A spokesperson for the Pentagon has confirmed {that a} senior official from the USA had reported signs similar to so-called Havana Syndrome after attending final 12 months’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Sabrina Singh made the announcement to reporters on Monday, a day after a gaggle of reports retailers pointed to hyperlinks between the mysterious ailment and alleged Russian operatives.
“I can affirm {that a} senior DOD [Department of Defense] official skilled signs much like these reported in anomalous well being incidents,” Singh stated.
Studies of Havana Syndrome stretch again to 2016, when US embassy workers in Havana, Cuba, began to report unexplained signs together with ringing ears, migraines, vertigo and cognitive dysfunction.
Different cases involving diplomats with related signs have since been reported elsewhere, together with in China and Austria.
Consultants have been making an attempt to decide what could have prompted the signs, with some speculating that overseas adversaries may have directed power waves on the diplomats to trigger their illnesses.
Nevertheless, in 2023, the US intelligence neighborhood concluded that it was “impossible” {that a} “overseas adversary is accountable” for the reported circumstances.
Nonetheless, a information investigation launched on Sunday raised questions on whether or not Russia was certainly concerned within the mysterious well being incidents — and whether or not the US authorities has been too fast to dismiss doable hyperlinks.
The report was the product of a joint investigation by the US information present 60 Minutes, the German newspaper Der Spiegel and The Insider, an investigative information outlet focussed on Russia.
It highlighted proof suggesting that members of a Russian navy unit identified by the quantity 29155 had been current a number of instances when US officers reported signs in step with Havana Syndrome.
The Insider reporter Christo Grozev stated he discovered paperwork displaying a member of the 29155 unit obtained a bonus for engaged on the “potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapons”.
The Insider additionally indicated that the purported assaults could have began years earlier than the signs had been detected in Havana. It pointed to incidents in November 2014 in Frankfurt, Germany, when US consulate officers reported related signs.
The Russian authorities denied the studies on Monday, calling them “baseless” and “unfounded”.
“This isn’t a brand new matter in any respect. For a few years, the subject of the so-called Havana Syndrome has been exaggerated within the press,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated.
“However nobody has ever revealed or expressed any convincing proof of those unfounded accusations anyplace.”
Final month, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, a US authorities company, discovered no proof of mind accidents or different “organic abnormalities” in authorities staff allegedly stricken with Havana Syndrome.
But it surely did word that “these signs are very actual, trigger vital disruption within the lives of these affected and might be fairly extended, disabling and troublesome to deal with”.
Chatting with the present 60 Minutes, a counterintelligence agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation — recognized solely by her first title, Carrie — described her expertise coping with Havana Syndrome in Florida.
“It was like a dentist drilling on steroids,” she stated. “It was like a high-pitched, metallic drilling noise, and it knocked me ahead — like a 45-degree angle.”
In 2021, the US Congress handed the Serving to American Victims Bothered by Neurological Assaults (HAVANA) Act to offer compensation for presidency staff affected by signs associated to the mysterious well being incidents.
Additionally on Monday, White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefly addressed the studies, reaffirming that the administration of President Joe Biden would proceed to push for sources to examine the supply of the signs.
“We’ve got taken this very critically,” she stated, whereas deferring particular inquiries to the intelligence neighborhood.
“We’re going to proceed to stress the significance of prioritizing, ensuring that personnel are protected. And we’re going to do the whole lot that we will. That is one thing that this president believes is vital,” she added.
“Look, we’re going to proceed to do a complete examination of the results right here that we’re seeing and the potential causes of AHI [anomalous health incidents].”
