True, but they do not typically reveal a lot of details about their communications gear, nor of details of suspected attacks. (Full disclosure -- I lean heavily into the mass(ish) hysteria explanation, I just don't think it tells us much that government entities are not open about some aspects of embassy operations or security!)
I recommend going back a few months to this post and the one after it, and studying the JASON report.
"It is a byproduct, like the sound of a gun, which is not what does the harm." I understand what he's going for, but actually loud noises like gunshots do damage, with symptoms similar to the Havana syndrome, ironically.
Obviously unreliable (could all be Russian disinfo agents), but still...
Ethan
This happened to a civilian I know in his own home around 2017, in Ohio suburbs. Mid 20’s male, otherwise healthy. It nearly killed him and has taken years to recover (mostly) from. I wonder if this isn’t happening to people in general at a similar rate to that of federal employees. Seems if someone was nefariously targeting these 1000+ people who reported this, some physical evidence would have been collected. I believe the symptoms are very real.
Emmanuel Bikorimana
I have experienced same symptoms in 2019 and 2020, and I am not and have never been a USA government employee. That raises a question on the truth whether its targeted towards US service personnel or it's simple a wide spread phenomenon that hasn't been well identified yet
Text from teaser story at: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/25/politics/havana-syndrome-cia-doctor-cnn-special/index.html
Link to paper (also one of several):A new interdisciplinary study on the “Havana Syndrome” led by Dr. Alon Friedman M.D. of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Israel and Dalhousie University Brain Repair Center in Nova Scotia, Canada, points to overexposure to pesticides as a likely cause for neurological symptoms among Canadian diplomats residing in Havana, Cuba in 2016.
Based on the results of these three lines of inquiry, most IC agencies have concluded that it is “very unlikely” a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs. IC agencies have varying confidence levels, with two agencies at moderate-to-high confidence while three are at moderate confidence. Two agencies judge it is “unlikely” an adversary was responsible for AHIs and they do so with low confidence based on collection gaps and their review of the same evidence
Excerpts:
There's also a helpful overview on the meaning of "likely" or "confidence" as used by the intelligence agencies:The IC pursued three separate lines of inquiry: the first encompassed work determining whether available data points to the involvement of a foreign adversary in the incidents; the second focused on the feasibility and existence of deliberate mechanisms that an adversary might use against US personnel to cause AHIs; and the third evaluated whether medical analysis can help determine if an outside actor is involved in the broad range of phenomena and symptoms associated with AHIs. Based on the results of these three lines of inquiry, most IC agencies have concluded that it is “very unlikely” a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs.
• Agencies employed an array of collection and investigative efforts that spanned hundreds of reported incidents—within the United States and abroad—and explored a range of potential indicators of hostile activity, from identifying suspicious persons near incident sites to searching for a pattern among affected personnel. These efforts could not identify an adversary as being responsible for any incident and in some key cases, IC agencies and partners had comprehensive information on the location where an AHI occurred but found no evidence of adversary activity.
• A review of intelligence reporting, open-source information, and scientific and medical literature about foreign weapons and research programs, as well as engagement with researchers inside and outside the US Government have led IC agencies to judge that there is no credible evidence that a foreign adversary has a weapon or collection device that is causing AHIs. [...] All agencies acknowledge the value of additional research on potential adversary capabilities in the RF field, in part because there continues to be a scientific debate on whether this could result in a weapon that could produce the symptoms seen in some of the reported AHI cases.
• IC agencies assess that medical analysis of AHIs has evolved since the first reported incidents in ways that point away from adversary involvement. While initial medical studies concluded AHIs represented a novel medical syndrome or consistent pattern of injuries similar to traumatic brain injury (TBI), a combination of medical and academic critiques pointed to methodological limitations in that work. Furthermore, the JASON panel’s review of preliminary data from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) longitudinal study on AHIs in 2021 does not convey a consistent set of physical injuries, including neurologic injuries such as TBI. This shift is notable because the initial medical opinions formed a central part of the IC hypothesis that US personnel had sustained injuries that were unlikely to be explained by natural or environmental factors and shaped the IC’s approach to AHIs.
IC agencies assess that symptoms reported by US personnel were probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary, such as preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors. IC confidence in this explanation is bolstered by the fact that we identified medical, environmental, and social factors that plausibly can explain many AHIs reported by US officials.
The IC considered a range of other possibilities we deemed less likely, and identified types of information that, if found, would prompt us to revisit our assessment, such as new medical analysis that identified a syndrome linked to affected personnel or the identification of a specific device that both caused the harmful effects described in AHI reports and was fielded by an adversary during the timeframe of the incidents.
Article: The Army in September awarded Wayne State University in Michigan a $750,000 grant to study the effects of radio frequency waves on ferrets, which have brains similar to humans, according to information on the grant posted on USASpending.gov. The aim is to determine whether this exposure induces similar symptoms to those experienced by U.S. government personnel in Havana, Cuba, and China, the documents show.
DoD has also recently tested pulsed radio frequency sources on primates to try to determine whether their effects can be linked to what the government calls “anomalous health incidents,” according to one former intelligence official and a current U.S. official who were briefed on the effort. Both were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive work. It is not clear whether these studies, which were done internally, are ongoing.
Article: Exclusive: Declassified report suggests "Havana syndrome" could result from energy weapon
Full intelligence report contradicts official claims that strange cluster of ailments wasn't caused by attack
March 29, 2023
A newly obtained declassified report prepared for the director of national intelligence by a panel of experts appears to show conclusively that "Havana syndrome" is not a naturally occurring health problem. It does not reach any conclusions about who or what may be responsible, but suggests that an unknown device or weapon using "pulsed electromagnetic energy" remains a plausible explanation.
The document was declassified after the James Madison Project, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing government secrecy, sued to obtain further information on "Anomalous Health Incidents" or AHIs, the official term used to designate the syndrome.
"The U.S. government is covering up evidence as to what AHIs are," said James Madison Project attorney Mark Zaid, who also represents a number of Havana syndrome patients. "This report differs from the summary released earlier this month and previous statements from the intelligence community. It is becoming apparent that these events were perpetrated either by foreign actors, or it is an experiment gone horribly wrong."
...
Some published reports have suggested that the symptoms were characteristic of "mass psychogenic illness," but the declassified report rejects that, finding that the AHIs "do not fit criteria for mass psychogenic illness."
The declassified report even outlines one possible method of causing AHIs, using small devices that consist of "commercial off-the-shelf technology, use mature technology, are easily portable and concealable, and can be powered by standard electricity or batteries. Parametric acoustic arrays — also referred to as directional loudspeakers or acoustic lasers — are the most plausible technology, although other ultrasound technology may be at play."
No line of sight would be necessary, according to the report:
Thank you, that's interesting.
The summary says, maybe such an RF weapon is possible, but we don't have evidence for it.This accurately reflects the full report.
"Some credible evidence that it was technically and practically feasible" ("feasible" is a fancy word for "possible") is a standard a science-fiction writer might employ when coming up with fictional future technology, in effect meaning "does this break any laws of physics?" It's not a hard enough standard to make it plausible that this technology already exists.Article: 
Perhaps a conclusion could be explained by this sentence from the post by @Agent K :
He is not an impartial commentator.The U.S. government is covering up evidence as to what AHIs are," said James Madison Project attorney Mark Zaid, who also represents a number of Havana symptom patients.
He didn't write the article or the report, he just sued to get the report declassified.
Article: (U) Findings
(U) The Panel reached six main findings. Some are limited by knowledge gaps or assessments that could be resolved or tested through implementing the Panel’s recommendations.
(U) The signs and symptoms of AHIs are genuine and compelling. The Panel bases this assessment on incident reports, medical data from affected individuals and interviews with their physicians, and interviews with affected individuals themselves. Some incidents have affected multiple persons in the same space, and clinical samples for the small number of affected individuals who were tested within an appropriate time period have shown early, transient elevations in biomarkers suggestive of cellular injury to the nervous system. The reported signs and symptoms of AHIs are diverse and may be caused by multiple mechanisms, but no case should be discounted. Prompt medical evaluation and care are particularly important; most individuals who were treated soon after an event have improved.
(U) A subset of AHIs have a unique combination of core characteristics that cannot be explained by known environmental or medical conditions and could be due to external stimuli. Although some signs and symptoms of AHIs are common in known medical conditions, the combination of the four core characteristics is distinctly unusual, is unreported elsewhere in the medical literature, and so far has not been associated with a specific neurological abnormality. Several aspects of this unique neurosensory syndrome make it unlikely to be caused by a functional neurological disorder. The location dependence and sudden onset and offset, for example, argue for a stimulus that is spatially and temporally discrete. The perception of sound and pain within only one ear suggests the stimulation of mechanoreceptors, a specific cranial nerve, or nuclei in the brainstem, all of which mediate hearing and balance as well as the sensation of pressure. The lack of other symptoms also helped rule out known medical conditions as well as stimuli that are known to affect other sensory or motor systems.
(b)(3) Electromagnetic energy, particularly pulsed signals in the radiofrequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics, although information gaps exist. There are several plausible pathways involving forms of electromagnetic energy, each with its own requirements, limitations, and unknowns. For all the pathways, sources exist that could generate the required stimuli, are concealable, and have moderate power requirements. Using nonstandard [redacted] antennas and techniques, the signals could be propagated with low loss through air for tens to hundreds of meters, and, with some loss, through most building materials
(b)(3) Ultrasound also plausibly explains the core characteristics, but only in close-access scenarios and with information gaps. The required energy can be generated by ultrasonic arrays that are [redacted] portable, and produce a tight beam. Ultrasound propagates poorly through air and building materials, restricting its applicability to scenarios in which the source is near the target, [redacted]. It could couple to the body through the external auditory canal, interstitial spaces, or the vestibular apparatus of the inner ear. Ultrasound is used to open the blood-brain barrier in medical procedures, and ultrasonic stimulation of the aforementioned anatomical areas could produce symptoms consistent with AHIs. Studies of “ultrasound sickness” and related audio-vestibular symptoms have reached mixed conclusions, but the Panel was presented with independent accounts in which individuals were exposed to high-power ultrasound beams and subsequently experienced the core characteristics.
(U) Psychosocial factors alone cannot account for the core characteristics, although they may explain some other reported incidents or contribute to long-term signs and symptoms. No known psychosocial factors explain the core characteristics, and incidents exhibiting these characteristics do not fit the majority of criteria used to discern mass sociogenic illness. However, psychosocial factors may compound some of the incidents with core characteristics. Incidents that do not possess all or some of the core characteristics could be due to hypervigilance and normal human reactions to stress and ambiguity, particularly within a workforce that is attuned to its surroundings and trained to think about security. Some of these reactions could lead to functional neurological disorders or worsen the effects of existing conditions.
(U) Ionizing radiation, chemical and biological agents, infrasound, audible sound, ultrasound propagated over large distances, and bulk heating from electromagnetic energy are all implausible explanations for the core characteristics in the absence of other synergistic stimuli. These mechanisms are unlikely, on their own, to account for the required effects or are technically or practically infeasible. Ionizing radiation, for example, produces known biological effects that are easily measured and inconsistent with the core characteristics, and chemical or biological agents alone would not explain the reported location-dependence or directionality.
But he made the simple declarative sentence, "The US government is covering up evidence...". His representation of the patients is not impartial. The report uses many uncertainty phrases like "knowledge gaps", "may be caused", "could be due to", "could produce symptoms", etc. The extrapolation to "covering up evidence" is, as yet, fact-free.
Ultrasound also plausibly explains the core characteristics, but only in close-access scenarios
"Close access scenario", in the only example given in the report which is checkable by us, means sitting in a chair with the ultrasound transducer (the "transmitter") being in contact with ultrasound gel applied to the subject's scalp.Ultrasound is used to open the blood-brain barrier in medical procedures
From Anomalous Health Incidents: Analysis of Potential Causal Mechanisms page vi, September 2022, (U) IC Experts Panel AssessmentThe perception of sound and pain within only one ear suggests the stimulation of mechanoreceptors, a specific cranial nerve, or nuclei in the brainstem
and yet they summarize it as "plausibly explains", same as with EMF
Lots of diplomats visit my local, due to its "friendly" opening hours (and for business-development attaches, one of their points of contact living only 2 doors away). There's a much simpler explanation for some of the "strange" experiences, and it ain't nothing to do with the dodgy Russians and their embassy only 4 doors away.
I can't say I've heard of Rep. Crawford; wikipedia implies that he is cluster-adjacent:Congress to Examine U.S. Spy Agencies’ Work on Havana Syndrome
The House Intelligence Committee is investigating how U.S. spy agencies examined cases of Havana syndrome, a potential challenge by Congress to their conclusions about the mysterious illnesses.
At the beginning of the Biden administration, intelligence agencies began a push to determine the causes of the anomalous health incidents, the government’s term for Havana syndrome. As a result of that work, intelligence agencies concluded that environmental causes, undiagnosed medical conditions or stress, rather than a sustained global campaign by a foreign power, had caused most of the ailments.
But the House investigation will look at the spy agencies’ analysis and the integrity of their work. The inquiry, depending on what it discovers and concludes, could reopen the debate over the causes of Havana syndrome, which quieted after the intelligence community said it was not the result of an adversarial country.
[...]
The House committee announced the investigation in a letter sent to Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, on Thursday. In the letter, Representative Rick Crawford, Republican of Arkansas, said the inquiry would examine “allegations of improper suppression” of information related to the incidents between intelligence agencies and between the executive branch and Congress.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Crawford_(politician)In December 2020, Crawford was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated[24] Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of an election held by another state.[25][26][27]
Article: Russian nexus revealed during 60 Minutes Havana Syndrome investigation into potential attacks on U.S. officials
Greg Edgreen, a now-retired Army lieutenant colonel who ran the Pentagon investigation into what officials refer to as "anomalous health incidents," told 60 Minutes he believes U.S. officials are being attacked by Russia and that the official threshold to prove it was set impossibly high because the country doesn't want to face some very hard truths, like the existence of possible failures to protect Americans.
Edgreen said the officers targeted were top performers.
"And consistently there was a Russia nexus," he said. "There was some angle where they had worked against Russia, focused on Russia, and done extremely well."
Mark Zaid, "Carrie's" attorney who holds a security clearance, has more than two dozen clients suffering symptoms of Havana Syndrome. He said victims include members of the CIA, State Department and FBI.
"The one thread that I know of with the FBI personnel that is common among most, if not all, of my clients other than the family members connected to the employee, was they were all doing something relating to Russia," Zaid said.
If it is Russia, [Christo] Grozev believes Russian intelligence unit 29155 is involved. Grozev has a long track record of uncovering Russian documents and reveals he found one that may link the 29155 unit to a directed energy weapon. It's a piece of accounting. A 29155 officer received a bonus for work on "potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapons..."
"It's the closest to a receipt you can have for this," Grozev said.
There's also evidence 29155 may have been present in Tbilisi, Georgia when Americans reported incidents there. Grozev believes members of 29155 were there to facilitate, supervise, or possibly personally implement attacks on American officials using an acoustic weapon.
Sources have told 60 Minutes that an investigation centered on Russian Albert Averyanov, whose name appears on travel manifests and phone records alongside known members of 29155. He's also the son of the unit's commander.
Incidents began in Tbilisi the day after a phone call, which was intercepted. Sources said a man on the call asked in Russian: "Is it supposed to have blinking green lights?" and "should I leave it on all night?"
The next day, a U.S. official, their spouse, and their child were hit. That same week, the wife of a Justice Department official, who asked "60 Minutes" to withhold her name over safety concerns, was blindsided by a sound in her laundry room in Tbilisi on Oct. 7, 2021.
"And it just pierced my ears, came in my left side, felt like it came through the window, into my left ear," she said.
She had a piercing headache and projectile vomited.
Afterward, she looked at the security camera and spotted a vehicle outside she didn't recognize. There was also a man nearby. 60 Minutes sent a photo of Averyanov to the woman, who said it "absolutely" looks like the man she spotted outside.
Grozev found Averyanov's phone was turned off during the Tbilisi incidents, and sources say there's evidence someone in Tbilisi logged into Averyanov's personal email during this time. Grozev believes this was most likely Averyanov himself—placing him in the city.
This month, the National Institutes of Health reported results of brain scans on patients with symptoms. NIH said there's no evidence of physical damage. For its part, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says the injuries suffered by victims are probably the result of "preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses and environmental factors."
But Zaid, who's representing more than two dozen anomalous health incident clients, said he doesn't believe the entire story is in the U.S. intelligence assessment. Zaid said he knows of classified information that undermines or contradicts what's been said publicly.
Article: Microwave weapons that could cause Havana Syndrome exist, experts say
Portable microwave weapons capable of causing the mysterious spate of “Havana Syndrome” brain injuries in US diplomats and spies have been developed by several countries in recent years, according to leading American experts in the field.
A US company also made the prototype of such a weapon for the marine corps in 2004. The weapon, codenamed Medusa, was intended to be small enough to fit in a car, and cause a “temporarily incapacitating effect” but “with a low probability of fatality or permanent injury”.
There is no evidence that the research was taken beyond the prototype phase, and a report on that stage has been removed from a US navy website. Scientists with knowledge of the project said that ethical considerations preventing human experimentation contributed to the project being shelved – but they said such consideration had not hindered US adversaries, including Russia, and possibly China.
Sceptics of the microwave weapon theory have pointed to decades of US efforts to build such a device during the cold war and since, without any confirmed success. They have also argued that a weapon capable of inflicting brain injury from a distance would be too unwieldy to use in urban areas.
However, James Lin, the leading US authority on the biological impact of microwave energy, said a large apparatus would not be needed to focus energy on a small area, heating it a minute amount and causing “a thermoelastic pressure wave” that travels through the brain, causing damage to soft tissue.
The pressure wave would initially be experienced by the target as sound.
“You can certainly put together a system in a couple of big suitcases that will allow you to put it in a van or an SUV,” Lin, professor emeritus in the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Illinois, said. “It’s not something that you need to have enormous amounts of space or equipment to do it.”
The microwave weapon project for the US Marine Corps, first reported in Wired, was first developed by a company called WaveBand Corporation. WaveBand’s former president and CEO, Lev Sadovnik, said that a device capable of causing Havana Syndrome symptoms could be relatively portable. “It’s quite conceivable that you can hide it in a car, or in a van but it would not work over a long distance,” he said. “You can do it through a wall, say, if you are in the next room in a hotel.”
Something like that works well in fiction, but in reality, it sounds like someone looked through call logs for something to use, without being interested what it actually refers to—could be as simple as a Russian phoning his mom on how to operate a joghurt maker. We don't know because there is no context: the context is implied by juxtaposing it to "the next day" when someone "was hit", for which there is no evidence.
Is there a date on this? Because to me, this is evidence that there were no actual capabilities of such weapons at this date.
If they werd stationed in Cuba or Georgia, that's pretty much a given.
Article: Key Points
Question Can a systematic evaluation using quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) metrics identify potential brain lesions in patients who have experienced anomalous health incidents (AHIs) compared with a well-matched control group?
Findings In this exploratory study that involved brain imaging of 81 participants who experienced AHIs and 48 matched control participants, there were no significant between-group differences in MRI measures of volume, diffusion MRI–derived metrics, or functional connectivity using functional MRI after adjustments for multiple comparisons. The MRI results were highly reproducible and stable at longitudinal follow-ups. No clear relationships between imaging and clinical variables emerged.
Meaning In this exploratory neuroimaging study, there was no significant MRI-detectable evidence of brain injury among the group of participants who experienced AHIs compared with a group of matched control participants. This finding has implications for future research efforts as well as for interventions aimed at improving clinical care for the participants who experienced AHIs.
Article: Key Points
Questions Do US government officials and their family members involved in anomalous health incidents (AHIs) differ from control participants with respect to clinical, biomarker, and research assessments?
Findings In this exploratory study that included 86 participants reporting AHIs and 30 vocationally matched control participants, there were no significant differences in most tests of auditory, vestibular, cognitive, visual function, or blood biomarkers between the groups. Participants with AHIs performed significantly worse on self-reported and objective measures of balance, and had significantly increased symptoms of fatigue, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression compared with the control participants; 24 participants (28%) with AHIs presented with functional neurological disorders.
Meaning In this exploratory study, there were no significant differences between individuals reporting AHIs and matched control participants with respect to most clinical, research, and biomarker measures, except for self-reported and objective measures of imbalance; symptoms of fatigue, posttraumatic stress, and depression; and the development of functional neurological disorders in some.
Their symptoms sound a hell of a lot worse than stress. The woman who was injured in Tbilisi had holes in her inner ear canal, and two surgeries put metal plates in her skull. The victims describe projectile vomiting, passing out, and never being the same again. They also say their electronics were affected at the same time, which suggests high power microwaves rather than ultrasound.
Article: "One of the arguments that came out from researchers around the Havana Syndrome issue was that this is psychosomatic, that people are hearing of these symptoms, they're stressed, they're nervous. It's a normal reaction," Rey told 60 Minutes Overtime.
"One of the things that dissuaded us of that was the fact that children were getting... bloody noses [and] bleeding from the ear. There were seizures happening in children. And then pets reacting to noises or pressures that people were feeling at the same time."
The date is claimed to be March 22nd, 2021 for the e-mail.
What about their inner ears? Seems like a more obvious place to look.
It looks as if the top right date is 2017, (edit to add: it's the custom in a lot of countries to write a seven with a slash through the stem) and the one below it is 2018, perhaps reflecting the dates of the initial incident and the later report of conclusions.
Top right is 26th December 2017It looks as if the top right date is 2017, (edit to add: it's the custom in a lot of countries to write a seven with a slash through the stem) and the one below it is 2018, perhaps reflecting the dates of the initial incident and the later report of conclusions.
The Havana syndrome dates back to at least 2016. The document just proves that unit 29155 that's known for poisoning people was also developing a nonlethal acoustic weapon.
They did test hearing and the vestibular system
