Havana syndrome: more mystery
New paper suggests diplomats’ ‘psychogenic illness’ stress-related
A new paper is throwing cold water on leading theories about the cause of Havana syndrome, adding another layer to the deepening mystery about the concussion-like illness which left numerous Canadian and American diplomats with debilitating symptoms.
The commentary, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine by medical sociologist
Robert Bartholomew of Botany College, Auckland and neurologist Robert Baloh of the University of California, Los Angeles, argues that Havana syndrome is likely not a new condition at all, but a psychogenic illness related to the stress diplomats experienced while in Havana and elsewhere. The symptoms, they write, are similar to those of historic combat syndromes.
“A characteristic feature of combat syndromes over the past century is the appearance of an array of neurological complaints from an over stimulated nervous system that are commonly misdiagnosed as concussions and brain damage,” they wrote.
They are not the first to suggest Havana syndrome is a psychological illness. Others have suggested it is a form of mass hysteria.
But researchers who have studied the former diplomats dismiss those theories.
In fact, Dr. Douglas Smith, who directs the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania, co-published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) earlier this year that found unique anomalies in the brains of U.S. diplomats affected by Havana syndrome.
He called the study’s findings vindication for the patients.
“People outside keep making claims that this was psychological. This might give them some peace and some vindication that there is something real there and it is not just in their heads,” he said.
A study of Canadian diplomats, meanwhile, suggested pesticides as a source of the syndrome.
Havana syndrome is the name that has been given to neurological and other symptoms suffered by former Canadian and U.S. diplomats and their families based in Havana. The Citizen has also spoken to an Ontario businessman who experienced similar symptoms after travelling to Havana in 2017. American diplomats based in China have also been treated for similar symptoms, which doctors have described as concussion-like, but with no sign of a concussion.
Former Canadian diplomats have described crushing headaches, nosebleeds, balance problems and ongoing cognitive difficulties after incidents while they were based in Havana with Global Affairs Canada.
One Canadian diplomat described waking up in the middle of the night in the summer of 2017 to a “grinding, screeching, metallic noise” that left him paralyzed with nausea. His son, in a nearby room, woke up covered in blood from a nosebleed. The next day, the diplomat stumbled up the stairs at the Canadian Embassy and was unable to recall his password, something that had never happened to him.
That diplomat and other Canadians affected believe they were the victims of some kind of attack. Several diplomats and their families are suing the federal government for $28 million for neglect.
In their commentary, Bartholomew and Baloh did not directly address the Canadian study that pointed to fumigation related to the mosquito-borne Zika virus as a likely cause of Havana syndrome. Nor did they refer to the study published in JAMA earlier this year that found unique differences in the brains of the former diplomats. The U.S. State department, meanwhile, has hypothesized that some sort of attack caused the symptoms.
In an email, though, Bartholomew dismissed the studies as “two more examples of dubious science.” He added the explanation that Havana syndrome is really a type of psychogenic war trauma makes the most sense.
“This explanation is by far the most likely explanation: a combination of mass psychogenic illness and a redefining of everyday aches and pains,” Bartholomew said. “It is firmly rooted in the prosaic. There is no need to resort to exotic hypotheses like sonic weapons or microwaves.”
Among other things, Bartholomew noted that the JAMA study saw brain anomalies, but many conditions, from depression to extreme stress, can cause similar readings.
He called the Canadian study “extremely speculative and preliminary” and asked why there had not been an epidemic of concussion-like symptoms across Cuba if fumigation was the cause of the diplomats’ symptoms.
Bartholomew and Baloh noted that symptoms such as difficulty concentrating, brain fog, memory problems and sleep-related complaints were present in nearly all patients, but are also common in those with anxiety, depression and “both individual and epidemic forms of psychogenic illness.” Many of the findings, they say, were inconclusive and contradictory.
They say U.S. diplomats in Cuba were in a continuation of the Cold War “living in a hostile foreign country where they were under constant surveillance.” They began hearing stories of sonic attacks.
“Between late 2016 and much of 2017, staff in Havana were living in a cauldron of stress and uncertainty, amid rumours of an enigmatic sonic weapon,” the authors wrote.
The symptoms of American diplomats in Havana, they say, closely parallel those associated with previous cases of war trauma, right down to the concussion-like symptoms that were often misdiagnosed as brain trauma.
“What is the more likely, that the diplomats were the target of a mysterious new weapon,” the authors wrote, “for which there is no concrete evidence and the use of which defies the laws of physics, or they were suffering from psychogenic symptoms generated by stress?”