Havana Syndrome: U.S. and Canadian diplomats targeted with possible weapon causing brain injury and neurological symptoms

[rvallee]

I'm surprised that the author has responded to comments a number of times. Actually I quite appreciate it - seems like a much more civil fellow than the PACE clan. -

I personally find it instructive that 'yes it is, and a lot of other people think so, too', is the uniform response repeatedly produced by someone who is society's supposedly greatest expert in a particular topic. I guess here we already knew that that's where things are, but it's interesting to experience first-hand.

Unfortunately the response pretty much confirms that this is a borderline religious belief. He uses the same argument to discredit something he doesn't believe in while using it as evidence for the thing he does. The underlying issue here being: believe. That's all it is and it is dogmatic and irrational.

His most pressing argument seems to be that his assumptions fit, which they always do because they are always vague and created specifically to fit with predetermined conclusions. The whole point of science is not to be mislead by cherry-picking things that confirm beliefs while excluding things that falsify them.

While accusing others of doing the same. Marvelous example of Dunning-Kruger as well. Which as a medical sociologist is just as impressive as psychiatrists with weird beliefs about illness arguing the same about a disease. No wonder he co-authored something with Wessely, two peas in an ideological pod.

 

[James Morris-Lent]

Unfortunately the response pretty much confirms that this is a borderline religious belief. He uses the same argument to discredit something he doesn't believe in while using it as evidence for the thing he does. The underlying issue here being: believe. That's all it is and it is dogmatic and irrational.

Yeah, I think that puts it well. Even in that category it's second rate, though, since as far as I understand 'god of the gaps' is a pejorative in religious scholarship.

It seems like wessley and others think so and have used CFS to establish a starting base from which to universalize their BPS. I honestly would be surprised if they are not trying to get to the point where they can claim that everybody needs psychotherapy (except perhaps the 'grown-up' psychiatrists and psychotherapists!) for 'functional' symptoms.

 

[Guest 2176]

If stress of being under surveillance in a foreign country caused this, you'd think Fidel would've had something similar, with the hundreds of attempts on his life.

I kid, sort of. I know n=1 doesn't mean much but I just think its funny they act like being a US diplomat in Cuba is the most stressful possible thing.

 

[Guest 2176]

Wessely has also done work on gulf war illness which is ballsy because there was such clear exposure to a plethora of toxins that it seems like a harder illness to write off as psychogenic than many. I think it also possibly involved organophosphates but there were so many toxins there its hard to pick one.

I think that its probably useless to spend time on this bloke. I sometimes get into heated internet arguments to try and convince people that ME is real, and I always regret the energy spent. I just want to remind my fellow pwME of that. These kind of battles to sway academic and public opinion will not be won in the comments section of a piece like this. I think they will only be won via more large scale and coordinated activism.

Unrest did a lot to sway public opinion i believe. I've shown it to friends and family and it usually worked on them. But it can't do all the work. We can't win over the public one by one.

One thing I do think about though is that i think many people experience disability and mistreatment by doctors at some point in their lives. Therefore many of the general public are more open to hearing us out than hostile, cynical doctors. I was camping on BLM land near Las Vegas and met a guy who had had a spinal fusion, various types of chronic pain, and also a stroke caused by a medication pushed on him by doctors. I talked to him about my case and he commiserated , talking about how doctors love to pull the "its all in your head" bs.

I've had many similar experiences. I knew a friend of a friend who had cancer and his girlfriend had guilain barre but was diagnosed originally with conversion disorder.

Many people with many illnesses have faced mistreatment by doctors and so I don't think the general public should be hard to win over. Part of the problem is just lack of visibility period. But once we get to the point where we get our narrative out there very publicly, i dont think we'll get much pushback.

 

[James Morris-Lent]

I think that its probably useless to spend time on this bloke. I sometimes get into heated internet arguments to try and convince people that ME is real, and I always regret the energy spent. I just want to remind my fellow pwME of that.

Alright, alright, it's run its course at last. Yes, not worth repeating the process, but somewhat instructive.

_______

We are all extremists, now, apparently.

I do not see how we can have a productive conversation going forward when you do not accept the mainstream scientific position that conversion disorder does not [sic(?)] involve the converting of psychic distress into physical symptoms. This position is part of the bedrock of psychosomatic medicine. Your position is so extreme that it is tantamount to a geographer asserting that the earth is flat. You are an extremist.

 

[rvallee]

Despite weird insistence by some people about mass hysteria, turns out people actually want real answers that are not couched in delusional fantasies. Microwave weapons seem very unlikely but whatever, let's just find out and see where it goes. Regardless of how this is spread, the possibility of weaponizing such illness is about as terrifying as any biological warfare, way more insidious as the people affected not only fall ill but get neglected afterward, an easy way to push people out of the way without any consequences, far more effective than killing anyway.

In a sense I do welcome people pushing for mass hysteria, it only shows they always say it about anything, nothing but rabid speculation without any basis. Not that the cycle of infinite failure has ever meant anything but whatever, some day it will weigh in.

It would be very interesting to know about this because the symptoms involved are very familiar:

The mysterious illness first garnered public attention in 2017 when a cluster of U.S. officials stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba reported that they had been experiencing hearing loss, dizziness, headaches, fatigue, cognitive issues, and difficulty sleeping. The next year, U.S. diplomats based in China developed symptoms that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told lawmakers were “very similar and entirely consistent with the medical indications that have taken place to Americans working in Cuba.”

And of course the response is about just as competent and what would be expected with those kinds of symptoms:

It’s not just China. Marc Polymeropoulos, the CIA’s former deputy chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia, who suffered all the same symptoms after a stay in Moscow in 2017, told GQ about his experience after the agency refused to transfer him for treatment to the Walter Reed military hospital.

“The U.S. government handled this very poorly,” he told Foreign Policy. “This is like the [National Football League] 15 years ago with [traumatic brain injury], putting their heads in the sand.”

Or the US government with just about any similar form of chronic illness, really. Now and forever. Or any government. Or, hell, most of medicine.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/2...ats-spies-cuba-china-russia-microwave-attack/

 

[Hutan]

https://www.afr.com/politics/federa...by-russian-spies-in-australia-20201021-p56798

There was a recent report of two more people claiming to have suffered from this problem in Australia.

Two top American intelligence officers believe they were targeted by Russian microwave weapons while visiting Australia last year, as part of a global campaign that has left diplomats and spies suffering a mysterious brain-related illness.

The Central Intelligence Agency officers reported hearing ringing in their ears and feeling nauseous and dizzy, symptoms consistent with "Havana syndrome", named after diplomats working at the US embassy in Cuba who became sick.

Mobile phone data placed Russian agents in the vicinity of the hotel where they were staying.

 

[rvallee]

Interesting. I think it's far more likely that the microwave stuff is misdirection. Maybe not, but everyone targeted is either a spy or a diplomat so there's always some misdirection involved. Look over here, not there.

 

[Hoopoe]

The mysterious neurological symptoms experienced by American diplomats in China and Cuba are consistent with the effects of directed microwave energy, according to a long-awaited report by the National Academies of Sciences that cites medical evidence to support the long-held conviction of American intelligence officials.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/ha...rowave-energy-government-study-finds-n1250094

 

[Sly Saint]

NAS Report on ‘Havana Syndrome’ Mired in Controversy

The State Department was aware as early as December 2019 that the book was about to be published and that it was focused on a psychogenic explanation.

Another curious twist took place soon after the panel was formed. Professor Simon Wessely of the Department of Psychological Medicine at Kings College in London gave an interview in which he expressed the view that mass psychogenic illness was the most likely cause. Shortly thereafter, he was removed from the panel (Wessely 2020).

In light of these circumstances, it would not be unreasonable to ask whether political forces may have been at work in steering the publicly acceptable explanations. Time (and the anticipated release of Freedom of Information documents) will likely bring clarity.

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2021/03/nas-report-on-havana-syndrome-mired-in-controversy/

 

[Wonko]

To a person who only has a hammer everything looks like a nail - or whatever the saying is.

I was under the impression that one of the aims of primary school education was to teach people that even if they only have a hammer that other tools may in fact exist.

But apparently Sir Prof SW (the person seemingly in charge of all MH policy making in the UK) missed that day.

 

[Esther12]

To a person who only has a hammer everything looks like a nail - or whatever the saying is.

Also though, a stopped clock is right twice a day. I don't have a clue about this topic, but it does seem like some of the 'physical' theories being promoted don't make much sense.

 

[rvallee]

NAS Report on ‘Havana Syndrome’ Mired in Controversy

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2021/03/nas-report-on-havana-syndrome-mired-in-controversy/

Wessely is clearly recognized as a medical hitman*, you call upon him if you want to dismiss medical concerns and whitewash the whole thing. His career is defined by failures doing so, calling many things psychogenic that were eventually understood. He is not called in as an expert to determine whether it is, you call upon him when you want it to be because this is what he does, this is the conclusion he brings, no matter the facts.

Good that he was removed, though.


* Probably an obscure reference but I'm referring to the book Confession of an economic hitman as to the meaning of hitman here

 

[Hutan]

NAS Report on ‘Havana Syndrome’ Mired in Controversy

In light of these circumstances, it would not be unreasonable to ask whether political forces may have been at work in steering the publicly acceptable explanations. Time (and the anticipated release of Freedom of Information documents) will likely bring clarity.

The article in the Skeptical Inquirer leans towards the idea of mass hysteria. It's hard to believe that the 'publicly acceptable explanation' that mainstream'political forces' might favour is that foreign governments are microwaving diplomats in hotels.

Another curious twist took place soon after the panel was formed. Professor Simon Wessely of the Department of Psychological Medicine at Kings College in London gave an interview in which he expressed the view that mass psychogenic illness was the most likely cause. Shortly thereafter, he was removed from the panel (Wessely 2020).

I can imagine that if you have assembled a group of experts who are supposed to evaluate the evidence and one of the 'experts' gives an interview expressing the opinion that the answer is mass psychogenic illness 'soon after the panel was formed', then it might be very difficult to keep that 'expert' on the panel while maintaining a semblance of objectivity.

but it does seem like some of the 'physical' theories being promoted don't make much sense.

Yeah. It's a weird one.

 

[Forbin]

To a person who only has a hammer everything looks like a nail - or whatever the saying is.

FWIW, this is generalized as "The Law of the Instrument." There are several variations on it and explanations of its meaning. Philosopher Abraham Kaplan is credited as the first person recorded as having said, "Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding."

Psychologist Abraham Maslow later popularized the phrase "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Kaplan's subsequent expression of the idea with regard to science is perhaps the most germane, "It comes as no particular surprise to discover that a scientist formulates problems in a way which requires for their solution just those techniques in which he himself is especially skilled."

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

The article in the Skeptical Inquirer leans towards the idea of mass hysteria. It's hard to believe that the 'publicly acceptable explanation' that mainstream'political forces' might favour is that foreign governments are microwaving diplomats in hotels.

I read a very sensible sounding article on this in El País in Spanish. They noted that the story broke in 2017 with claims of problems dating back to the end of 2016. The political situation at that time would have been surreal for any American official in Cuba. The decades-long bizarre relationship between US and Cuba, which included a downed US military aircraft being on display in the most prominent museum area in Havana, and an American base at Guantanamo Bay had been reset to something near reality by Obama. But Obama had gone and the old Alice-in-Wonderland situation was official again. I forget the detail but the long and short of it was not so much mass hysteria as the cause but political expediency that happily turned a degree of suggestibility into an epidemic.

Maybe not so different from the Royal Free situation where the driver of the story may have been infectious disease politics?

So Wessely's analysis is a cheap knee jerk one but my impression is that this is a story that was very convenient for the Trump administration.

After all we found it politically acceptable to believe that the novichok poisonings were due to a foreign government violating citizens rights. But from what I hear it seems quite likely that the target was an active MI6 agent. The ultrasound story had some sort of plausibility and would have left no trace so would not have been refutable.

 

[Wyva]

New cases is Vienna:

"Since Joe Biden took office, about two dozen U.S. intelligence officers, diplomats, and other government officials in Vienna have reported experiencing mysterious afflictions similar to the Havana Syndrome.", full article: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/vienna-is-the-new-havana-syndrome-hotspot

"The F.B.I. launched its own investigation into the events in Havana but agents have so far found no dispositive evidence of any attacks. Profilers with the Bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit conducted their own assessments of the Havana patients without interviewing them directly.The unit concluded that they were suffering from a mass psychogenic illness, a condition in which a group of people, often thinking that they have been exposed to something dangerous, begin to feel sick at the same time.

The patients themselves—as well as their University of Pennsylvania doctors and many government officials who have met with them—were infuriated by the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s assessment, which was based on transcripts of previous interviews that the F.B.I. had done with some of the patients, and on “patient histories” compiled by the individuals’ doctors, who had already ruled out mass psychogenic illness as the cause.

According to these doctors, many of the patients didn’t know that the other people were sick, and their bodies could not have feigned some of the physical symptoms that they were exhibiting. A U.S. official told me that the F.B.I. is now reassessing its mass-psychogenic-illness conclusion in light of the newly reported cases."​

 

[rvallee]

Weird I thought it was not allowed to diagnose patients at a distance. I guess that's one of those "rules" that turn out to be just a bunch of words that can conveniently not apply whenever desired. Just like the recent Carson & Stone paper where they "diagnosed" people with conversion disorder simply by watching videos.

 

[chrisb]

...and they wonder why so many innocent people get convicted.

 

[rvallee]

Despite the hubristic proclamations of a few especially dull luminaries that this is clearly, and really it must be emphasized how this is so obviously, a case of mass hysteria, the people affected by this aren't exactly impressed at evidence that essentially consists of, checks notes, some dude's opinion.

Just one of many but I've seen several reports in the last few weeks on TV news and media. Here it mentions the CIA but the State department and other organizations are also investigating. Haven't seen much on the Canadian side yet.

Lots of emphasis over a "device" but there are other possible explanations. However that's the one getting the most interest.