Fresh row over mysterious sickness affecting US diplomats in Cuba

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Fresh row over mysterious sickness affecting US diplomats in Cuba

Study into ‘health attacks’ on embassy staff sparks controversy, with some experts claiming situation is being spun for political gain

Ian Sample Science editor
Sat 24 Feb 2018 12.00 GMT

When a mystery illness rippled through the US embassy in Cuba in late 2016, the diplomatic fallout was rapid.

The US slashed the number of people at its Havana mission and expelled 15 Cuban diplomats after at least 24 American staff and family reported a mix of headaches, dizziness, eyesight, hearing, sleep and concentration problems.

Many of the affected diplomats said their illness came on after they heard strange noises in their homes or hotel rooms. Some reported that the sounds – which ranged from grinding to cicada-like to the buffeting caused by an open car window – appeared to be directed at them, and that their symptoms abated when they moved to another room.

Now, the dispute over the cause of the episode has spread into the medical world, where some doctors and scientists are furious with a situation they believe is being spun for political gain.

A study published last week by American doctors who examined 21 of the diplomats has been criticised for starting from a position that the diplomats had been exposed to some unknown “energy source”. Sceptics insist this remains conjecture at best, and is far from proven.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/24/fresh-row-over-mysterious-sickness-affecting-us-diplomats-in-cuba

[Judi Lynn]

1. More from the article:

. . .

The US government asked doctors at the University of Pennsylvania to run tests on 21 of the diplomats. The results, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama), found no evidence of white matter tract abnormalities, though more advanced scans are underway. “They were similar to what you might see in the same age control group,” said Douglas Smith, director of the Centre for Brain Injury and Repair, who led the medical assessments.

Robert Bartholomew, an expert in mass psychogenic illness (MPI) who teaches at Botany Downs Secondary College in Auckland, said he was “floored by the study” and claims that it reads like US government propaganda. In the article, the doctors state that their objective is to describe “neurological manifestations that followed exposure to an unknown energy source,” but Bartholomew points out that there is no proof that any kind of energy source affected the diplomats, or even that an attack took place. “It’s like the authors are trying to get us to believe an attack has occurred,” he told the Guardian.


More investigation should be required, and not simply allowed to fade away, leaving people to assume the original charges by the Trump spokesmen were authentic.