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United States diplomats and intelligence officers suffering from the mysterious Havana Syndrome will receive six-figure payouts from the federal government.
The payouts for the stricken officials, ordered by the Biden Administration, will range between $100,000 and $200,000 to each recipient, according to a Washington Post report that outlined the compensation plan.
Symptoms for the mysterious condition – which first surfaced among staffers at the US embassy in Havana in 2016 and has since afflicted hundreds of Americans around the world – include headaches, tinnitus, memory loss and nausea.
The payments will reportedly go to those determined to have suffered the most significant setbacks, such as job loss or career derailment, as a result of the illness.
The news likely comes as a welcome reprieve for sufferers like Tina Onefur, Kate Husband, and Husband’s partner Doug Ferguson, all former workers at the US embassy in Havana – and some of the earliest known victims of the condition.
The vast majority of those stricken have been US diplomats, spies, and others employed by the government – spurring many to believe the disease is the work of a foreign entity, such as Russia.
The theory has put further pressure on the government – which largely ignored the rash of cases under former President Trump – to address the surge.
US diplomats said to be suffering from the mysterious disease – such as Tina Onefur, a State Department staffer stationed in Havana who can only work two days a week after coming down with the illness – will receive the six-figure payouts as compensation for their suffering
The reported payouts come as a welcome reprieve for sufferers like Kate Husband (at right), and Doug Ferguson (at left), who were working as diplomats at the Havana embassy when they felt symptoms. Husband was diagnosed with brain damage and had to retire as a result
However, the payment scheme does come as the result of a six-year effort by Congress to help address the rash of cases – which the government has labeled Anomalous Health Incidents, or AHIs.
Late last year, President Joe Biden took the first steps to creating a compensation plan for current and former officials suffering from the mysterious illness, signing into law a bill dubbed the Havana Act.
The guidance allowed diplomats and other federal officials suffering from traumatic neurological or brain injuries to be compensated by the government agencies such as the State Department and the CIA.
The six-figure payouts come as the culmination of that law.
The payouts for the stricken officials, ordered by the Biden Administration, will range between $100,000 and $200,000 to each recipient, and will go to those determined to have suffered job loss or career derailment as a result of the illness, it has been reported
Symptoms for the mysterious condition include headaches, tinnitus, memory loss and nausea. The majority of those stricken have been US diplomats, spies, and others employed by the government – spurring many to think the disease is the work of a foreign body such as Russia
Onefur, Husband, and Ferguson all started to experience symptoms synonymous with the disease shortly after cases first surfaced in the State Department building in late 2016.
Husband, who was forced to retire from the State Department after she and her partner fell ill with the disease in the winter of 2016, suffered from violent bouts of nausea, and a fogginess that makes even the most basic tasks difficult.
After experiencing those symptoms in the coming months, the couple was later examined by neurologists at the University of Pennsylvania.
In early 2017, Ferguson – whose symptoms were markedly more mild than Husband’s – was cleared to go back to work, but Husband was found to have experienced brain damage as a result of the illness.
Husband told Mitchell that during the diagnosis, a doctor told her, after analyzing scans of her brain, ‘it’s like you aged 20, 25 years all at once.’
The syndrome first surfaced at the US embassy in Havana, when government employees suddenly found themselves afflicted with the mysterious malady
She was forced to retire from her work for the State Department later that year, on the grounds of a medical disability.
Both say they still experience symptoms to this day.
‘I have verified physical injuries,’ Husband asserted in an interview with NBC late last year.
‘I spent about nine months trying to do my old job – little pieces of it a few hours a day,’ Husband, who worked as a diplomat, said, visibly emotional. ‘I feel sick all the time.’
Ferguson further insisted: ‘I want the viewers to understand that this is real.
‘This happened. This is happening.’
Onefur, meanwhile, a career foreign service officer who was stricken with symptoms while stationed at the embassy at the time, is still employed by the state department.
However, she can now only work two hours a day, from home, under physician’s orders, due to doctor-diagnosed brain damage.
She said she first felt symptoms associated with the disease while washing dishes one night in March 2017 at her home in Havana. Suddenly, she said, she found herself overcome with pain.
‘The kids were upstairs playing, and I was standing at the kitchen window, and all of a sudden I felt like I was being struck with something.’
When asked what the sensation felt like, Onefur said the pain was like nothing she had ever felt before in her life, and explained, ‘It was gripping – it was like I’d been seized by some invisible hand, and I couldn’t move.’
When asked by NBC how her health is today, Onefur, choking back tears, said that her symptoms were still as strong and prevalent nearly five years later.
‘It’s not easy to talk about our health because it’s an invisible injury,’ Onefur said.
‘It’s four-and-a-half years of of excruciating headaches, it’s four-and-a-half years of stumbling losing my balance, four-and-a-half years of vision degradation,’ Onefur said, breaking down in tears.
‘People don’t understand what this kind of brain damage can do to you.’
‘I work two hours a day if I’m lucky, remotely, here in our house.’
Alleged Havana Syndrome attacks on American spies and diplomats continue to grow across the world, with more than 1,000 suspected cases reported as of Thursday
US officials who spoke to the post said that the range of compensation has yet to be finalized, and could change as the regulation goes through the final stages of a mandated review process.
The leading theory behind the cause of the suddenly surfaced syndrome starts with a device that scientists say Russia could have invented during the Cold War, which was later used to spy on US embassies by collecting data from laptops and cell phones.
Experts have further theorized that a hostile country – such as Russia or China – may have turned this microwave technology into a weapon, one almost impossible to detect or diagnose.
Both countries deny any involvement in any of the incidents relating to the mysterious syndrome.
The White House has since taken measures to help Havana Syndrome sufferers, after Trump largely ignored the crisis, chalking the emerging cases up as mass psychosis.
Biden’s more pronounced approach will allow diplomats and other federal officials suffering from traumatic neurological or brain injuries to be compensated.
In November, a month after Biden signed the Havana Act the director of the CIA reportedly issued a bold warning to Russia’s two top intelligence agencies – the Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service -. saying that there will be ‘consequences’ if the US government finds out that they are behind the hundreds of suspected Havana Syndrome cases.
The original cluster of cases in Cuba have since burgeoned to more than 1,000, with the CIA and other agencies reviewing each instance on a case-by-case basis.
It comes as US officials had been somewhat slow to address the increasing number of cases, with FBI only acknowledged that some of its agents may be suffering from the syndrome in November, after one now ex staffer reportedly complained of symptoms.
According to the Biden Administration, the new program would also foot the bill for medical costs dealing with the condition – which the intelligence community has yet to figure out, and possibly launched by assailants it may not yet be able to identify.
Sufferers will also be offered blood tests to try and establish a baseline, and see if there is any pattern in how the condition affects sufferers.
US officials had been somewhat slow FBI only acknowledged that some of its agents may be suffering from the syndrome in November, after an ex staffer reportedly complained of symptoms.
As word of the compensation packages spread Thursday, some have reportedly expressed satisfaction over the payouts, while others have argued that the compensation range seems insufficient given the loss of future and past income for the victims.
The Biden Administration has yet to release a criteria for how it will determine eligibility for the payments. Officials are expected to release such details in the coming days, when the guidance is officially made public.
Current and former US officials – as well as their family – will all be eligible to make claims, those familiar with the plan told The Post.
The emergence of the new program comes as hard evidence for the strange syndrome has been incredibly hard to come by – causing many to be skeptical.
One medical sociology expert, Dr Robert Bartholomew, is so convinced the illness is a case of mass delusion, he co-authored a book titled Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria.
‘There is more evidence for Bigfoot than there is for Havana Syndrome,’ the US expatriate who is based at the University of Auckland, told Daily Mail Australia.
‘The evidence overwhelmingly points to mass hysteria, or as it is commonly referred to by scientists – mass psychogenic illness. Havana Syndrome is a result of incompetent government officials and bad science. I would go so far as to rename it Havana Syndrome Delusion – the absurd belief, in the wake of persistent evidence to the contrary, that diplomats are being targeted with an energy weapon.’
That lack of hard evidence cited by Dr. Bartholomew has made it difficult for officials to address the burgeoning crisis.
The White House is expected to announce the guidance in the coming days.
All in the mind? How the mysterious Havana Syndrome is a ‘global experiment in mass suggestion’ and NOT targeted attacks expert claims
Since Havana Syndrome emerged in late 2016, the US government has made the mysterious phenomenon an intelligence priority and spent tens of millions of dollars investigating potential microwave weapon attacks by foreign adversaries.
But medical sociology expert Dr Robert Bartholomew is so convinced it’s a case of mass delusion, he’s co-authored a book on it with Robert Baloh – Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria.
The unexplained illness, which was first recorded in Cuba, has since spread to US embassies across the world (and also some Canadian), with a reported 130 cases. Symptoms include hearing loss, severe headaches, memory issues, dizziness and brain injury.
The Embassy of the United States of America in Cuba, which is where Havana Syndrome was first allegedly encountered
Dr Bartholomew doesn’t mince his words. He means what he says and says what he means.
Katy Perry’s music was blasted by the Philippines government to break up a demonstration
‘There is more evidence for Bigfoot than there is for Havana Syndrome,’ the US expatriate who is based at the University of Auckland, told Daily Mail Australia.
‘The evidence overwhelmingly points to mass hysteria, or as it is commonly referred to by scientists – mass psychogenic illness. Havana Syndrome is a result of incompetent government officials and bad science. I would go so far as to rename it Havana Syndrome Delusion – the absurd belief, in the wake of persistent evidence to the contrary, that diplomats are being targeted with an energy weapon.’
He says it is possible to use noise as a weapon, just not in the way Havana Syndrome victims maintain it is.
‘In the Philippines, the government blasted Katy Perry music to break up a demonstration. Other than that, it doesn’t work very well because of the laws of physics.’
Dr Bartholomew says there are four theories as to what causes Havana Syndrome.
Sonic weapon
‘The first theory that popped up was that it’s a sonic weapon that used soundwaves to make people sick. This one is really far fetched because these people in Havana weren’t targeted in the embassy. They were targeted in their homes, and mainly in two big hotels. To target somebody in a huge hotel would defy the laws of physics – 99 per cent of the soundwaves would bounce off the outer wall. It just doesn’t work that way.’
Pesticides
‘The second explanation was that it was pesticides that were being sprayed to kill mosquitos that were carrying the Zika virus. The problem with that is, there’s no neurotoxin in the world that only affects American and Canadian diplomats and their families.’
Frey Effect
‘The third explanation is this microwave stuff, the Frey Effect [an auditory phenomenon where microwave or radio frequencies generate clicking sounds inside the head]. This gained popularity after the National Academy of Sciences came out with their report and said it could be the Frey Effect. But they weren’t sure. If you look closely at the report, it was just a guess. The person that identified the mechanism in the Frey Effect is Ken Foster at the University of Pennsylvania, he’s a bio-engineer. I contacted him and he said it’s definitely not the Frey Effect.’
Mass psychogenic illness
‘So you’re left with the only plausible explanation, which is mass psychogenic illness. The first people infected were intelligence officers on the same small station. This is a defining feature of mass psychogenic illness. It follows social networks and it usually begins in these small, cohesive groups and spreads outwards, and that’s exactly what happened. These people all belong to a common work environment. There’s a high degree of stress, they’re in a foreign country, they knew they were being surveilled 24/7. It’s a classic setup for mass hysteria.’
Dr Robert Bartholomew has written a book called Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria.
Dr Bartholomew says mass psychogenic illness has been around for centuries in various forms.
‘It used to be called mass or epidemic hysteria. In the past three or four decades it’s been called mass psychogenic illness. The phenomena has been around for millennia. There are clear cases dating back to the dancing mania of the middle ages and beyond. I have collected about 3,500 cases going back to the middle ages.
‘It started in a small CIA unit in Havana, Cuba in late 2016. And that’s exactly what you would expect from mass psychogenic illness. It starts in small, close-knit groups and then spreads from there, usually to people of lower status, which is exactly what happened here.
‘And so you have these CIA officers walking around near their houses, noticing that there are these strange sounds at night. And then one day, one of them felt unwell, felt they had dizziness, ear pain and they went to the clinic at the embassy and the guy made an observation that “You know, it was almost like somebody was pointing a device at my head”.’
This should have set off alarm bells in the medical community, but didn’t.
‘After that emerged, they heard from two other officers from the same unit, that they had heard these strange sounds as well. Then a theory emerged that they were being harassed with some secret weapon.’
It turns out there’s a long history of Cuban agents harassing American diplomats in Havana that went back decades.
‘All of the diplomats that were sent to the new embassy in Havana that opened in 2015 (after diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba were reinstated under President Barack Obama) had been briefed about it.
“Because during the Cold War, Cuban agents were notorious for harassing diplomats. They would sneak into their houses at night while they slept and throw dog poo on the floor, open up all the windows so you get mosquitos, all sorts of things.
‘So when they went over there they were paranoid. They were on the lookout for this stuff and they know they are being surveilled 24-7, so you’ve got this sense of anxiety already.’
Dr Bartholomew says belief in Havana Syndrome amounts to a ‘global experiment in mass suggestion’.
‘What’s happened is the (US) State Department issued a warning to their embassies all over the world, to diplomats and intelligence officers to be on the lookout for “anomalous health incidents” that may or may not be accompanied by strange sounds.
‘What do you think is going to happen? Now people all over the world are on alert for anything unusual in terms of health. People have mysterious health incidents all the time, or just health incidents in general.
‘So now it gets redefined as “Oh, it must be Havana Syndrome”.
Dr Bartholomew is fired up and passionate in his criticism of Havana Syndrome as a non-existent condition.
‘It’s a big waste of money, it’s an international wild goose chase that has wasted tens of millions of dollars by the US government, gotten people needlessly upset, wasted valuable time and resources during the pandemic and during a time in the world when we’re fighting global warming and this money could be used better elsewhere,’ he says.
‘All they had to do was follow the facts. The didn’t follow the facts. You can summarise this case in one sentence – When you hear the sounds of hoofbeats in the night, first think horses, not zebras.
‘The State Department looked for unicorns. They were going for the most exotic hypothesis, which was some kind of sonic weapon. Why in the world would you think you were being targeted by some kind of sonic weapon? Yes, some people heard noises, but the noises weren’t the same. There were high-pitched noises, there were low-pitched noises, they were all over the place.
‘They were all having ear pain. Well, it’s not uncommon to have hear noises and have popping sounds in your ear.’
But why is the US government wasting time, money and resources on Havana Syndrome? Part of the answer lies in an FBI report into the issue that has not been made public, but part of which has been leaked.
‘Honestly, I think they’ve figured it out,’ says Dr Bartholomew.
‘We know recently, from the leaked FBI report that they concluded that it was mass psychogenic illness. And I think intelligence agencies have figured this out. They know it’s mass hysteria.
‘But it’s embarrassing that over the last five years, under the Trump and now Biden administration, you’ve got the same individuals in these agencies who concluded that the sounds of crickets and cicadas were actually a secret weapon. It’s ridiculous and it’s embarrassing.
‘When this comes out, now it’s like “What are we going to do here?” They’ve painted themselves into a corner. Now after five years, to come out and say “Sorry, we misinterpreted insect sounds for some kind of secret foreign weapon, it’s going to be hugely embarrassing and it highlights their incompetence.’
The effects on white matter tract in the brain is one of the symptoms claimed for alleged victims of Havana Syndrome, but Dr Bartholomew says there is a far more benign explanation.
‘In December 2017 information was leaked to the media that doctors examining a number of Havana Syndrome patients had discovered significant white matter tract changes in their brain,’ he says.
The cover of Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria, by Robert Baloh and Robert Bartholomew, which is out now
But when the full report came out, the facts did not back up the very selective leak.
‘Of 21 patients. three had white matter tract changes. Two were mild and one was moderate. If you walk down the streets of Sydney or Melbourne today and randomly pick 21 people, that’s exactly what you would expect to find, because white matter tract changes are common in everything from migraine to depression, to normal ageing. So the claims of white matter tract changes are a myth, but they were out there for nearly a year before the study came out.
Despite not believing in Havana Syndrome, Dr Bartholomew has great sympathy for the people who are being treated for it.
‘It’s not that they’re making it up. They’re having real symptoms, but they’re caused by their lives. They’re psychological.’
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