It kills, just very slowly.
Hmmm, are we sure the people who came back from Cuba are the exact same people who went to Cuba?
Brings to mind the parkinsons disease cluster which apparently caused Michael J Fox’s condition.
Let’s not forget this earlier report by the same authors from March 2018:
Frequently ridiculed in the subsequent year and a half, for instance by Neuroskeptic.
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Of course, mass psychogenic illness is a possible explanation for what happened to the diplomatic staff. Of course, with so few cases of the syndrome and so little physical evidence, there is confusion and debate about what really happened.
I absolutely don’t mean to put you personally on the spot here, RickMycroft, but I’ve got an open question about this that I’ve asked in online forums before, and have not discovered any answer at all for.
Is there, even in principle, any way that “mass psychogenic illness” could be a scientific diagnosis in this case? Excuse my likely amateur abuse of terminology: Does the hypothesis that “Havana syndrome” is “just” mass psychogenic illness produce any testable predictions? If so, how does / did that shake out?
I’ve seen some people, especially relatively qualified people who are involved with medicine and brain research, react to the “radiation injury” version of this story with a surprising tone of derision. I absolutely appreciate that “maybe we were hit with a secret high-tech weapon” is not a scientific idea. But it seems to me that “it was just mass hysteria, you dummies” is less scientific than the people espousing that attitude realize.
Anyway, maybe I’m wrong, maybe mass psychogenic illness is scientific and supportable. Maybe someone can fill us all in.
Do not panic.
US diplomats in Cuba need to ingest marijuana ASAP.
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Yeah a sonic attack doesn’t seem likely as sound waves like all waves in most mediums follow the inverse square law. How would the Cubans been able to even do it without any sizable machine being obvious? Even if you used something that acted as a wave guide it still wouldn’t be easy to hide and then pack the punch necessary. Then there’s the sticking problem of why Cuba would do it. Even their most militant agencies would have no upside to doing this while they’re in the process of basically Sinocizing their economy (state capitalism basically). There’s no legitimate argument that can be made from the evidence for an un/intentional attack by the Cubans. It’s just Cold war hawks who can’t admit it’s not the Cold war anymore.
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That mysterious so-called “sonic attack” on US Embassy in Cuba shrunk the brains of American diplomats
your headline @frauenfelder, sounds like this were proven facts; its not, not the “attack”, nor the “brain-shrinking”, its still just bare assertion.
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That’s the thing about medical papers–access to the original datapoints is impeded by doctor-datapoint relationships and doctor-datapoint confidentiality.
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Heh. Psychology layman here. As I understand it, mass psychogenic illness can be the cause for a lot of things, but I don’t like it because it’s the default that’s left when everything else seems to be ruled out, rather than something you can test and prove.*
It’s worth keeping in mind as a possibility, but it’s the lazy explanation and shouldn’t stop the search for more evidence.
* some things like “WiFi allergy” can tested with a dummy WiFi router to see if they react, proving that it’s at least partially psychological.
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Shrunken brains? Didn’t know Trump was there.
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And why is the graphic of girls heads with pink brains? An odd choice.
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More accurate headline: “Belief in ‘Sonic Attack’ Causes Researches to Notice that US Ambassadors Have Small Brains”
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I thought that was prerequisite for the job - incipient brain shrinkage.
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That is a very good question.
The article. All science should be open
jama_verma_2019_oi_190071.pdf (1.1 MB)
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thanks, " a The Houston Academy of Medicine User"!
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You’re welcome. The Houston Academy of Medicine is the main library of the world’s largest medical campus, so I’ve doxed myself a lot worse
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Crickets? I heard it was swamp gas
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Nah, it was a sonic attack by… (dramatic music)… Anurogryllus celerinictus.
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Yeah a sonic attack doesn’t seem likely as sound waves like all waves in most mediums follow the inverse square law.
And yet sonic weapons programs do exist.
How would the Cubans been able to even do it
Well, if you want to go there, it almost certainly wouldn’t have been the Cubans. It would have been one of the several countries that operate in Cuba and are adversarial to the US.
