Array
A four year study using MRI-machines found no detectable difference in the brains of 81 people who claimed to be victims of «Havana Syndrome» and people in similar jobs who were healthy. Havana Syndrome is the name given to an odd series of events that began among US State Department employees in Havana, Cuba back in 2016.
Those who experienced it often described a loud noise and a feeling of pressure in their heads which some described as directional. There were lots of reports about it followed by speculation that one of our adversaries, likely Russia, had created some new kind of energy weapon and was using it on US personnel. Alternatively, some suggested that Havana Syndrome could be the unexpected result of some kind of surveillance effort, i.e. not a weapon per se.
As time went on more and more employees claimed to be victims, including some in China and even some in Washington, DC. But the evidence that such a weapon existed seemed elusive. The intelligence community, which now refers to these as anonymous health incidents (AHIs), concluded a year ago that there was no energy weapon behind the reports.
The current study began in 2018 and continued until 2022. The results were published today as two papers in the medical journal JAMA.
Using advanced imaging techniques and in-depth clinical assessments, a research team at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found no significant evidence of MRI-detectable brain injury, nor differences in most clinical measures compared to controls, among a group of federal employees who experienced anomalous health incidents (AHIs). These incidents, including hearing noise and experiencing head pressure followed by headache, dizziness, cognitive dysfunction and other symptoms, have been described in the news media as “Havana Syndrome” since U.S. government personnel stationed in Havana first reported the incidents. Scientists at the NIH Clinical Center conducted the research over the course of nearly five years and published their findings in two papers in JAMA today.
“Our goal was to conduct thorough, objective and reproducible evaluations to see if we could identify structural brain or biological differences in people who reported AHIs,” said Leighton Chan, M.D., chief, rehabilitation medicine and acting chief scientific officer, NIH Clinical Center, and lead author on one of the papers.
