and we recognize them when they appear on TV. They have become minor celebrities.
We also know the tricks that media corporations like the CBS use to make patriots like you buy the attack story. And we know how you try to make it plausible here.

It is despicable that this spectacle continues, but every time those patients appear on TV, they only manage to strengthen the certainty with which their persecutive delusion can be dismissed.
That you and other U.S. patriots think their delusion should be taken into consideration as something more than that is nothing but gullible confirmation bias.

 

[dann]

To quote from what you quoted: "everybody is affected". So it's just part of the human condition then? Hmmmmmm.

Yes, it's a pretty damning result!

By definition, 40% of people assessed on any test should score at or below the 40th percentile. Considering that each participant was given 37 tests, without any statistical correction for the number of tests administered, it seems unlikely that anyone would escape with a clean bill of cognitive health (for further analysis, see Della Sala & Cubelli, in press). As we have reported in a letter to the Journal of Neurology, we tested this intuition using a simple simulation. We substituted the authors’ raw data for randomly-generated test scores, and applied their bizarre diagnostic criteria (Further details of this simulation, including analysis code and graphical output, are available at https://osf.io/5b4sq/). Across a thousand repetitions of our simulation, the cognitive symptoms of this syndrome proved to have a worrying lack of specificity: everybody is affected.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13745155#post13745155

I wonder if the tests were harder than Trump's cognitive test: Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.

Have you been following the story about the New Brunswick 'syndrome'? It appears to have been exacerbated considerably by the media - much like the Le Roy case, the Danish HPV-vaccine scare and, of course, the 'Havana Syndrome'.

 

[xjx388]

I'm not sure what you're missing but you are. Poor methodology meaning there wasn't a finding that specifically the people complaining of Havana syndrome had brain abnormalities.

I am not sure how you arrive at this conclusion. There was one study group of people complaining of symptoms. There were two control groups of healthy people, one of them specifically matched to the educational status and job duties of the study group and the other a broader group of healthy people. There was brain abnormality in the study groups that didn’t show up in either control group. That’s something I think you are missing. Is it evidence of an attack? No. It is evidence of damage. Is it evidence that they were injured in Havana? No. It is evidence that there is damage. I don’t know how you are missing that simple fact, but you are.

Say you have a medical practice treating people with Havana syndrome and you have several people in the group (we don't know how big the group was) who have something else wrong with them. You send those people off to be tested with an MRI and there is something different about them. But that finding could be true if you did the same with a group of patients out of any neuro practice. If it's a big enough group you could easily find some that need a referral for an MRI and lo and behold there is something there. That doesn't mean people with Havana syndrome all have this brain abnormality. POOR METHODOLOGY, GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT.

Control group one had 21 people in it; control group two had 27. They were healthy volunteers, not random people from neurology clinics. I’m not sure how you make this kind of analogy when it doesn’t fit what happened here. I find you analysis flawed.

Yes they were all suffering to various degrees psychogenic illness. And no, they didn't have real work related injuries.

One person gets started, they have a headache and feel dizzy. Then another person says, "hey, so do I." And on it goes.

It might also be a single individual who claims they have multiple chemical sensitivities, or they are unable to work because the new carpet gives off fumes they are sensitive to. It might turn out that person is really pissed off at their boss, or how they were treated when they complained about the chemicals. Now the person grows that insult into months and months of a disability.

You will most often find there is some money involved (a lawsuit), or anger at being dismissed (now they are going to have ongoing symptoms to prove their complaints were valid).

The issues are complex, but the one thing they are not is a real injury.

You did this before claiming I couldn't be certain Dump had pathologic narcissism. Guess what, he does. (Not to get into the ethical argument you shifted to.) Yes, you can tell:

They don't have consistent symptoms between themselves.
There is no means of injury found and that means of injury wasn't physically valid.
They are taking time off (probably with pay) for this disability.

And so on.

All I’m going to say about any of this is that 1)Your significant and respectable education and clinical experience with a wholly unrelated group of people in a completely different setting and circumstance is not relevant and only seems to be biasing your analysis; 2) Not every person who suffers brain injuries exhibits the same consistent symptomology. There’s a whole host of reasons for that, which I’m sure you are aware of.

No there was not damage found. They studies were not reliable because they were so poorly done.


Again, just because you don't see it doesn't mean anyone is hand-waving off the syndrome.

The evidence of damage is not reliable, poor methodology, conclusion not supported by the findings.

we will just have to agree to disagree here.

 

[dann]

Various DOD entities and Contractors have been developing these weapons, both war arena-sized weapons and anti-personnel and hand-held variations, for decades. Indications are, Contractors have been selling these weapons secretly to anyone who had the money, not only willy nilly to foreigners, foreign governments but rich people with bad intentions, criminals, gangs and drug lords too. The US government doesn’t want to admit how much it has kept secret from you because they knew you would be concerned it would be used for evil. They were entirely right. It is.
Havana Syndrome In Your Neighborhood? (Stllness in the Storm, March 1, 2022)

Crazy?! Yes, obviously. Just as crazy than the official, state-authorized 'syndrome'.

 

[dann]

I am not sure how you arrive at this conclusion. There was one study group of people complaining of symptoms. There were two control groups of healthy people, one of them specifically matched to the educational status and job duties of the study group and the other a broader group of healthy people. There was brain abnormality in the study groups that didn’t show up in either control group. That’s something I think you are missing. Is it evidence of an attack? No. It is evidence of damage. Is it evidence that they were injured in Havana? No. It is evidence that there is damage. I don’t know how you are missing that simple fact, but you are.

Tell us more about the brain abnormality "that didn’t show up in either control group" - with linked quotations. And tell us about the "study group": Were they simply people who complained of symptoms? Or had some of the "people complaining of symptoms" been selected to be in the group unlike others whose symptoms had been dismissed as irrelevant?
Brain abnormality is not evidence of damage. I don't know how xjx388 is missing that simple fact, but he is.

 

[xjx388]

Tell us more about the brain abnormality "that didn’t show up in either control group" - with linked quotations. And tell us about the "study group": Were they simply people who complained of symptoms? Or had some of the "people complaining of symptoms" been selected to be in the group unlike others whose symptoms had been dismissed as irrelevant?

I thought you said you had read the paper I have previously linked to? The 2019 Jama paper (which you -and Della Sala, for that matter- somehow seem to be conflating with the earlier 2018 Jama paper) is pretty clear about all those questions. I don't think you have actually read it. Maybe you should do that?

Brain abnormality is not evidence of damage. I don't know how xjx388 is missing that simple fact, but he is.

If group A is experiencing symptoms that groups B and C are not and group A shows structural abnormalities in the brain; it's a simple conclusion that group A had some kind of brain damage that groups B and C did not. Now, it's true that the damage may not be the result of an attack and that there are other things that need to be ruled out. But the abnormalities in this particular case are clearly damage of some kind.

ETA: Correction-Della Sala is not confounding anything. His opinions are focused on the 2018 Jama paper, not the 2019 paper. The confounding is all yours.

 

[xjx388]

There has been no hand-waving anything away from me. Unlike you, I have read the reports, the articles and the book, seen the media reports on YouTube and listened to the podcasts.

I think you have read the book, seen the media reports on YouTube (!) and listened to the podcasts. I don't think you have read the Jama papers. You've certainly read the criticism.

The Cuba evil, America good bias was all you attempted to bring to the thread. And it is still all you base your bias for the plausibility of the attack idea on.

Hard-pressed, you resort to not knowing and demand that the rest of us pretend that we also don't know.

No. I'm pointing out that you are pretending to know, when you can't possibly know.

But something doesn't appear to have happened to at least some people. Something actually did happen, but what happened was not an attack. The idea has now been dismissed for the vast majority of people affected by the syndrome.

No. The CIA merely said that they have not found evidence to link it to a foreign power in the vast majority of people.

That it hasn't been dismissed for "at least some people" is not because evidence that something might have happened has turned up but because nothing has. Based on this nothing, you insist that the rest of us should join you in considering the attack idea at least plausible.

When you have nothing, it's logical not to dismiss any plausible idea. All I'm doing is pointing out the hubris of the idea that anyone has this all figured out at this point.

And it's a lie that we "haven't even seen the patients themselves." At this point, we have seen and heard the patients tell their tales and play their cricket tapes. We know their names and we recognize them when they appear on TV. They have become minor celebrities.
We also know the tricks that media corporations like the CBS use

More medicine by TV on this forum. I'm no longer shocked by this kind of thing, but I should be.

to make patriots like you buy the attack story. And we know how you try to make it plausible here.

And there it is: "patriots like you."

It is despicable that this spectacle continues, but every time those patients appear on TV, they only manage to strengthen the certainty with which their persecutive delusion can be dismissed.
That you and other U.S. patriots think their delusion should be taken into consideration as something more than that is nothing but gullible confirmation bias.

See that right there? That's the narrative you are trying to sell here: that we deluded Americans are conditioned by our governments to believe bad things about Cuba and only want to attack them.

You keep saying that I'm the one who brought "America bad; Cuba good," into this discussion but that simply isn't true:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11998721&postcount=44
ˆThat's you talking about all the great stuff Castro did after the revolution.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12063577&postcount=305
ˆThat's Sherkeu with a conspiracy theory tying it all to the unrest in Venezuela and a US plan to remove diplomats from Cuba to force them to make concessions on Venezuela. Or something.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12068738&postcount=337
ˆThat's The Don speculating that it's the Trump admin wanting to roll back Obama's Cuba policies.

There's a lot more than that, of course. Those all came years before I ever participated in the thread. The main theory you believe is that there were no attacks and that this is a case of MPI fueled by a US government that wanted to destabilize relations with Cuba. You season that here and there with anecdotes about how the Cuban government is so great at health care, feeding their people, more honest and open than the US government, etc. You also do a lot of implication about how the NAS paper, as one example, is US sponsored propaganda.

It's also very interesting that right from the beginning you (and others including Skeptic Ginger) jumped right to the MPI explanation and you haven't backed down. Everything is interpreted in light of your very first conclusion and you refuse to budge even a little. Mostly because -you guessed it- "America bad; Cuba good." That's all you and others, not me. And it's all right there in the record of this thread dating back to the very beginning in 2017.