Spies, active-duty military, FBI agents, diplomats and at least 15 children are among the 334 Americans who have qualified to get treatment for Havana Syndrome in specialized military health facilities — numbers that conflict with an earlier assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies minimizing the problem.
The new data was published Monday in a study conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office between February 2023 and June this year, which examined the challenges patients face accessing care in the military health system and whether the Department of Defense has facilitated it, as required by federal law.
The office, which conducts audits and investigations for the U.S. Congress, concluded that Americans affected by these still unexplained cases of what the government refers to as “anomalous health incidents” struggled to get proper care, confirming earlier reports by the Miami Herald that some had been denied medical treatment by their agencies and suffered retaliation.
According to the report, almost half of the 65 patients interviewed told investigators that they have been “stigmatized by their employer” after reporting experiencing one of these incidents, “which led to negative effects on their career.”
Some were pulled from their work assignments, referred to psychologists, had their security clearances delayed, were placed on leave or lost their jobs, the report says. They attributed these experiences to “their agencies not believing them,” according to the document.
The new report also includes previously undisclosed details about the Americans affected by these mysterious incidents, which have taken place on U.S. soil, in Cuba and several countries since at least 2014. The study, commissioned by the Senate in 2022, also raises new questions about how the U.S. government and, in particular, the intelligence community have handled the investigation.
As of January 2024, 334 people, including active-duty military personnel, current and former federal employees from other agencies, and their family members, had qualified for care in the military health system. According to Department of Defense estimates cited in the report, at least 15 children had qualified for treatment as of December 2023.
The total number of people affected in these mysterious events is likely higher because some were never treated in military health facilities, including many of those affected in Havana between 2016 and 2017.
Spies, diplomats, FBI agents targeted
Most of the officials affected come from U.S. spy agencies and the Department of Defense.
As of April this year, 257 non-military current and former government employees and family members had qualified for treatment, 88 of whom came from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the report says.
Another 74 were referred by the Department of Defense, including employees of intelligence agencies, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, as well as civilian employees from the military services.
The list includes 28 people referred by the FBI, 44 by the State Department and 26 from the Departments of Homeland Security and Agriculture, the National Security Council, and the United States Agency for International Development.
The report does not include an exact number of active and former military affected because the focus was on civilian access to the military health service, said Kimberly Gianopoulos, managing director for International Affairs and Trade at the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The victims have described being exposed to sensory phenomena such as pressure and noise coming from a specific location and have developed brain trauma and a variety of other symptoms like vertigo, tinnitus, migraine, visual problems and cognitive impairment.
The symptoms can be long-term and debilitating. At least one victim, CIA case officer Zoë Moulton, has died. She died in April after being diagnosed with cancer.
A controversial assessment by some agencies in the U.S. intelligence community published in March last year concluded that it was unlikely that a foreign adversary was attacking U.S. personnel and dismissed most cases as having been caused by pre-existing conditions and other environmental factors.
But to qualify for treatment in the military health system, a doctor must certify a brain injury or other significant symptoms that a known cause or a pre-existing condition cannot explain. Patients are referred to centers in the Defense Intrepid Network for Traumatic Brain Injury and Brain Health.
The new report does not explain the apparent contradiction between the official intelligence assessment and the high number of people who have qualified for treatment.
It notes that the intelligence agencies writing the assessment had different confidence levels in their conclusions and had gaps in the information collected. It also mentions other government-funded studies that have reached different conclusions, including a report for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that concluded that commercially available devices using radiofrequency or ultrasound technology could explain the Havana Syndrome.
Research on the subject has been riddled with problems and has provided contradictory results, the report notes, due to the lack of a precise definition and information about these incidents, “a highly diverse population in terms of clinical symptoms and timing from incident to assessment; as well as the classified nature of the affected individuals’ circumstances and their work.”
After a team of National Institutes of Health researchers said in March they did not find signs of brain injuries in people affected by the Havana Syndrome after analyzing some MRI scans, other scientists immediately questioned the results. A group of patients involved in the study accused the investigators of bias, misreporting the data under pressure from the CIA and mishandling confidential medical information. The National Institutes of Health halted the study and launched an investigation as a result.
A broken system
The congressional report paints a portrait of a system that was put in place to help these patients but failed to do so correctly because of bureaucracy, communication gaps and a lack of trained staff.
The patients reported inconsistent support from their agencies, a lack of information about the care process and treatment options available once they were accepted at military health facilities, and difficulty scheduling appointments to the point that some gave up and sought treatment in the civilian sector. Staff shortages at the Department of Defense units that were supposed to deal with these patients left them without a point of contact for months, the report found.
“In six cases, agencies did not inform patients that the Department of Defense had approved their Military Health Service access until they specifically inquired,” the report says. “These delays in communication ranged from three weeks to over a year.”
Parents of children affected by these incidents felt particularly frustrated, the report says, because they did not have a clear point of contact to work within the pediatric unit and struggled to schedule appointments.
The Department of Defense has also been unable to maintain a proper registry of the patients who have received treatment in its facilities, the report found, hindering future research. The agency accepted all the recommendations made in the study, including implementing a new unit in charge of coordinating care for Havana Syndrome patients.
However, the problems found by investigators go beyond accessing specialized medical care. Patients are also struggling to get compensation under federal laws that benefit those injured at work. and the 2021 Havana Act, which pays compensation for victims of brain injuries suffered in the line of duty.
The report noted that some agencies, like the Department of Defense, had not issued guidance on obtaining Havana Act payments. The agency published such a proposal on Monday when the report was published.
A recent U.S. Department of Labor rule added more red tape to Havana Syndrome patients trying to get compensation for disability or death. The Department now requires that “claims for additional conditions beyond traumatic brain injuries will now require a review by a District Medical Advisor.” The rule will impact both new and already accepted claims.
“We need to prove a brain injury. But doctors we are sent to are told not to write brain injury. And they’ll never accept anything else additional,” a Havana Syndrome patient who asked not to be named said. “This how they’re making it go away.”
___
© 2024 McClatchy Washington Bureau
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
