Intelligence Agencies Nearing Consensus on Havana Syndrome Cause

Washington, DC (WorkersCompensation.com) – More intelligence community agencies and individuals are coming to the consensus that Havana Syndrome may be the work of a foreign adversary.

Havana Syndrome, the debilitating ailment that has stuck employees in the U.S. State Department and U.S. Defense Department at posts all over the world, has impacted federal employees since 2016. Largely written off by intelligence agencies as pre-existing conditions or mass hysteria, the syndrome has continued to impact dozens of federal employees to the extent that legislation was passed in 2021 to compensate each victim up to $187,300 for “injury to the brain.”

The ailment leaves those afflicted with ringing ears, nausea, fatigue, headaches, dizziness and cognitive difficulties, among other things. Officials working at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba reported unexplained symptoms in 2016. The federal employees said they experienced strange and high- and low-frequency sounds, or feeling like they’ve been hit by an invisible blast wave. The U.S. government refers to the incidents as “Anomalous Health Incidents.”

Since then, the incidents have spread to embassies all over the world, including China, Austria and Serbia. As a result of these health incidents, some diplomats and intelligence officers have left active service. The majority of the reports of Havana Syndrome occur in employees in the CIA and U.S. State Department serving overseas, but the illnesses and injuries have affected personnel in other agencies, including the U.S. Departments of Defense and Commerce.

While there is no consensus on what causes the syndrome, an expert committee from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that directed pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy appears to be the most plausible cause, but that it could also have been caused by ultrasound, pesticides, or mass psychogenic illness.

In 2023, after a two-year investigation, seven U.S. intelligence agencies told the Washington Post there was “no credible evidence” that any foreign adversary to the U.S. possessed a weapon capable of causing the syndrome, and that the illnesses and injuries were more probably caused by pre-existing conditions, conventional illnesses and environmental factors.

Last year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in its 2024 threat assessment, found that it was “unlikely” a foreign adversary was responsible for the attacks, but noted that U.S intelligence agencies varied in their levels of confidence over that assessment.

“It has been the broad conclusion of the intelligence community since March 2023 that is unlikely a foreign adversary is responsible for these anomalous health incidents,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in an April 1 press conference. “It’s something that the intelligence community has investigated extensively and continues to look at. We will look at new information as it comes in and make assessments inside the State Department and with our intelligence community.”

But that may be changing. New information has prompted the intelligence community to adjust their findings, a new report in the Atlantic suggests. New information from senior officials at the White House seems to point to the real possibility that a previously unknown weapon used by a foreign adversary could be the cause behind the mysterious syndrome.

New information from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence led to the release of an update to a previous report. Officials now say that they aren’t saying a foreign actor IS to blame for the mysterious ailments, but that they are no longer confident that one of our adversaries is NOT behind the attacks.

Two intelligence agencies are now shifting “their judgment to reflect a greater possibility” that some of the cases were “caused by a foreign actor,” an intelligence official said according to the Atlantic, and that the agencies have looked at new information regarding “foreign actors” making progress in “scientific research and weapons development.”

The intelligence official said that information now indicates the chances a foreign actor had used a new type of weapon to harm a small number of federal employees or their family members is “roughly even” with the chance that one had not.

In December, U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) issued a report after an investigation by the House Intelligence Committee that intelligence agencies believe foreign adversaries are targeting U.S. personnel.

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