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

I'm not familiar with that paper. What's the reference? The NYT Magazine ran an article a couple of years ago all about the notion that the diplomats in Cuba were suffering from FND--functional neurological disorder. Stone was a big part of that article--can't remember if Carson also was.

 

Why do they need a specific Act to deal with these cases? These are cases of people who became ill whilst employed abroad. The eatiology of the illness is unknown. Presumably there are a number of federal employees who become ill from unknown causes when serving abroad. Surely the terms of employment and health insurance should cover the cases. Why do some cases warrant special provision over and above that generally available? Does this merely display the inadequacy of the general provision?

It all seems odd.

 

it would fit with the theory that this 'illness' is essentially a political construct designed to placate the bruised feelings of the intelligence/diplomatic community at a time when they are finding themselves unwanted.

Sure people will have been ill. But the tweet with the MRI says "The CIA has been escalating its efforts to determine why dozens of U.S. officials have experienced bizarre symptoms like headaches, vertigo, and vision problems." There is nothing bizarre about these. People turn up in A/E every day with them. I had nasty vertigo just a few months ago and I have had other 'neurological episodes' before. There are unlikely to be any Russian ultrasound devices in my sitting room.

What intrigues me is why there are US 'spies' in Vienna? Or, seemingly from the Harry Dunn episode, in the UK?

 

Presumably Vienna is merely traditional, but there must be a lot of SigInt and NSA people in the UK around various locations. The only surprise is that the Foreign Office pretended to know so little and were prepared to be economical with the "actualite"-I'd put an acute accent on that if I could. Ministers used to resign for less.

 

here is an excerpt from the New Yorker magazine article:

“Vienna has long been a den of spies. The city is home to many large U.N. agencies, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, among other international bodies that employ officials from around the world who have access to information of interest to U.S. and foreign intelligence services. In addition to significant numbers of American, British, Chinese, French, and Russian spies, the Iranians, the Syrians, and the North Koreans, among others, are believed to have operatives on the ground in Vienna.

Traditionally, Austria’s domestic-security services have turned a blind eye to foreign-intelligence operations on Austrian soil as long as those operations don’t threaten Austrian interests. “If you spy against other governments in Vienna, you’re left alone. That’s what everybody likes,” Siegfried Beer, the founder of the Austrian Center for Intelligence,….."

 

Was about vaccine reactions but same energy: https://www.s4me.info/threads/funct...-health-implications-2021-butler-et-al.21496/.

Because what could go wrong denying that vaccine reactions are a thing at all? It's not as if public confidence in vaccines is already shattered by another failure.

 

And as much as it sounds very mysterious to speak of spies and how it must be such a distressful life that it's reasonable to suggest a psychological explanation, most "spies" are actually pencil pushers and have a very boring work routine. James Bond types are the very rare exception, most intelligence work is analytic and involves zero car chases or surprises left by KGB agents in their apartment.

But of course people who can't tell reality from fiction they invented themselves will obviously struggle with the fact that movies are just made-up stories, just like their own work.

 

It is discussed in the last episode of the podcast Unexplainable. One of the experts are Jon Stone who says this is a functional illness that he recognises from his clinical practice. He's never met a patient with Havana Syndrome, though..


https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/havana-syndrome/id1554578197?i=1000533964490

 

How was it that Popper's conversation went- was it with Jung- when he had discussed a case, and received the expected diagnosis?

"And how do you know that?"

"I know it from my thousandfold experience of such cases."

"And now, I suppose, you have a thousand and one fold experience."

 

You may have seen this, but , if not it is an informative piece

‘Havana syndrome ’ and the mystery of the microwaves - BBC News

 

The stuff about microwaves and brains looks like straightforward nutcase pseudoscience to me. If it had any basis it would have been well documented decades ago. The idea of microwaves interacting with brain tissue to make' sounds' is plain nonsense.

 

The only difficulty is that to say that with certainty, the experiments would have to have been done. How could ethical approval be obtained for such experiments?

 

No it is nonsense - at least in the sense that it is as implausible as saying that when you look at a red rose a bit of your brain turns red.

There is an old saying. Keep an open mind but not so open that your brain falls out!

 

What if Havana syndrome is all in the mind?

The start of a broad response to the new NICE guidlines??

"And it’s a question, in one form or another, that has recurred for me since, nearly 25 years ago, I read a book by the American academic Elaine Showalter called Hystories. Among a series of other outbreaks of moral or physical panic that she analysed, Showalter looked at Gulf War syndrome .... "


".... If we examined the history of what had been described as “hysteria” we might decide that the answer lay not in some outside agency, but in our own incredible minds."

"The symptoms and the suffering of the afflicted, she says, are real. But they are “functional neurological disorders” — the cause lies in our minds. "


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/what-if-havana-syndrome-is-all-in-the-mind-zdhkvphnr

 

We should not look any deeper for the cause "Not until we’ve ruled out psychogenic causes. " .

Feels like the start of a slow-burn campaign in response to the NICE Guidelines.

 

The history of psychogenic claims is the history of changing terminology every time they get burned, and they get burned a lot. Patients wake up, doctors wake up, and hey presto, they have new terminology, definitions and claims that look just like the old ones but with a different label.

 

Not the first time David Aaronovitch has given us the benefit of his <cough> medical expertise.

When the new NICE Guideline is finally released, no doubt Rod Liddle will be frothing at the mouth to get his opinion out. Look forward, also, to Ned Shorter apoplectically claiming that the NICE committee has been nobbled by patients...

 

Yes.They have their own "hystories" don't they?

 

You cannot "rule out" "psychogenic causes". It's disprovable, as pseudoscientific statements often are. Whoever is responsible for perpetuating this nonsense, particularly under the banner of "science", must be laughing and having a great life, as it's all accepted uncritically by so many. Is there any hope of countering it?? Seems to be more of it by the week.