Tag: Havana

The Pentagon is funding experiments on animals to recreate ‘Havana Syndrome’

[ad_1]

Symptoms have been described as severe headaches, temporary loss of hearing, vertigo and other problems similar to traumatic brain injury.
DoD has also recently tested pulsed radio frequency sources on primates to try to determine whether their effects can be linked to what the government calls “anomalous health incidents,” according to one former intelligence official and a current U.S. official who were briefed on the effort. Both were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive work. It is not clear whether these studies, which were done internally, are ongoing.
DoD spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman confirmed that the grant to Wayne State University, with collaborators from the University of Michigan, “will develop and test a novel laboratory animal model to mimic mild concussive head injury.”
“Behavioral, imaging, and histological studies will determine if the model is comparable to the abnormalities seen in humans following concussive head injury,” Gorman said, adding that: “The model may subsequently be used to test potential treatments to alleviate the deficits associated with traumatic brain injury.”
Gorman declined to comment on whether DoD has recently conducted these experiments on primates.
As directed by Congress, “DoD continues to address the challenges posed by AHI, including the causation, attribution, mitigation, identification and treatment for such incidents,” Gorman said. “Our foremost concern remains providing care to affected individuals – since the health and wellbeing of our personnel are our top priority.”
The yearlong study, which is funded from Sept. 30 of last year to Sept. 29 of this year, is part of DoD’s continuing effort to determine the cause of the mysterious incidents. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s annual threat assessment presented to Congress this week stated that the intelligence community also continues to actively investigate the issue, focusing particularly “on a subset of priority cases for which it has not ruled out any cause, including the possibility that one or more foreign actors were involved.”
Intel chief Avril Haines told lawmakers on Wednesday that she concurs with the intelligence community’s overall assessment, but noted that the government continues to do research “on the [science and technology] side to determine causation.”

Animal rights group pushes back
Shalin Gala, vice president of the animal rights group PETA, slammed the news that DoD is testing this technology on animals.
“We are disturbed by a reported military plan [exposing] monkeys to pulsed microwave radiation in a misguided attempt to determine human brain effects associated with Havana Syndrome,” Gala said. “This has been debunked as has the purported justification for the Army’s current $750,000 taxpayer-funded brain injury experiment that bombards 48 ferrets with radio waves.”
But advocates say testing on animals with brains similar to humans is necessary to help the people affected. The fact that DoD is conducting this research indicates that officials already have “extremely solid science,” including computational modeling, backing up the theory that radio frequency exposure could be behind the Havana Syndrome, said the former intelligence official.
“You don’t get approval for animal testing unless the science is there. … You’ve already proven out that the science is correct and exists, and now you are looking at the biological impacts that can’t be modeled and you need a specimen to determine what it does biologically,” the former official said.
DoD has other contracts in the works to conduct additional animal testing, the former official said, while declining to give details.
“This type of testing will be integral to us finally finding out what happened to the AHI victims as we will be able to compare the imaging that was done on our brains to what will be seen from animals who are subject to radio frequency waves,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who suffered debilitating symptoms from a suspected directed-energy attack during a 2017 mission in Moscow.
During the Wayne University study, researchers planned to expose the 48 ferrets to radio frequency waves for two hours a day for 60 days. This is expected to result in “an exposure profile that is likely comparable to that which our embassy personnel received.” Twenty-four additional ferrets will receive “sham exposure,” according to the summary.
It is necessary to use an animal like a ferret that has brain structures resembling the “gyrencephalic nature” of the human brain; mice and rats do not fulfill this criteria, according to the summary. The brain tissue of gyrencephalic animals, like humans, ferrets, pigs and primates, resembles ridges and valleys, compared to smooth surfaces of the brains of lissencephalic animals, such as mice and rats.
A further description of the study from the Defense Technical Information Center’s public database specifically references Havana Syndrome.
“United States government officials working in our Embassies in Havana, Cuba, and China have been diagnosed with acquired neurosensory syndrome, commonly referred to as the Havana Syndrome,” according to the abstract, which notes that the victims have “symptoms and clinical findings resembling someone who has had a concussive head injury.”
There is “strong rationale” that the Havana Syndrome was caused by “occult exposure to radio frequency (RF) waves,” according to the abstract, which notes that the Russians have used radio waves to clandestinely eavesdrop on U.S. government personnel since the Cold War, when the practice was known as the “Moscow Signal.”
Researchers proposed the one-year study to determine whether radio frequency waves induce brain changes similar to those induced by “repetitive, mild, concussive head injury resulting from impact or blast exposure,” the abstract says.
After subjecting the ferrets to the radio frequency waves, researchers will perform cognitive measurements, for example testing memory, learning and anxiety, and assess the animals’ balance and hearing functions “to determine whether RF exposure induces a neurosensory syndrome similar to that which has been found for men and women” who’ve reported Havana Syndrome symptoms.
History of testing
Animal testing of directed energy sources goes back to the 1960s, when scientists at the DoD’s Advanced Projects Research Agency subjected primates to microwave exposure to determine if Russia was using microwave devices to spy on U.S. government personnel in Moscow. The National Security Archive last year declassified records about the program, which were being reviewed by the Biden administration as part of its investigation into Havana Syndrome.
However, there are stricter regulations on animal testing today. Then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger banned using animals in DoD “wound laboratories,” which help develop ways of treating wounds, in 1983, though this was later weakened to allow for use of goats and pigs in “live tissue training” drills, according to Gala. DoD Instruction 3216.01 currently prohibits cats and dogs from being used in weapons wounding tests, as well as the purchase of primates or marine mammals “for the purpose of training in surgical or other medical treatment of wounds produced by any type of weapon(s).”
Meanwhile, the Army in 2005 prohibited the use of dogs, cats, marine mammals and nonhuman primates from “research conducted for development of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.”
But the New York Post revealed in September 2022 that the Army Medical Research and Development Command quietly changed its policy to allow the wounding of house pets, primates and marine mammals for research purposes, with approval from the Army’s animal care and use review office.
PETA filed an appeal last year with the Army requesting the release of public information on weapons testing that harms these types of animals after the Army changed its policy. The Army initially told PETA it had at least 2,000 response records to the group’s Freedom of Information Act request, but it later backtracked and claimed to have only one protocol for weapon wounding testing on animals, which it claims is “classified,” according to Gala.
The Army disputed the claim that it is withholding relevant documents.
“PETA filed a FOIA, and after a very thorough record search, one document was found in response to the FOIA and cannot be released because of the classification,” MRDC spokesperson Lori Salvatore told Army Times last year.
“Weapon wounding tests on dogs, cats, monkeys and marine animals are a bloody stain on the uniform worn by those who bravely serve. They do nothing to advance human health and the Army should rescind its order allowing such abhorrent tests immediately,” Gala said. “The Army should stop letting paranoia and fear influence its research and swiftly ban all such weapon wounding tests on animals.”
[ad_2]
#Pentagon #funding #experiments #animals #recreate #Havana #Syndrome
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 10, 2023
Pentagon still probing if a weapon caused ‘Havana Syndrome,’ even after spy agencies found no smoking gun

[ad_1]

The Pentagon’s research arm, including the Army and Air Force research laboratories, are testing weapon systems to try to determine what could cause the symptoms, according to two former intelligence officials with knowledge of the efforts. The people, like others interviewed for this story, were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject.
Meanwhile, a “cross-functional team” in the Pentagon mandated by Congress “remains focused” on addressing the incidents, DoD spokesperson Lt. Col. Devin Robinson said in a statement. This includes “the causation, attribution, mitigation, identification and treatment for such incidents,” Robinson said.
The DoD team primarily deals with helping those affected by the incidents and “is not focused on creating weapons,” Robinson said.
But the Pentagon is working on developing “defenses” against the syndrome and is investigating to see if it is possible that a weapon could be responsible, an intelligence official told reporters in a briefing on the findings last week.
An email from a Pentagon official sent out after the CIA-led report released on Wednesday reassured victims that the DoD team is “keeping the course.” The official urged victims to continue to “report any incidents you may have experienced and encourage those around you to do the same.”
A State Department task force is also continuing to collect reports of possible incidents, and coordinating care for those affected, according to a senior State Department official, who said the department supports the intelligence community’s assessment.
DoD treats government employees who have suffered brain injuries, including some related to the Havana Syndrome incidents, at Walter Reed National Medical Center.
The news that the Pentagon is continuing to study the issue comes after most intelligence agencies concluded in a comprehensive investigation led by the CIA released Wednesday that it is “very unlikely” a foreign adversary using a weapon was responsible for the incidents. But the seven agencies that participated had varying levels of confidence in the final determination.

Two of the agencies, which intelligence officials would not name, had low confidence in the assessment, because they still believe “radiofrequency (RF) energy is a plausible cause,” according to a statement from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
Several lawmakers have expressed frustration in recent days over the official findings from the intelligence community.
“I am concerned that the Intelligence Community effectively concluded that U.S. personnel … were simply experiencing symptoms caused by environmental factors, illness, or preexisting conditions,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a statement. “As I have said before, something happened here and just because you don’t have all the answers, doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen.”
The search continues
The Pentagon’s main line of effort, the cross-functional team, was established by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act to address the national security challenges posed by the incidents and to ensure the victims receive adequate care. Senior department leaders are focused on the effort: DoD policy chief Colin Kahl is leading the effort, with Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Gregory Masiello as the military deputy, Robinson said. Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, is the interagency coordination lead.
Griffin Decker, a career civil servant, led DoD’s efforts related to the incidents until recently. He left DoD in the last few weeks to lead the effort for the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee Republicans, according to two people familiar with the move. Decker was one of several DoD officials to brief lawmakers in 2021 that U.S. troops were increasingly vulnerable to the attacks, POLITICO reported at the time.
The Pentagon has long studied the possible military applications of directed energy, including lasers and high-power microwaves, and today spends roughly $1.5 billion a year looking into this technology. A number of programs have emerged from this effort, including the Navy’s Laser Weapons System, which was mounted on an amphibious transport ship in the Persian Gulf, Boeing’s “CHAMP,” a high-power microwave source mounted in a missile, and “THOR,” which was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory to counter drone swarms.
Directed energy weapons convert energy from a power source into radiated electromagnetic energy and focus it on a target, wrote Edl Schamiloglu, a professor at the University of New Mexico who has worked with DoD on high power microwave sources, in a 2020 piece for Defense One. While they are generally designed to disable and damage electronic equipment, they can harm people as well.
A wide body of research indicates a device that harnesses energy could be responsible for the Havana Syndrome incidents. A 2020 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report commissioned by the State Department to look into the initial cluster of incidents in Havana found that the symptoms were consistent with the effects of “directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy.” A panel of outside experts also found that this was “the most plausible mechanism” to explain the illness.
But the medical community’s thinking has “evolved” since then, the intelligence official said Wednesday when rolling out the new report’s findings. While initial studies concluded the incidents represented a consistent pattern of injuries similar to traumatic brain injury, more recent studies have not shown a consistent set of symptoms.
Another reason the intelligence community’s assessment determined it was unlikely a weapon caused the illness was that such a weapon would create heat and a racing pulse with victims, neither of which were consistent with what the victims experienced, the intelligence official said. Further, the intelligence community does not have any evidence that potential adversaries have such a weapon, the person added.
But some scientists dispute both these points. A continuous, low-power electromagnetic wave, such as in a standard microwave oven, would cause the victim to feel heat. But a high-power, rapidly pulsed source could have a detrimental effect on the victim’s brain while imparting much less energy, and thus there would be no heating effect, explained James Giordano, a professor of neurology and biochemistry at Georgetown and the federally-funded think tank the Institute for Biodefense Research.
For example, “If you take a match, and if you put that match out very quickly on your finger and then remove the match, you would not feel heat,” he said.
Giordano was one of the experts brought in to investigate the original cluster of incidents, which occurred among U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Havana, Cuba, in 2016. The group did not find a smoking gun, but ruled out environmental or ecological causes, such as toxins or pesticides, as well as drug exposure and psychogenic causes, he said. The group concluded that the individuals most likely were exposed to “some form of energy” that led to the effects, such as an acoustic or ultrasonic device, or a rapidly pulsed, scalable microwave.
China, Russia and the United States have developed devices that harness targeted energy in these forms, he said.
“We’re not very happy with the report because [it] categorically dismisses the existing evidence as regards those cases in Havana,” Giordano said. “It is important to not categorically classify all of the subsequent reports of which there has been over 1,000 to those very prototypic cases in Havana. That really is a question of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
Intelligence officials said they’d welcome additional research on this topic.
“All agencies acknowledge the value of additional research on potential adversary capabilities in the RF field, in part because there continues to be a scientific debate on whether this could result in a weapon that could produce the symptoms seen in some of the reported AHI cases,” the DNI statement says.
[ad_2]
#Pentagon #probing #weapon #caused #Havana #Syndrome #spy #agencies #smoking #gun
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 7, 2023
Intel community bats down main theory behind ‘Havana Syndrome’ incidents

[ad_1]

“We cannot tie a foreign adversary to any incident,” said one of the U.S. intelligence officials, who, like the other, was granted anonymity to speak more freely about the assessment.
Investigators studied more than 1,500 reports from across the U.S. government that detailed symptoms ranging from headaches to dizziness, the intelligence officials said.
“There is no one explanation for any of this,” the second U.S. intelligence official said. “We believe that what these officers are reporting is real.”
The officials said most agencies involved in the assessment determined it was “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary was involved. Of the seven agencies, two had moderate-to-high confidence in that assertion, three had moderate confidence, and two said it is “unlikely” an adversary was involved but did so with low confidence, the officials said. The officials did not provide the names of those agencies.
The assessment is based not just on a lack of evidence but also existing evidence that actually “points against” a foreign actor being involved, the second official said.
The assessment also found that no foreign adversary has a weapon or collection device that is causing the incidents. Two agencies said they had high confidence in that determination, three had moderate confidence, and two had low confidence because they believe radio-frequency energy is a “plausible cause.”
“The intelligence community assessment released today by ODNI reflects more than two years of rigorous, painstaking collection, investigative work, and analysis by IC agencies including CIA,” CIA Director Bill Burns said in a statement. “We applied the agency’s very best operational, analytic, and technical tradecraft to what is one of the largest and most intensive investigations in the agency’s history.”
Initial reports about the mysterious syndrome first emerged in 2016 among U.S. and Canadian diplomatic staff in Havana, Cuba. The diplomats complained of hearing piercing sounds coming from one direction and acute nausea and vertigo. In the years that followed, hundreds of additional U.S. government workers reported symptoms that aligned with those initial health reports.

The buildup of reporting prompted lawmakers and various agencies throughout the U.S. government to investigate potential reasons for the unexplained health incidents.
The intelligence assessment briefed to reporters Wednesday contradicts previous findings from various government groups.
In 2020, the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine said it found that the most probable cause of the syndrome was “directed, pulsed-radio frequency energy.” A year later, administration officials told Congress they were increasingly worried about the reporting and that there was a chance a foreign adversary — potentially Russia — was using a weapon to target Americans. And a panel of experts put together by the intelligence community also found that an external energy source could have caused the symptoms and that a foreign power could have been involved.
When the reports initially emerged, intelligence officials said medical studies suggested that the incidents represented a new medical syndrome that looked similar to a traumatic brain injury. Now, they said, that medical thinking has evolved and the intelligence community found that the symptoms did not fall into any discernible patterns.
The two intelligence officials said the seven agencies looked at reports spanning 96 countries. Some of the reports took place on different continents on the same day.
When the intelligence community initially launched its investigation two years ago, analysts approached the probe with the assumption that a foreign actor was targeting Americans intentionally with portable technology. But as they examined the data more closely, those assumptions did not hold, the officials said.
Analysts and officials contacted other governments to understand the extent to which their employees were experiencing similar symptoms. Those governments did not indicate that they had received an “upswell” in those kinds of reports.
“I want to be absolutely clear: These findings do not call into question the experiences and real health issues that U.S. government personnel and their family members — including CIA’s own officers — have reported while serving our country,” Burns said.
[ad_2]
#Intel #community #bats #main #theory #Havana #Syndrome #incidents
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 2, 2023