My theory is a Conspiracy Theory, sort of.

Anti-Cuban political forces in USA were outraged when Obama opened an embassy in Cuba. They want the relations to cool down. They could simply have Donald Trump close the embassy without any reason whatsoever. Just because blah blah. But someone wants a "reason". Then a reason is created. Usually US-fabricated "reasons" to punish any country are very different in nature. Why would they resort to a story as bizarre as this, Idunno. But nevertheless, my theory is that CIA is either behind the fake story, or with some technology behind the symptoms. Motive: To get a pretext for closing down the embassy, which the dark smiling guy unfortunately opened. Possible techniques: Find staff that have weird health disorders, and send them to Cuba. Or ask CIA agents to describe weird health disorders, which they actually don't have, it is just stories that their superiors told them to tell, as a service to their country. Or the least likely explanation: CIA has a method of producing these effects, without anyone else being able to detect the method. Mix small blue pills in the morning coffee of the staff?

sick building syndrome.

It doesn't seem to fit the symptoms: "Most of the complainants report relief soon after leaving the building." Also not centered on the bed.


Has the gender of the afflicted been mentioned anywhere?

Yes, it is! :)
Motive? Yes, definitely1), but apart from that …

1) I mean, who wouldn't object to this?

Mass psychogenic illness, maybe?

Exactly. How does a doctor verify 'hearing loss' independent of the patients reporting?

Normal hearing tests use tones where the patient raises their hand when they can hear it. To really determine it, they'd have to look at how the brain itself responds to sound, independent of what the person says they can/cannot hear.

Why is there this desperate need to discredit reports by the employees' own union? There are U.S. embassies in almost every country in the world, including numerous hellholes and multiple war zones. Havana would be an easy gig, combining the prestige of opening an important new embassy with the comfort of a tropical island and the close proximity to home. Staffers can fly back to the U.S. every weekend if they feel like it. Why would they imagine something like this in Cuba, but not Iraq, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Angola, Venezuela, etc., etc.?

And at least one Canadian diplomat reported similar symptoms. What's his/her motive?

I'm not so sure. I think that it would take a lot of training to be able to fake loss of hearing. When I was tested as part of conscription by the Danish army back in the mid 1980s (when I wasn't nearly as hard of hearing as I am now: I was deemed fully able to serve!), they seemed to be convinced that I wasn't faking my deficient hearing even though I didn't try to hide the fact that I didn't want to join the army under any circumstances.

Mass hysteria is almost always limited to "affecting members of a cohesive group" (Stacko's quotation above)

How similar? Loss of hearing? Remember: Me too! But I don't think that the Cubans had anything to do with it in my case.

That link led me to this: Hysterical Contagion which seems to fit the events.

So, are there secondary benefits here? Yes!
In addition to the caring attention, there is a transfer back to the US, time off, potential disability checks, and even just the importance of being 'chosen'. Any others you can think of?

Undoubtedly, some of those 'affected' are simply opportunists. (even if the attacks had merit!)

However, remember the case of 600 men (or maybe only 119) in San Diego, 1988.

That would depend very much on your career plans and ambitions!

It could have happened in any embassy where such an attack seemed plausible. If the first reports are taken seriously, the others follow.
The rest are more like a placebo effect when the phenomena is given some credibility.

True. I posted yesterday "They will find the source to be a lower level staffer with no prospects for advancement. "

The top diplomats, such as the Ambassador, are unlikely to be one of the affected.

That's my prediction anyway!!

People join the Foreign Service -- and getting in isn't easy -- because they want to do the work. It's a prestigious job, and the people sent to Havana would be among the most experienced in the State Dept. Nobody got there by accident. Anybody who wants to get out can find a better job -- or at least an easier job -- elsewhere in government or private industry pretty much any day of any week.

And if all these people are faking or imagining their symptoms for selfish motives, why would doctors and senior bosses, including the Secretary of State and the President, support them and even consider changing U.S. policy because of them?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/u...a-embassy.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/top-u-s...ealth-attacks/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/some-u-...-records-show/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/w...s-illness.html

Psychology Today medical sociologist weighs in:

There are plenty of reasons to think this is hysteria. Hysteria is a real thing and having experience with it I can tell you the evidence in this case has not yet been confirmed beyond people believing something is wrong with them.

Hysteria need not only occur to people in a single location. The mold hysteria went on in multiple buildings.

Show me the medical reports documenting consistent significant clinical findings in these people and I'll reassess my position.

I've gone through this more than once. In one case a lot of employees complained of a rash, scratchy throats and headaches in one hospital department. So we started an investigation. Not one person had an actual rash. People would point to normal skin and say they saw a rash. No one had actual throat inflammation. People do that, hysteria is a real phenomena.

Link to these medical reports?

As for hearing loss, you'd have to rule out aging and other causes of tinnitus.

I understand how real this sounds to people. The reporters were convinced and wrote the articles with that conviction. That doesn't make it real.

I'm sticking with 1% chance this is more than hysteria.

No it isn't. It depends on what the medical clearance is for. Fire fighters get hearing tests because they are exposed to loud noise. Nurses don't. I don't know why a diplomat would need a hearing test.

Well that's a loaded assumption.

I don't have a desperate need, I have medical and occupational health experience and knowledge.

You have news reports and people who believe they have symptoms.

The definition of a "cohesive group" may not be as confined and homogenous as you think.

Mold Hysteria: Origin of the Hoax Science Versus Hysteria To this day people believe mold in your walls is deadly. There are mold abatement companies. People have won lawsuits, buildings torn down.

Yet the evidence of harm is seriously lacking.

Why would senior bosses believe? Because people believe this stuff.

As for the doctors, I think you'd have to look at the specifics. If a patient comes in and tells me all their symptoms, I'm not going to report the patient was lying. And they probably aren't. The medical history I write up will list all their reported symptoms. Then I'll note clinical findings. I may or may not make a diagnosis but the way medical billing is today, you must put something down in order to be reimbursed. So I might code the visit as hearing loss even though it is only a subjective complaint.

I currently have an undiagnosed autoimmune condition. My mouth is inflamed. One of my doctors coded it as gingivitis which caused the insurer to reject the claim calling it dental. It's not dental, it's autoimmune. It's not just the gingiva, it's my entire mouth: tongue, throat, lips, palate and gingiva. I have other symptoms as well. It took the physician changing the coding and talking to the insurer to get it straightened out. In the meantime, I don't have a diagnosis, no one knows what it is.

Bottom line, you don't know what those doctors really found unless you look more closely.

The big question remains as to why the US Gov't is playing up these 'attacks' and making actual changes against Cuba without evidence? Does it serve some purpose?
Maybe it does. See this NY Times article from last November.

I can almost see the logic of using the story to threaten a roll back and obtain a better deal with Cuba - or revert back totally. But isn't it terribly risky to use a conspiracy theory that doesn't make sense for this purpose?

It's simpler than that. Unless they had a hearing test prior to their posting there would be no way to objectively determine if the hearing loss happened during the posting, or indeed if there had even been a hearing lost.

What desperate need to discredit? I'm just being skeptical of something we have scant knowledge of and of something for that would require an unknown mechanism.

You're right.
I had been interpreting the one claim of 'permanent hearing loss' to mean someone became deaf, which you could test with the brain, but that isn't really what it means. Any level of hearing loss could be labeled as 'permanent'.

I don't think that the definition is "confined and homogenous."
In Denmark there has been widespread distrust of the HPV vaccine - probably due to girls from all regions of the country meeting online and persuading each other that their various symptoms (in some cases real) were caused by the vaccine. (Very similar to the autism scare.) One of the doctors, now retired, who sided with them is convinced that they couldn't possibly have been inspired by other girls' stories, probably because he's not aware how young people communicate online these days (or even in this millennium), but a journalist found discussions about this, for instance on an internet forum for young girls who are into horses.

Great article!

With this Administration!? You must be kidding!!!

The author makes this statement:
Is that true? We know there are sounds at frequencies that are below or above the normal range of human hearing. Children hear tones at higher frequencies than most adults. Could a tone emitted at a frequency -- high or low -- that can't be heard still be broadcast at a volume -- a decibel level -- that would cause damage to the structures of the ear, or that would cause other physical symptoms? The energy would still strike the body, even if the subject couldn't hear it.

I wouldn't be so quick to say "If I can't hear it, it's not there." I'm not sure a sociologist, as opposed to a physicist or an occupational health scientist, is the guy to ask about this.

OK, then I can hear aliens!

Could you present us with a recording of these alleged noises? You are aware that so far we have seen only conjecture and anecdotal evidence, right?

From The Guardian article: They go on to say: Really? Or did the US acknowledge the claims that something had been used on these people? There's a difference. The article like the other news sources make it sound like the US has officially acknowledged awareness of a weapon. That's not what I see has actually occurred. But I can guarantee you that given how the news worded the story, it will forever be believed by some people that governments have a secret sonic weapon.

Get out the tin foil hats folks, we're going to need them. :p

Here's a typical finding in hysteria that is in the Guardian story, a red flag: Again the Guardian reports the story as if physicians have confirmed some weapon caused injury: That does not mean the physicians confirmed a sonic weapon caused the medical findings.

Back to the physics: I'm going to lower that 1% chance of actual weapon caused injuries here to .0000001%.

Governments do have sonic weapons. But they're not secret.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_R...coustic_Device

And that is the subject of debate. The U.S. government says these people suffered injuries; it has not stated a specific cause, let alone claimed that they were deliberately assaulted by Cuba. There has been some speculation that there could have been some kind of malfunctioning eavesdropping device, but nobody has really explained how that could work.

That's not a weapon intended to injure, it's not secret and it's a red herring in this discussion. It's a fancy loudspeaker to drive crowds to disperse.

No, the news media reported the people claimed they were injured and the US is investigating.

Besides, if Trump did believe it so what? He's an Alex Jones fan. :rolleyes:

What? Do you think media reports came first? That this didn't happen until "the news media" said so? That's really not the way it works. The media finally reported what had been happening for months.

Heres one of the first reports:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/w...s-illness.html

Let's divide a bit of this up into facts, politics, media reports and the actual medicine/science.

Re the media: I've already noted a lot of what is being reported in the media is being stated as if it were fact, when that is not established. It is a fact these employees believe they have symptoms and believe some secret weapon caused it. It is not a fact that is what actually occurred.

Re the facts: If it were a real weapon with real injuries the injuries would be more consistent between victims. The theoretical physics of the device and the damage would be explicable even if the weapon itself was not known. That is also not the case.

Re the politics: You are putting too much stock in Trump/Tillerson et al. If they go along with the CT, honestly is that a surprise? They have no reason to deny the CT given Trump's base believes it and there is a benefit in making Cuba out to be evil.

You know that. Your POV of Trump is close to mine. Trump et al claiming Cuba has an evil weapon doesn't mean they actually do. Notice Trump et al cannot point to the weapon and they are being iffy about who they are accusing. All signs the adults in the US government are not convinced there is a weapon.

The medical/science: The symptoms fit hysteria, they are all over the map. There are no physics to explain such a weapon.


I can guarantee you the mystery will never be solved because it is hysteria and no officials are likely to call it that, including the physicians. The docs will say the patients have [symptoms] and we have no diagnosis. That's what you do for hysteria. Telling the patient they have not been injured by sonic waves or whatever is not a productive method of addressing patient concerns.

It's also likely one of more of the 21 people will file for workers' comp claiming chronic disability.

It's also more likely federal employees will have problems like this because of the management problems created by the Trump administration, no support, unfilled positions, big changes not all people cope well with. It's workers' comp case management 101: people unhappy at work miss more work and file more claims.

Also, notice NO TWEETS. If Trump was told that there was a decent chance of it being true, there would be tweets!!

Yes. I think more than just 'unhappy' and starting before he was sworn in. Let's look at when it started. Reports state "late last year". What was happening back in, oh, let's say, November/December timing?

Imagine you have been working on the 'open Cuba' policy plans, perhaps even before arriving at the new embassy. It was a tough road but things are happening and the future looks secure....as long as Hillary wins. Which she totally will, so no problem, right?
Trump had stated he would close the Embassy down until the US got a better deal. He would reverse Obama's changes.
I'm sure it was discussed how truly awful it could get for staff in Cuba before (and if) it did close- but that wasn't not likely to happen, right?

Then, it happened. :jaw-dropp

Then, the first symptoms started.

Coincidence?

That's a more elaborate conspiracy theory than we would expect even from the White House. But here's the question: Why would FSOs who support the Cuba thaw give the incoming administration a reason to shut down the embassy by blaming the Cuban government for something it didn't do? How does that advance their goals?