Havana Syndrome Report Suggests Causes Are Benign

More than 1,500 US government employees have reported cases of so-called Havana Syndrome since late 2016, and a new US intelligence report has concluded their illness didn't come at the hands of a foreign entity. "We cannot tie a foreign adversary to any incident," a US intelligence official tells the Wall Street Journal, echoing what's stated in a report that was years in the making and produced by seven intelligence agencies. The Washington Post reports five of those agencies deemed it "very unlikely" a foreign adversary was behind the symptoms; one agency said it was "unlikely," and one declined to make a conclusion.

But per the report, US intelligence agencies were unable to find any "credible evidence" that any foreign adversary has a weapon or intelligence collection device that could be responsible for symptoms that include a ringing in the ears, nausea, and pressure in the head. Officials the Post spoke with say that when clusters of cases were reviewed, no "common set of conditions" emerged. In some instances, there was no "direct line of sight" to the US personnel that would have enabled use of a hypothetical energy weapon. In some cases, the US found adversarial governments internally expressed confusion about the allegations and suspicions that Havana syndrome was an American plot, reports the AP.

As such, the agencies suspect the symptoms resulted from a combination of benign factors: existing medical conditions, conventional illnesses, malfunctioning air conditioning and ventilation systems, or electromagnetic waves coming from harmless devices like a computer mouse. The Guardian notes the findings run counter to what an expert panel determined in 2022: that pulsed electromagnetic energy and ultrasound could be causing the sometimes debilitating symptoms.

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CIA Director William Burns stressed that "I want to be absolutely clear: these findings do not call into question the experiences and real health issues that U.S. government personnel and their family members—including CIA's own officers—have reported while serving our country. We will continue to remain alert to any risks to the health and wellbeing of Agency officers, to ensure access to care, and to provide officers the compassion and respect they deserve." (The doctor studied Havana Syndrome, then says he got it himself.)