JAMA conducted a study in 2018 (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168) and another in 2019 (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2738552). The critique you linked addresses only the 2018 study. It does appear the conclusion of the 2019 study isn't very definitive, though:
>Neuroimaging findings differed between controls and US government personnel who experienced neurological signs and symptoms after potential directional phenomena exposure in Havana, Cuba, although the clinical relevance of these differences is uncertain and may require further study.
The WSJ article published today states the following:
>One patient who recently transferred from a posting in a European capital to be treated at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland said doctors there had diagnosed a brain injury of the type seen in people exposed to shock waves from explosions.
>This person told the Journal the symptoms were preceded by piercing ear pain, high-pitched electronic noise and pressure in the ears. These occurred while the person was at home at night or early in the morning in March.
>The patient initially believed the symptoms were related to a Covid-19 vaccine received earlier. After the condition persisted, the embassy flew the worker back to Washington, embassy officials said.
I don't think WSJ is reporting on a patient who was previously included in one of these 2018/2019 analyses, because they claim the patient initially believed the symptoms were related to a COVID-19 vaccine.
It also appears to be hearsay from the patient, but according to WSJ in the citation above, the patient claims that doctors did specifically diagnose him with a brain injury.
There's also this October 2020 GQ story, which speaks to someone else who reports a similar claim: https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro...
It appears this patient wasn't included in the 2018 JAMA study. However, he did read the 2018 JAMA study and went to the same lab that was part of the study, so if you assume the lab is using faulty methodology, then that would cast additional doubt. It's unclear if he was part of the 2019 one.
The critique you posted states:
>The thrust of the criticism is a very simple one: most of the ‘cognitive dysfunction’ reported in the JAMA study wasn’t actually dysfunction. Della Sala and Cubelli argue that Swanson et al. relied on a very broad definition of ‘impairment’ that would generate many false positives.
The GQ article states:
>They evaluated 21 of the Havana victims and found the kind of damage to cognitive, balance, motor, and sensory functions associated with a severe concussion. Unlike with most concussions, however, these symptoms did not quickly dissipate. Instead, they lasted for months, waxing and waning over time.
Which would be invalid if the critique is justified. (I assume they're just summarizing the findings of the study.)
It also states:
>In the spring of 2018, a private neurologist gave Polymeropoulos a diagnosis: occipital neuralgia, a condition resulting from damage to the two nerves that run from the base of the skull, curving toward the front of the head.
So there's additionally the diagnosis from that neurologist.
There's a lot to sift through, here. At the very least, there's:
- The credibility of the 2018 JAMA study and the validity of that critique
- The credibility of the 2019 JAMA study and what critiques there could be of that
- This credibility of the specific first-hand account from Polymeropoulos and the diagnosis from a private neurologist
- The credibility of the testimonies from others in the GQ article
- The credibility of the patient and their doctor in this new article from WSJ
I'm definitely not qualified to assess those JAMA studies or the critique of the 2018 one. My confidence in the deliberate attack hypothesis is lower, now, but I still think it's more likely than not for the time being, pending additional commentary I can find on the studies and the critique. I'll post this around some places online that I know have a bunch of medical experts and see what they think of all this.
Stories about this mysterious illness first appeared in the press in early 2017. At that point, many of the symptoms reported were auditory. Diplomats reported suffering from tinnitus, loss of hearing, and of hearing noises. Some of the diplomats recorded the sound they heard and in this AP segment you can hear the sound being played:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgbnZG85IRo
Note that the segment is rife with speculation. The reporter speculates about there "possibly" being additional inaudible frequencies too low or too high for recording devices to pickup "when these attacks occur".
Two years later, entomologists perfectly matched the sound the diplomats heard to the sound of Cuban crickets:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/06/sonic-attack-o... https://orthsoc.org/sina/492a.htm
Thus, the only tangible evidence of these "sonic attacks" turned out to be false. That should have been the end of the story, but, alas, it was not.
Regarding the 2018 and 2019 studies, while the author list is organized slightly differently, both have the same authors. So if the 2018 study is "shoddy" it reflects poorly on the 2019 study too. Baloh and Bartholomew writes about the 2019 study:
"On July 23, 2019, JAMA published a second study of US Embassy diplomats who fell ill under mysterious circumstances while working in Cuba. A team of scientists including some who were involved in the original 2018 JAMA study, conducted sophisticated MRI scans on the brains of 40 diplomats who reported symptoms. The real mystery of this study was how, after receiving a torrent of criticism of their earlier publication, the editors could have approved such a flawed second study. Once again, their findings generated alarming international headlines as researchers found that their white matter volume had shrunk by about 5 percent, while their auditory networks exhibited a 15 percent reduction in function. The researchers wrote that “imaging revealed significant differences in whole brain white matter volume, regional gray and white matter volumes, cerebellar tissue microstructural integrity, and functional connectivity in the auditory and visuospatial subnetworks” when compared to a group of healthy controls [18, p 336]. To the layperson and journalists who were not neurologists or experts on brain function, this highly technical study could easily be seen as confirmation that something sinister had transpired in Cuba. Indeed, publication of the study prompted a flurry of media reports which gave credence to the acoustical attack claims. For instance, Britain’s Sun newspaper reported that the mysterious ‘sonic attacks’ had left US embassy staff in Cuba “with shrunken brains” [19]. The New York Post proclaimed: “Cuba ‘Sonic Attacks’ Changed US Diplomats’ Brains, Study Finds” [20]. New Scientist heralded: “Brain Scans Hint the Mysterious ‘Sonic Attack’ in Cuba was Real” [21]. Reuters quoted the study’s lead author, Dr. Ragini Verma, as describing differences in the brains of the two groups as “jaw-dropping” [22]. However, this was not borne out by the data as differences between the two groups were relatively minor. This finding was buried in the limitations section where the researchers were forced to acknowledge that “…it cannot be determined whether the differences…are due to individual differences between patients or differences in level and degree of exposure to an uncharacterized directional phenomenon.” In other words, the differences could be potentially explained by individual variation. Curiously, this limitation was never mentioned in the abstract, which gave the impression that affected embassy staff had brain abnormalities that could not be accounted for. At the very least, the wording made it appear as if there was more of a mystery than there was. The study was rife with methodological flaws and claims that were not supported by the evidence. While they found brain anomalies, their significance was unclear. Brain changes do not equate to brain damage, and 12 of those affected had pre-existing histories of concussion, compared to none of the healthy controls. This alone could account for the differences between the two groups."
What we have are two shoddy studies, recordings of Cuban crickets, and a number of self-reported vague symptoms. This evidence does not point to a secret, undetectable microwave weapon developed by the Russians and deployed against Western diplomats...
The fact that cases keep being reported outside of Cuba is interesting, though. Crickets can't explain the noises heard elsewhere.
Also, importantly, some of the affected diplomats in Cuba didn't report hearing a sound and only reported the other symptoms. The crickets' presence in/near some of their rooms could have just been a confounder (weird onset of symptoms; weird onset of noise; must be connected). So the case for the existence of the "syndrome" probably doesn't hinge on perception of a sound. If everyone reported a sound, then I agree the cricket thing would make it seem more likely to be psychogenic.
Those studies potentially being dubious would be the strongest evidence against use of something like a microwave weapon. However, we do know the Russians did develop microwave weapons which can be deployed against individuals, so even though evidence is lacking for their use, it's not a totally far-fetched theory given we know such weapons probably exist.
Also, since those studies are a big part of this story, their being discredited would certainly deflate a lot of this, but I don't know if there's any kind of consensus around it. There are many political incentives to support or to critique the findings, and while the critiques may be very valid, I'm not at all qualified to judge that.
Another more "mundane" explanation here besides mass psychogenic illness could simply be a campaign of poisoning diplomats through their food or drinks. The poison could be something that breaks down quickly or otherwise is not easily detectable, and could potentially have lasting neurological effects.
I know anecdotes don't mean much, but the story reported in the WSJ yesterday and Polymeropoulos's story in GQ make me think something serious and real did happen to those two individuals, whether or not it's due to an attack or related to what other people were reporting.
I urge you to read the book which you can find online. It is written by a medical sociologist and a neurologist and is a bit more reliable than the mainstream press.
Even if one thinks the suffering may be psychogenic or just caused by something completely unrelated, the suffering is likely real; I find it doubtful the media or the sufferers are just completely fabricating their subjective experiences. I am distrustful of the media and distrustful of anecdotes, but in this case I trust at least that part of the story, even if it ends up basically amounting to some sort of nocebo effect from people who may have already had some unrelated neurological issues or who may be experiencing a purely psychogenic phenomenon.
There's additionally the WSJ article subject's claimed diagnosis from a neurologist, which could be just as faulty as the JAMA studies if those are indeed faulty, or could be real but could have a cause unrelated to any kind of embassy attack. But I think that, at the least, it increases the chance that the patient is experiencing something that's negatively affecting their quality of life and functioning, whatever it might be.
I'll do some more research and probably post this in another place that I know has experts on topics like these.