Medical Mystery Grows as U.S. Consulate Workers in China Fall Ill | Hacker News Reader

Medical Mystery Grows as U.S. Consulate Workers in China Fall Ill

nytimes.com

43 pointsanonu14 comments

So how many employees exactly went 'ill' in China? According to the article it seems 1 person originally this past spring and now 2 parents this past week.

> The mystery spread to China this spring, when the first employee fell ill, and fears escalated last month when the government warned other employees to seek medical attention if they experienced unusual ailments. So far this week, another employee, his wife and their two children were evacuated after the parents exhibited neurological symptoms. Officials said they expected that at least some others would be flown out of the country as well.

Not a huge sample size to guarantee something is happening... but I'd imagine the US gov has looked into it pretty closely and isn't overreacting without some good evidence of deteriorated health.

I wonder if it's something like a side effect of some travel immunization? There is the one Fulbright scholar who had a psychotic break attributed to an interaction with an anti-malaria drug.[1] Somewhere there is a podcast about that, but I can't recall/find exactly which.

One side effect of a yellow fever immunization is listed as "throbbing ears". Though that doensn't seem like a common immunization to China/Cuba travel recommendations.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/health/the-answer-to-the-...

While we don't have a lot of information about the China incidents yet, I found this journal article about the Havana attacks interesting:

>Results Of 24 individuals with suspected exposure identified by the US Department of State, 21 completed multidisciplinary evaluation an average of 203 days after exposure. Persistent symptoms (>3 months after exposure) were reported by these individuals including cognitive (n = 17, 81%), balance (n = 15, 71%), visual (n = 18, 86%), and auditory (n = 15, 68%) dysfunction, sleep impairment (n = 18, 86%), and headaches (n = 16, 76%). Objective findings included cognitive (n = 16, 76%), vestibular (n = 17, 81%), and oculomotor (n = 15, 71%) abnormalities. Moderate to severe sensorineural hearing loss was identified in 3 individuals. Pharmacologic intervention was required for persistent sleep dysfunction (n = 15, 71%) and headache (n = 12, 57%). Fourteen individuals (67%) were held from work at the time of multidisciplinary evaluation. Of those, 7 began graduated return to work with restrictions in place, home exercise programs, and higher-level work-focused cognitive rehabilitation.

>Conclusions and Relevance In this preliminary report of a retrospective case series, persistent cognitive, vestibular, and oculomotor dysfunction, as well as sleep impairment and headaches, were observed among US government personnel in Havana, Cuba, associated with reports of directional audible and/or sensory phenomena of unclear origin. These individuals appeared to have sustained injury to widespread brain networks without an associated history of head trauma.

[0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/26731...

I'm assuming that an embassy or consulate will have some pretty solid shielding to prevent espionage. Could these injuries be a side effect of someone either trying to power through such a shield to get information out, or a satellite used for either direct communication or information gathering?

Propublica published a story this past February recapping what's known and debated about the Cuba "problem": https://www.propublica.org/article/diplomats-in-cuba

Following US patent application number: 20180139557

Is it possible to conceive a weapon that generates sound at specific distances in space using ultrasonic signals as a carrier to get -into- hotel rooms? Can sound do this much damage to the human brain?

Like the previous case in Cuba, this fits the effects of microwaves on the brain

Interesting method of attack for sure...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4440565/

You just need line of sight from a hotel room across the street. "Two parents" fits the bill of two heads at a bed, as well as these attacks occurring primarily at hotels.

One wouldn't expect unknown parties in Cuba to work closely with unknown parties in China. The constant in both situations is American diplomats. They don't want to get sick, but there are others present who wouldn't care about it. Who's to say this isn't a side effect of something secret that other Americans at the consulate are doing?

Your first sentence doesn't make any sense. If it's one party, eg Russia or China, then these aren't two unknown parties working together, they're one party operating at two locations. Russia and China both have the reach to operate in Cuba and China, both are devoted adversaries of the US when it comes to politics, espionage and military.

Further, it may be espionage gear that both Russia and China are now using, such that one party (Russia) is using it in Cuba, and the other party (China) is using it in China.

That is all a lot more plausible than the US severely harming their own people at their living quarters in multiple locations around the globe.

"Doesn't make any sense" is not the same thing as "doesn't match my assumptions". There is no reason to assume that one entity is at work in both of these locations, other than the one entity who we know is at work in both locations. Russia and Cuba have a long history of cooperation, but China and Cuba don't. Few in Cuba would want to piss off Russia by inviting in the Chinese for some goofy microwave project. China and Russia are also not the closest of allies. Just as the USA military-industrial complex is not a monolith, its symbionts abroad are not monoliths.

There is no reason to believe any particular thing we're told about these events. We should be extremely Bayesian, paying attention only to things we know: both phenomena affected USA diplomats, USA has routinely experimented on and otherwise disregarded the safety of those serving abroad, descriptions of symptoms are provided on the record while wide-ranging speculation is given anonymously, etc.

Very logical comment, thank you.

<joke> I assume you don't know Javascript? </joke>

I am not suggesting it is the same perpetrators, simply both cases fit the injuries consistent with microwave effects on the brain.

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