[HN Gopher] 5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana...
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5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome'
patients
Author : awnird
Score : 99 points
Date : 2024-03-18 16:07 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbc.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbc.ca)
| tokai wrote:
| The symptoms sounded like burnout from the beginning.
| Hypochondria is a common symptom of stress, depression, and other
| mental disorders. A scary and confusion symptom when one does not
| have tendencies for it normally. There isn't one clean piece of
| evidence for any energy weapon or attack hypothesis. It's about
| time the mass hysteria surrounding Havana syndrome is laid to
| rest.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This was another hysteria that was constantly government-
| fueled, and discussion of it completely disappeared once the
| people who met every morning to whiteboard how best to push it
| were assigned to other projects.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's very strange that the serious position is to pretend
| like this was an organic social phenomenon, an incident of
| mass psychology, and ignore the fact that it was always, as
| far as any science goes, a physically impossible proposition,
| entirely fueled by successive administrations _advocating_
| for it in every mainstream media outlet. This was another
| reason why Russia was a nation of comic book style evil
| geniuses that have to be stopped: a bond-style brain
| scrambling sound ray.
|
| Any sort of lesson learned that doesn't focus on the fact
| that _this was a fraud,_ not a mistake, was not a good lesson
| to learn. But instead of learning any lesson, people are
| going to just forget about it, and when reminded, still think
| that it really happened.
|
| That all the comments on this page are people saying that
| this syndrome - that has never been any definitive trace of,
| caused by a mystery sound weapon which we have no physical
| theory of how it would operate (only that at night it sounds
| just like crickets) - is actually still real and really
| happened, is shocking.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| why not both?
|
| covid is now proven both as lab leak and a convenient
| emergency for multiple ends /s?
| Mindless2112 wrote:
| This study isn't evidence against it.
|
| > _The NIH study, which began in 2018 and included more than 80
| Havana syndrome patients, wasn 't designed to examine the
| likelihood of some weapon or other trigger for Havana syndrome
| symptoms._
| tokai wrote:
| I know. I wrote "no evidence _for_ ".
| francisofascii wrote:
| While I agree there is not evidence of a weapon, I am not
| buying hypochondria. The amount of reports and the peculiarity
| of the hearing symptoms don't add up to hypochondria. Local
| environmental pathogens or chemicals could be a cause. Also,
| our ability to detect such pathogens or brain abnormalities is
| still very limited, so finding no abnormalities is not
| surprising.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Lots of reports and peculiar symptoms don't rule out
| psychogenic causes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness
|
| We had a case of it near us in upstate New York a few years
| back. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/magazine/teenage-
| girls-tw... (https://archive.is/EoY7e)
| kurthr wrote:
| Neither do they particularly support it.
|
| https://youtu.be/zy_ctHNLan8 -Benn Jordan video
|
| Lot's of people hear low pitched sounds, for decades, and
| it's been in the news. It must be psychosomatic... oops, we
| can measure it (~60dB), because we bothered to check.
| Where's it coming from? Don't know, but maybe NatGas
| pumping stations?
|
| Now, the reason I doubted that RF was causing this is that
| enough radio wave power to penetrate skulls at a distance
| would have been easily detected with some LEDs and short
| pieces of wire. The idea that there aren't wide band RF
| detectors in embassies strains credulity. You could put
| them in glasses trivially. I think it would take me 5
| minutes with a soldering iron and parts on hand, and be
| almost indetectable without examining the glasses.
| wnc3141 wrote:
| i wonder if there's legal precedent for management induced
| mental illness as other physical workplace hazards have
| bjourne wrote:
| The hysteria wouldn't even have started if it wasn't for the
| "top men" hypothesis. If women had experienced similar symptoms
| absolutely no one would have suggested sonic weapons over
| stress from overwork or other psychogenic factors. The
| underlying idea is that male diplomats with prestigious careers
| are highly-trained professionals or something and thus immune
| to outbreaks of mass hysteria. That clearly is not the case.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Chronic stress affects your brain though. It's common to find
| hippocampus abnormalities in burnout patients.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Yet sophisticated MRI scans detected no significant differences
| in brain volume, structure or white matter -- signs of injury or
| degeneration
|
| In case it wasn't clear: Neuroimaging can't visualize every
| possible problem. They performed one type of testing and didn't
| find anything.
|
| That's not the same as concluding that there are no problems.
|
| It should go without saying that a clean MRI isn't proof that
| other neurological symptoms aren't real, though I see some other
| commenters jumping to conclusions.
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| You can't for example see ME/CFS or Long Covid neural damage on
| a typical MRI but when you do autopsies you find a host of
| problems including complete viral RNA and intrusion of the
| immune system that shouldn't be there. Given the similar
| presentation of Havana syndrome to ME/CFS it would seem
| sensible to look for some of the similar markers of vascular
| brain damage with the process developed there by Jared Younger
| and we will likely find a similar type of brain abnormalities.
| Just because it doesn't appear on MRI doesn't mean its the only
| type of test that can be done to find abnormalities in the
| brain, there are a lot of possibilities for further tests in
| similar presentations of symptoms.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| Very unrelated but if anyone reading this is dealing with
| long covid/brain fog related symptoms, try famotidine
| (pepcid).
| treyd wrote:
| What's the justification for this recommendation? I find
| this really curious since I had some stomach acid issues
| that started during the pandemic (like, perhaps late 2020)
| that I _assumed_ were stress related. I don 't remember
| actually getting COVID in that time span (my uni was
| testing us every 3 days so I would have noticed if I had it
| around then). My primary care prescribed me famotidine for
| it in ~2022 which helped for a while. I still take it
| regularly but I did a 90 run of omeprazole last year.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002239
| 992...
| bsder wrote:
| Why?
|
| "However, studies have shown that famotidine is not
| effective in reducing mortality or improving recovery in
| COVID-19 patients.[38]" Borrell B (26 April 2020). "New
| York clinical trial quietly tests heartburn remedy against
| coronavirus". Science Magazine.
|
| A lot of Long Covid seems to be related to mitochondrial
| damage. You'd probably be better off getting some creatine
| (which is commonly available because weightlifters use it)
| and seeing if that helps. Creatine is at least well
| documented to improve mitochondrial funciton.
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| Because Mast cell activation syndrome is a common outcome
| and antihistamines can reduce the impact and gradually
| calm the gut inflammation process down and quite a lot of
| Long Covid patients feel better on it.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| I'm specifically referring to long covid neurological
| symptoms like brain fog. Not hospitalization rates,
| mortality, or whatever measure of recovery most studies
| of severe patients would be concerned with.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10229204/
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7786260/
| ineedaj0b wrote:
| I have heard you can see long Covid on an MRI. There will be
| more papers on it in the future
| tantalor wrote:
| Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's a pithy saying, but misused here.
|
| Not bothering to look into it would be "absence of evidence".
|
| Extensive looking into it and finding nothing much across
| many different people and many different scans by many
| different researchers is a form of evidence.
| instagib wrote:
| You can be scanned every way with different frequencies or
| methods and still not find a cause for migraines. Then find it
| can be stress, referred pain, or many other things.
|
| Use the medicines to fix many issues and the mechanism for its
| action is unknown yet produces a positive outcome. This
| affected a handful of people yet gets a lot of attention like
| shark attacks versus drowning.
|
| Any topics that are outside of the programming space are
| getting significantly worse for comments to where it's becoming
| a waste of time to refute them or even acknowledge that they
| are trolls.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Everyone who looked at Havana Syndrome when it came out with a
| critical eye realized immediately it was a BS story. Sonic
| weapons? Oh please.
|
| Thing is, this sort of thing happens all the time. A prominent
| and current example is cops and fentanyl. If you listen to cops,
| they will tell you that just being in the rom with fentanyl can
| be deadly, breathing it in can be deadly. I'm not sure where this
| started but it's become a problem because cmany people believe
| it, leading to cops having psychosomatic panic attacks at the
| prospect of fentanyl exposure [1]. This story has become so
| effective that many people disbelieve that it's BS or are
| surprised to learn it.
|
| So the intersting question is: what purpose do these sorts of
| stories serve?
|
| With fentanyl, it squarely fits into "copaganda", spreading the
| idea that being a police officer is super dangerous. Not-so-fun
| fact: it's more dangerous being married to a cop than it is being
| a cop (eg [2]).
|
| Another example of this is inflating the numbers of line-of-duty
| police officer deaths with Covid deaths, particularly because it
| includes officers who refused to get vaccinated [3].
|
| Fear of crime serves a political purpose. Crime is lower on
| pretty much every metric than it was 20-30 years ago where the
| last big panic set in the mandatory minimum mania and the
| carceral state exploded.
|
| So the obvious conclusion to draw from what purpose Havana
| Syndrome serves is either selling the story of how bad and
| dangerous Cuba is and/or how dangerous it is to be a foreign
| official (which is really a proxy for CIA).
|
| [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7492952/
|
| [2]:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-...
|
| [3]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/03/covid-
| police...
| immibis wrote:
| This sort of thing isn't unheard of. It's not like the USA
| wouldn't do the same to diplomats from other countries if it
| wanted to. It's not like every pair of nearby embassies and the
| host country don't have various radio beams pointed at each
| other all the time. You can easily imagine at least one simple
| possibility: Cuba replicated The Thing and is using a microwave
| beam to power it which is too strong.
| immibis wrote:
| Downvoters on this one should leave comments explaining why
| they disagree.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| >Crime is lower on pretty much every metric than it was 20-30
| years ago where the last big panic set in the mandatory minimum
| mania and the carceral state exploded.
|
| Crime was very high in the 1990s though and it's regulation
| wasn't from a sudden "panic" but a steady growth from 1950 as
| it climbed from 5 deaths by homicide per 100,000 in 1950 to
| 10.4 in 1980 and 9.4 in 1990.[0] If anything there is more
| "mania" about semiautomatic weapons which have contributed a
| minuscule amount to these deaths. But I don't think discussing
| either issue in terms of who has more mania is helpful in any
| event.
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2019/005-508.pdf (Table
| 5)
| janalsncm wrote:
| Homicides in the US today are 7.8/100k, which is still above
| the 1950 number. I wonder what accounts for the difference.
| Globally, the US has a higher rate than other countries
| likely due to guns, but it's not like guns were illegal in
| 1950.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Having an entire generation where most of the men got
| drafted into a World War tends to dampen people's
| enthusiasm for violence.
| tivert wrote:
| > Homicides in the US today are 7.8/100k, which is still
| above the 1950 number. I wonder what accounts for the
| difference. Globally, the US has a higher rate than other
| countries likely due to guns, but it's not like guns were
| illegal in 1950.
|
| Could it be an urban/rural thing? I'm sure the US
| population was proportionally _far_ more rural /small town
| in 1950 than today (on clear display from so many small
| towns depopulating).
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| The murder rate went up by 22% in 2020[0] but it had went
| down back to the 5 range in the 2010s. Here's the full
| chart from that PDF. 1950 | 1960 | 1970 |
| 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2017 | 2018 5.1
| | 5.0 | 8.8 | 10.4 | 9.4 | 5.9 | 6.1 | 5.3 | 6.2 |
| 5.9
|
| >it's not like guns were illegal in 1950.
|
| true but even a murder rate of 5 is high compared to Europe
| and this is likely due in large part to guns largely being
| illegal there (except for Switzerland and seemingly also
| Finland)
|
| [0] https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer
| /crim...
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > Everyone who looked at Havana Syndrome when it came out with
| a critical eye realized immediately it was a BS story.
|
| There is a lot of bullshit around it, sure, but no one seem to
| dispute the reality of the symptoms. It may be psychosomatic,
| and I honestly think it is the most likely explanation, but it
| doesn't solve the problem. If diplomats in Cuba went crazy,
| then why did they go crazy? Diplomats are people and I prefer
| when people don't get crazy.
|
| Somebody here suggested a form of burnout, fine, then why did
| people in Cuba burn out? Burnout is not BS, and maybe something
| has to be done about the work conditions. And maybe, with that
| knowledge, if similar symptoms appear elsewhere, it would be a
| good occasion to send an work inspector.
| speed_spread wrote:
| A possible source for the aiborne fentanyl story:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisi...
| edgyquant wrote:
| Using the 30 year statistic as proof there's no crime is
| extreme dishonesty. You're taking about the tail end of the
| crack epidemic which saw some of the worst crime in our nations
| history. Further, this is true on average but people in major
| cities have seen a rise in crime with a city like Seattle
| having its highest rates in a generation. Even cities like SF
| have not recovered to pre-Covid levels.
| someotherperson wrote:
| I'm waiting for it to turn out to be something stupid like highly
| lead-contaminated cutlery, furniture and other things. Or maybe
| some sort of pesticide or insecticide being sprayed on or around
| the building.
| roxgib wrote:
| Can't speak to pesticides, but lead would have been detected in
| blood tests
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| People like to believe in medical "certainty". This kind of
| headline is just a symptom of that. All this headline really
| means is that it has failed to find where the abnormalities are,
| but we translate not finding brain abnormalities, to there being
| none. This is why you need to be your own advocate when it comes
| to your health, you can't allow yourself to be talked down
| because some arbitrary test tells you you're not experiencing
| what you are. Unfortunately, most people only find this out the
| hard way.
| stonedge wrote:
| There was an episode of the German Krimi series Tatort yesterday
| that had a plot that centered around Havana Syndrome.
| richardgreeko84 wrote:
| > It's amazing how much, 30+ years after the end of the cold war,
| anti-communist propaganda is still such a fixture in mainstream
| Western media
|
| Why is this flagged? It's on topic and has some reasonable
| discussion attached to it.
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