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September 22, 2022

CNN TO AIR SPECIAL REPORT – “IMMACULATE CONCUSSION: THE TRUTH BEHIND HAVANA SYNDROME”

Content excerpted from CNN Press Room 

In a CNN Special Report Immaculate Concussion: The Truth Behind Havana Syndrome, airing Sunday at 8pmET/PT, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta investigates one of the most complex and controversial health mysteries in recent years known as “Havana Syndrome.”

The special explores a cluster of unexplained health incidents resembling concussion-like injuries, which were first reported by American officials and covert personnel serving in Havana in late 2016. The victims describe suffering from vertigo, headache, brain fog, and in some cases, pain or ringing in the ears without any apparent mechanism of injury. Since 2016, similar incidents have been reported by US government officials around the world.

But what causes the mysterious illness? Dr. David Relman, who co-authored the influential American Academy of Sciences report, concluded that microwave energy is a plausible explanation. This finding takes Gupta’s journey down an eye-opening road into how microwave energy interacts with the brain and what types of directed energy technologies are potentially capable of doing this.

CNN Special Report Immaculate Concussion: The Truth Behind Havana Syndrome will stream live for pay TV subscribers via CNN.com and CNN OTT and mobile apps under “TV Channels,” or CNNgo where available. The doc will also be available On Demand beginning Monday, September 26th, to pay TV subscribers via CNN.com, CNN apps, and Cable Operator Platforms


Microwaves and U.S. Government Employee Illness

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Report “An Assessment of Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies” commissioned by the US State Department was released by a committee of 19 experts citing “directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy” as “the most plausible mechanism” to explain the mystery illness suffered by  U.S. Embassy personnel. The New York Times describes how the report “provides the most definitive explanation yet of the illness that struck scores of government employees, first at the U.S. Embassy in Havana in 2016, and then in China and other countries. Many of the officers suffered from dizziness, fatigue, headaches, and loss of hearing, memory, and balance, and some were forced into permanent retirement.”

The NAS report states that “overall, directed pulsed RF (radio frequency) energy, especially in those with the distinct early manifestations, appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases among those that the committee considered.”

In 2018, Dr. Beatrice Golomb shared her published  paper  with the US State Department entitled “Diplomats’ Mystery Illness and Pulsed Radiofrequency/Microwave Radiation  which states, “A tremendous number of physicians and scientists and entities and scientific studies and government reports, in many nations, over many decades, have identified that RF/MW causes symptoms consistent with the spectrum now described for diplomats.” Her paper concludes that “Reported facts appear consistent with radiofrequency microwave as the source of injury in diplomats in Cuba. Non-diplomats citing symptoms from radiofrequency microwave  often with an inciting pulsed-radiofrequency microwave exposure, report compatible health conditions.”

In March 2018, JAMA published a study on the diplomats as they experienced the following symptoms:

  • 43% had MRI result finding of T2 hyperintensity (bright-foci) in the white matter,
  • 76% had headaches,
  • 57% had nervousness,
  • 76% had memory problems,
  • 71% had impaired concentration,
  • 67% feeling cognitively slowed,
  • 86% had sleep problems, and
  • 67% had irritability.

Wireless devices from cell phones, to baby monitors to Wi-Fi speakers and cell towers all emit pulsed radiofrequency microwave radiation. Although the levels emitted are lower than ICNIRP and FCC limits, they have been found to cause adverse effects in thousands of research studies that have found memory deficits, behavioral problems, brain cancer, breast cancer, DNA damage, and headaches.

In 2019, Penn Medicine researchers published new research with used advanced imaging techniques and analytics to construct statistical maps that compared the brains of healthy individuals against  40 government personnel who experienced neurological symptoms while serving in Havana, Cuba. They found key brain differences, particularly in the cerebellum, between impacted patients and healthy individuals, which may underlie clinical findings. They found statistically significant differences in brain volume, tissue properties, and connectivity between the patients and the healthy control group. “There was reduced white matter volume in the affected patients, along with a pattern of differences in measures of water diffusion in the tissue. The imaging also revealed lower functional connectivity in the visuospatial and auditory subnetworks. Notably, differences in tissue volume, water diffusion, and connectivity were found in the cerebellum, the part of the brain responsible for performing voluntary tasks, such as walking and writing.”

The pattern of differences found in this study “do not resemble imaging-based investigations of any other pathology, like concussion and traumatic brain injury”


CNN Reports on Cell Phone Radiation

Learn more about cell phone radiation with Environmental Health Trust’s downloadable factsheets, infographics, podcasts and youtube videos. Scientific Evidence: Research on 5G, Cell Phones, Pregnancy, Co-Carcinogenic, Wi-Fi, Environment, Bees, Trees, Memory, Screens 


CNN Program on Wireless and Microwave Sickness

Three Part Video Series Vital Signs with Dr. Sanjay Gupta