History is the arbiter of controversy. —Lord Acton

The prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has released its findings into what sickened dozens of American Embassy diplomats in Cuba starting in late 2016 (dubbed “Havana Syndrome”). The panel reached no definitive conclusion but found that pulsed radiofrequency (RF) radiation, a.k.a. directed microwave energy, was the most likely cause. Committee members were hampered by a lack of information due to privacy concerns and government secrecy. They also could not rule out the possibility of mass psychogenic illness but considered it unlikely. They said they had difficulty assessing the psychological explanation because there was “no epidemiological evidence about patterns of social contacts” (National Academy of Sciences 2020).

This case has been steeped in controversy ever since the State Department first acknowledged the episode at a press briefing on August 9, 2017. A central problem has been a lack of transparency; to date, the U.S. government has denied Freedom of Information Act requests on the subject, and investigations by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI have never been made public.

The NAS panel, which was commissioned by the State Department, wrote that pulsed radio frequency energy was the most likely cause, as it is consistent with “many of the distinctive and acute signs, symptoms, and observations reported by DOS employees.” The committee observed that “The acute initial, sudden-onset, distinctive, and unusual symptoms and signs are difficult to ascribe to psychological and social factors” (National Academy of Sciences 2020, 2). Most of the affected diplomats reported hearing strange sounds before feeling unwell. None of the incidents took place at the American Embassy but instead at one of two major Havana hotels, diplomat homes, and an apartment complex.

In gravitating toward the RF explanation, the panel found the literature on the “Frey effect” compelling. It was first described by American biophysicist Allen Frey in 1961 when he observed that pulsed microwave beams directed at a person’s head could produce clicking sounds. The NAS report states that “If a Frey-like effect can be induced on central nervous system tissue responsible for space and motion information processing, it likely would induce similarly idiosyncratic responses … [including] alterations in brain functioning” (National Academy of Sciences 2020, 19–20).

There are several problems with the microwave explanation.

University of Pennsylvania bioengineer Kenneth Foster views any link between the Frey effect and Havana Syndrome as nonsensical. “It is just a totally incredible explanation for what happened to these diplomats. … It’s just not possible. The idea that someone could beam huge amounts of microwave energy at people and not have it be obvious defies credibility. There’s nothing behind it. You might as well say little green men from Mars were throwing darts of energy,” he said (Hurley 2019, 44).

The mysterious sounds that preceded the “attacks” were remarkably varied. Some said they were high pitched; others described them as low pitched. The report made no mention that in over a dozen instances where diplomats recorded the incidents each was later identified as the sound of insects—most notably crickets and cicadas (Baloh and Bartholomew 2020, 13–15). Even the time between hearing the sounds and feeling symptoms varied dramatically. For instance, in January 2018, State Department Medical Director Dr. Charles Rosenfarb told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the symptoms occurred “within minutes to hours of the event” (Senate Foreign Relations Committee 2018).

Another issue involves the array of symptoms that were reported, including headache; ear pain and pressure; fatigue; nausea; dizziness; memory problems; confusion; disorientation; trouble walking, sleeping, and focusing their eyes; sensitivity to sound; tinnitus; pain; difficulty concentrating; pressure; hearing loss; and concussion-like symptoms. Most of these complaints are reported every day in doctors’ offices, while concussion-like symptoms have been associated with long-term stress (Baloh and Bartholomew 2020, 59–70). In one study of affected diplomats that was leaked to the media, it was reported that about a third of the subjects had suffered hearing loss. However, when the study was published and the hearing tests were conducted, just two people were determined to have experienced diminished hearing—both of whom had pre-existing hearing loss prior to going to Cuba. The patients thought they had suffered hearing damage, but tests proved otherwise (Hoffer et al. 2019; Baloh and Bartholomew 2020, 31).

The Omission of Pivotal Evidence

The panel’s assertion that they could not adequately assess the psychogenic hypothesis due to a lack of data is perplexing. No less than three separate reports highlighting the social patterning of the outbreak were absent from the study. Two lengthy articles detailing this patterning were published by investigative journalists Tim Golden and Sebastian Rotella (Golden and Rotella 2018; Golden and Rotella 2019). A third study—the only book to be published to date on Havana Syndrome—also described how the outbreaks spread through the diplomatic community (Baloh and Bartholomew 2020). The State Department was aware as early as December 2019 that the book was about to be published and that it was focused on a psychogenic explanation.

Another curious twist took place soon after the panel was formed. Professor Simon Wessely of the Department of Psychological Medicine at Kings College in London gave an interview in which he expressed the view that mass psychogenic illness was the most likely cause. Shortly thereafter, he was removed from the panel (Wessely 2020).

In light of these circumstances, it would not be unreasonable to ask whether political forces may have been at work in steering the publicly acceptable explanations. Time (and the anticipated release of Freedom of Information documents) will likely bring clarity.

References

Baloh, Robert W., and Robert E. Bartholomew. 2020. Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria. Cham, Switzerland: Copernicus Books.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 2018. Attacks on U.S. diplomats in Cuba: Response and oversight. US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Video of the complete hearing published at https://www.c-span.org/video/?439474-1/state-department-officials-testify-attacks-us-diplomats-cuba.

Golden, Tim, and Sebastian Rotella. 2018. The strange case of American diplomats in Cuba: As the mystery deepens, so do divisions in Washington. ProPublica (November 9).

———. 2019. The sound and the fury: Inside the mystery of the Havana Embassy. ProPublica (February 14).

Hoffer, Michael, et al. 2019. Acute findings in an acquired neurosensory dysfunction. Laryngoscope Investigative Otolaryngology 4(1): 124–131.

Hurley, Dan. 2019. The diplomat’s disorder. The New York Times Magazine (May 19): 40–45, 71.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. An Assessment of

Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Wessely, Simon. 2020. Personal communication with author (December 8).