Havana Syndrome Affects Recruitment in U.S. Diplomatic Corps, Diplomats Say | Here's What May Cause the Mysterious Illness

U.S. diplomats on Thursday said the Havana syndrome is affecting the recruitment in the U.S. diplomatic corps.

According to Eric Rubin, the head of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), the Havana syndrome has "dramatically hurt" the morale of the diplomatic corps in the country, The Guardian reported.

AFSA represents around 17,000 current and former U.S. diplomats and foreign aid workers. Rubin said it is hard nowadays to recruit younger people willing to work abroad due to Havana syndrome. He noted that there was a concern about whether the government would look after them if they got sick from the mysterious illness.

"People have suffered real trauma and real injury, and it has dramatically hurt our morale, our readiness, our ability to recruit new members in the foreign service," the AFSA president said.

Rubin issued these remarks at a medical symposium on Havana syndrome organized by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

"I've had young members of the cohort that's coming into the foreign service ask me: 'If I do this, what am I getting into? Is this going to get solved? If I get attacked, and if I get injured, who's gonna be there for me?' We've got to address that," Rubin noted.

But Rubin stressed that despite the bureaucratic resistance that the AFSA still encounters, care for U.S. officials who have been affected by the Havana syndrome was improving.

U.S. Panel Reveals the Possible Cause of Havana Syndrome

Early this month, a panel of technical and medical experts gathered by the U.S. intelligence apparatus found that some cases of the Havana syndrome might be caused by directed electromagnetic energy.

According to Al Jazeera, the experts' findings revealed that a subset of anomalous health incidents (AHI) could not "be easily explained by known environmental or medical conditions and could be due to external stimuli."

The experts noted that it is possible to create concealable devices that will direct electromagnetic energy or ultrasound waves to cause damage in a targeted person using moderate amounts of energy. But the U.S. panel did not clarify if that technology currently exists or which actors may have used it against the U.S. personnel.

A National Academy of Sciences committee earlier said that "directed, pulsed radio-frequency energy" appears to be the most reasonable explanation for the symptoms.

CIA Says Havana Syndrome Unlikely Caused by Russia or Any Other Foreign Power

Last month, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ruled out Russia or any other foreign power's involvement in causing the Havana syndrome.

A senior CIA official said the interim findings of the CIA investigation found that most cases could probably be connected to pre-existing medical conditions, environmental factors, or stress.

Another CIA official noted that the report was based on months of intensive investigation into what was widely believed a campaign of attacks by a foreign power against U.S. spies and diplomats.

"Despite extensive investigation, we have so far not found evidence of state-actor involvement in any [Havana Syndrome] incident," the unnamed official said.

The official further noted that based on the agency's investigation, it is "unlikely" that a foreign actor such as Russia is conducting a "worldwide campaign" in harming U.S. personnel using a weapon or mechanism.

However, the official said they are not ruling out the "involvement" of a foreign actor in a small number of Havana Syndrome cases whose cause could not be determined. The official noted that the CIA task force would continue investigating these cases.

Havana syndrome causes patients to experience hearing strange sounds, loss of balance, dizziness, nausea, and memory loss.

Since the original outbreak of the symptoms, more than 1,000 cases have been reported and studied worldwide. Many of the cases originated at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, beginning in 2016.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Joshua Summers

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