5-Year Study Finds No Brain Abnormalities In 'Havana Syndrome' Patients (www.cbc.ca) 38
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC News: An array of advanced tests found no brain injuries or degeneration among U.S. diplomats and other government employees who suffer mysterious health problems once dubbed "Havana syndrome," researchers reported Monday. The National Institutes of Health's (NIH) nearly five-year study offers no explanation for symptoms including headaches, balance problems and difficulties with thinking and sleep that were first reported in Cuba in 2016 and later by hundreds of American personnel in multiple countries. But it did contradict some earlier findings that raised the spectre of brain injuries in people experiencing what the State Department now calls "anomalous health incidents."
"These individuals have real symptoms and are going through a very tough time," said Dr. Leighton Chan, NIH's chief of rehabilitation medicine, who helped lead the research. "They can be quite profound, disabling and difficult to treat." Yet sophisticated MRI scans detected no significant differences in brain volume, structure or white matter -- signs of injury or degeneration -- when Havana syndrome patients were compared to healthy government workers with similar jobs, including some in the same embassy. Nor were there significant differences in cognitive and other tests, according to findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"These individuals have real symptoms and are going through a very tough time," said Dr. Leighton Chan, NIH's chief of rehabilitation medicine, who helped lead the research. "They can be quite profound, disabling and difficult to treat." Yet sophisticated MRI scans detected no significant differences in brain volume, structure or white matter -- signs of injury or degeneration -- when Havana syndrome patients were compared to healthy government workers with similar jobs, including some in the same embassy. Nor were there significant differences in cognitive and other tests, according to findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
What about FMRI? (Score:3)
Surprised the study wasn't based on FMRIs to actually look at brain activity.
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Surprised the study wasn't based on FMRIs to actually look at brain activity.
Gub'mint paperpushers do not have any discernible brain wave activity. They could easily be mistaken for an AI interface.
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Not easily mistaken for AI, because AI actually does try to answer your question.
Re:What about FMRI? (Score:4, Interesting)
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These people probably still use Bluetooth ear pods, cell phones, home WiFi, and know about AM/FM radios in their areas. Convincing them to scan magnetic fields instead of blasting them with EM radiation (x-rays, etc) should be possible. The magnets in their ear buds probably have a stronger local magnetic field than the MRI scan, or at least the MRI is in use for a much shorter time.
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Sure (Score:2)
At this point my cynicism is such that the most plausible explanation is that this a disability benefits scam. Perhaps something actually happened to one or more people because Cuba, and the rest are me-too bandwagonners, effectively creating an early retirement for themselves complete with hazard benefits.
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Reverse placebo effect? They think they are ill, so they are?
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Diplomats stationed in Cuba saying they're being attacked by (presumably) Cubans, using some hitherto unknown weapon are going to be looked at pretty closely by all sorts of US agencies I would have thought.
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It was aliens though, so they're never gonna figure it out.
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Re:Sure (Score:4, Interesting)
At this point my cynicism is such that the most plausible explanation is that this a disability benefits scam.
My cynical assumption is that it is a psychogenic illness [aafp.org], i.e. a mass delusion.
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mass delusion
Incentivized by year after year of no-show check's they're all getting mailed for their "injuries." And no, what the "experts" say that support this mean less than nothing: they all have cards in this game as well.
Re: Sure (Score:5, Interesting)
Thereâ(TM)s plenty of conditions out there that we have no solid explanation for. This particularly applies to brain conditions. Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Long COVID. Thereâ(TM)s plenty of evidence that they really do exist, and are not scams at all, but our understanding of them, and ability to find obvious distinguishing physical differences is near zero. Donâ(TM)t be so quick to dismiss people as seeking pay outs. I bet some of them are, but I also bet the vast majority have a serious, but hard to identify condition, and are in genuine need of societyâ(TM)s support.
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Dude, the 'Havana Syndrome' foolishness was years before the vaccine, and they've known the cause since 2018. It's the interaction of multiple ultrasonic devices creating resonances, and it's also been seen in a couple of very high-end hotels and at least one corporate executive office suite. Of course spooks being spooks they prefer to believe that they're under attack by some super-villain than that their facility is poorly configured the phenomenon is called "Intermodulation Distortion". Link to the art
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Uh yes? My point was that what was making people sick from vaccines is ridiculous anxiety from reading antivaxer nonsense. Nocebo effect. And a lot of these symptoms reported in havana look a hell of a lot like anxiety attack effects.
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Ah, missed your point entirely. Oops.
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Uh, sorry, I read it again and i guess that's not what you're literally doing. I am sure however that this goes well beyond just an insurance fraud scam or mass hysteria, but the circumstances under which someone told me in advance that they'd be causing this wouldn't add any credibility to the claim. I do hope they find out the truth eventually though, because it's a threat to national security.
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Cuban Rum is the most parsimonious explanation.
"Why are you hung over?"
"Russia, Russia, Russia!"
But Gary Nolan's research contradicts NIH's report.
NIH has a habit of lying about everything : "you must be double-masked and cancel Christmas 2022!"
Nolan has a habit of creating successful companies that significantly advance medicine, especially in heme/onc.
He also has a habit of saying unpopular truths as he believes them.
But remember that Assange got honeypotted by a spook out of the Cuban Embassy so these ar
Microwave Surveillance (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt the initial harm was intentional, since the whole point of using microwaves this way is to be able to listen without having a bug that can be detected. My take is this is the result of the Russians (or someone who learned from the Russians) trying to use a technique that used to work. They sent someone to collect intelligence and due to things like WiFi and cell phones they were having a hard time getting the old technique to work, so they kept increasing the power until they could get a signal.
You have to think about the type of personnel that are given these intelligence collection jobs. In the U.S. it would be a bright high school graduate that has a can-do attitude, has been enlisted in the military for a decade or more and is trained on the specific piece of equipment. They are told to turn a given knob until they can detect a signal. The ramifications of the knob turning would be largely glossed over in the training.
If you were to walk around a room being bathed in microwaves like this with a microwave SWR power meter, you would find wildly varying power levels on a centimeter by centimeter basis. So one person could be fine while standing in front of another person receiving brain damage. And the specific part of the brain would be different from person to person resulting in different symptoms. Microwave ovens have turntables for this exact reason. A still/sleeping person would be most vulnerable to brain damage.
This sort of activity is detectable, (e.g. Acousticom 2 RF Microwave Meter consumer product $200, or component-level Analog Devices AD8363 for $100) and can also be screened out using wire meshes and the sort of conductive features used in microwave oven windows. I don't understand why we wouldn't screen our facilities and install detectors on the outside of the screening. We have known about the possibility of these sorts of collection methods for decades and yet it seems we have done little to detect them or prevent them from working.
The US too, they microwaved Paul Wellstone (Score:1)
when he tried to land his plane.
Strangely enough Raytheon was seen rushing away from the scene with one of their microwave weapons.
Coincidence?
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This was in 2002 in a small turboprop plane. There is nothing to microwave. This was pre-GPS, doing a visual landing during daylight conditions in a small plane.
If you want to propagate conspiracy theories, at least pick a plausible one.
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Apparently microwaves can also pick up the vibrations from speaking on the other side of window glass, which is why all of the windows in US Embassy buildings are triple pane.
As far as 'Havana Syndrome' goes, the original cases were found in people who worked in concrete walled interior rooms with metal mesh in the walls, which is why they decided that it had to be some sort of phantasmagorical 'sonic weapon' to pierce the walls. Turns out that the "attack" seems to have been self-inflicted, the phenomenon
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The fact that nothing has been detected is what makes any explanation involving known technology implausible. As you say, equipment to detect transmissions is pretty cheap now, and doubtless the US government has the very best and more expensive gear. Nobody has found anything electromagnetic, or chemical, or radiological.
It's "just" PTSD (Score:2)
But it *is* confirmed they (Score:2)
...can't get that fucking tune outta their heads. [youtube.com]
Nocebo (Score:3)
An official report published some time ago found no evidence of any illness or injuries. They concluded it was a nocebo effect were people under stress assumed every symptom of stress was an illness and convinced everyone around of them of that this was true.
One way or another... (Score:2)
No matter how you slice it, its ALL IN THEIR HEAD.
mass hysteria syndrome (Score:1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Hypochondriasis or hypochondria is a condition in which a person is excessively and unduly worried about having a serious illness.
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Absolutely right. And it has real symptoms. I always come back to a study where it was shown that placebo relief of pain could be reversed with naloxone (Narcan).
Confusing issues with the paper (Score:2)
Results Among the 81 participants with AHIs, the mean (SD) age was 42 (9) years and 49% were female; among the 48 control participants, the mean (SD) age was 43 (11) years and 42% were female. Imaging scans were performed as early as 14 days after experiencing AHIs with a median delay period of 80 (IQR, 36-544) days. After adjustment for multiple comparisons, no significant differences between participants with AHIs and control participants were found for any MRI modality.