this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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An internal review board at the National Institutes of Health has decided to shut down a long-term study of Havana Syndrome patients that found no signs of brain injuries, after several participants complained of mishandled medical data, bias and pressures to join the research.

A spokeswoman for NIH said the internal review found that “informed consent” policies to join the study “were not met due to coercion, although not on the part of NIH researchers.”

“Given the role of voluntary consent as a fundamental pillar of the ethical conduct of research, NIH has stopped the study out of an abundance of caution,” said Jennifer George. She did not say who coerced the patients.

Despite that assessment, at least 334 former and active government employees, military officers and relatives, including 15 children, have qualified to get treatment for Havana Syndrome in specialized military health facilities, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. To be eligible 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.

The NIH research examined MRIs and blood markers of people exposed to the incidents and found no evidence of mild traumatic brain injuries, contradicting earlier studies. It published its first results in March in two papers in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The CIA gave a statement to CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/health/nih-havana-syndrome-study/

A CIA official said the agency takes “any claim of coercion, or perceived coercion, extremely seriously and fully cooperated with NIH’s review of this matter, and have offered access to any information requested.”

The official told CNN the CIA Inspector General is aware of the NIH’s findings and the prior related allegations.

“We greatly value the efforts of the scientific community to better understand these reported health incidents. CIA remains committed to ensuring continued access to care for affected officers and to fully investigating any reports of health incidents,” the official said in a statement.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 months ago

What an absolute farce. We laugh at the superstitions of peasants from ages past, but this shit was just thrown out there and believed in the wealthiest and most technologically advanced civilisation to ever exist.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Havana Syndrome is probably the dumbest propaganda the state department has cooked up in recent memory. It really is a good litmus test on how propagandized a given lib/chud is.

Edit: another good litmus test is the "gutter oil" racist b.s. spread about china

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

Never heard anyone irl talk about it. Only saw Reddit liberals believing it

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

lol I fully assumed it was some shit from the 1950s when I first heard about it, couldn't believe it when I learned how recent it actually is

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Is the gutter oil stuff not true?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

NIH does not name who performed the coercion but the CIA has given a statement?

Lol, lmao

Part of me honestly thinks this is partially good for them. Yeah yeah yeah it makes it obvious to us that it's an op but normal people can be cooked into rampant conspiracy theory. The more drama, the more news, the more and longer and longer and bigger and bigger the numbers get the more people will feel like something is up. No smoke without fire strategy. Create enough smoke and people will believe a fire must exist and cook up a thousand different possible causes of the fire. CIA can latch onto and amplify the ones that they like.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago

What's it called? When the lack of evidence is the evidence for conspiracy theorists? They'll probably go with something along the lines of "Cuban spies within the deepstate sabotaged the research program."

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 months ago
[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago
[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago

Least disguised op of all time

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago

There was this article claiming coercion by one of those poor souls affected from good-weather syndrome and it was the hospital not treating them. I bet the coercion is just that the hospital saying it doesn't know what to do unless you join the study so they can have a medical diagnosis.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago

Join the havana syndrome research or I'll point this headache gun at you

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A CIA official said the agency takes “any claim of coercion, or perceived coercion, extremely seriously

Is this supposed to be a funny joke?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

copyright infringement

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How many millions dollars were funneled to this skit? Yeah I know that most likely the money was then funneled to Contras2.0 or whatever

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

They know it's bullshit, but are funneling the money into researching how to make a hangover cannon themselves.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

I bet they had to do it to get medical insurance coverage because that's how hellworld rolls

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

This was long overdue. How long were they insisting on this?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

cia just normal stuff.

this all is probably just some cover story to give these people free healthcare for life for some other reason (like the CIA accidentally poisoned them all in some stupid botched mission in cuba) and they figured they could score some PR blows against cuba while they were at it.

so glad it worked out well for them and didn't just make them all look like absolute clowns hahahaha.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

big if true