[cpncrunch]

It's really just all speculation, and doesn't fit the facts very well. If two people are in the same room and only one has symptoms, it is unlikely to be microwaves. Also, the brain imaging study just found differences in grey/white matter compared to controls, but that tends to vary quite a lot in the general population, and isn't evidence of brain damage.

Overall, FND seems to be the most plausible explanation at the moment.

[Sporktacular]

Microwaves can be highly directional, beams can be transmitted in much narrower than the width of rooms. It fits some facts fairly well, modulated microwaves could induce audible frequencies at various points of the head involved in audio perception.

As mentioned elsewhere though, signals intelligence at diplomatic posts (see Stateroom and the SCS) would likely have detected at least lower frequency microwave energy. At higher frequencies it is less commonly used for communications and hence less likely to be monitored.

Don't know why everyone is expecting solid proof here. There's a reasonable chance this would have been detected, but we're unlikely to know even if it was. Microwaves are still a plausible explanation.

[cpncrunch]

>Don't know why everyone is expecting solid proof here

Occam's razor. Doctors see these symptoms many times every day. For some reason, embassy staff are different from the rest of us humans, and we have to concoct some incredibly implausible reason for their symptoms.

[Sporktacular]

So the occurrence rate of brain abnormalities, dizziness, loss of balance, early onset Parkinson's, hearing loss and anxiety in the US embassy in Havana are all in line with those of the general public? or those among diplomats in other posts? Is this a fact, because I am not aware.

"Doctors see these symptoms many times every day" Thats why it's called a syndrome - no one positive indicator.

The possibilities of it being crickets or mass hysteria have been put forward before. The authors obviously decided these explanations didn't fit the clinical observations, and I suspect they're thorough enough to consider that they're looking at nothing.

It's fair to invoke Occam's razor if you need an immediate hard conclusion but there's no reason for experts to not explore this and state what they're finding. The problem is when there are so many non-experts with limited information jumping to the conclusion that this must be nothing but a drum beat-up to war because of the conspiracy amongst warmongers for which there is also no proof.

If it is due to some weapon, the operation would be designed to be unattributable. And if it could be attributed no one is going to tip their hand as to their capability of finding out. So we're unlikely to get solid proof for any of this and need to follow up on plausible explanations. I said that microwaves are a one, not saying other explanations aren't also. And I'm not rushing to conclusions.

[cpncrunch]

>brain abnormalities

There are no brain abnormalities. They simply found different values for grey/white matter in certain areas of the brain from controls, but these values vary among the population, and it isn't evidence of brain damage.

>"Doctors see these symptoms many times every day" Thats why it's called a syndrome - no one positive indicator.

Indeed, and these symptoms can be very serious in many cases (having experienced them myself, to a much worse degree of impairment than described here).

>The possibilities of it being crickets or mass hysteria have been put forward before.The authors obviously decided these explanations didn't fit the clinical observations, and I suspect they're thorough enough to consider that they're looking at nothing.

It's not "nothing". FND (and variations thereof) is incredibly serious, and not "mass hysteria", and it is the most common complaint seen by neurologists. People who actually understand about FND are saying it is the most plausible explanation for these symptoms:

https://www.edinburghneuroscience.ed.ac.uk/news/functional-n...

[Sporktacular]

"It's not "nothing"" By nothing I mean there's no syndrome. Symptoms can be real.

From what I understand, you're saying the FND occurrence rate among these embassy workers is the same as that of the general population, but for some presumably conspiratorial reason, they're being treated specially.

Let's give credit to the many neurologists on this who know about FND, and many other disorders, and assume that they and the authors probably have considered it.

[cpncrunch]

>conspiratorial reason,

No, not conspiratorial. People just don't like functional disorders, as they think it means they are weak/crazy/lazy etc. Having recovered from CFS, I have seen this preducice first-hand.

>Let's give credit to the many neurologists on this who know about FND, and many other disorders, and assume that they and the authors probably have considered it.

Unfortunately FND (and functional disorders in general) are very misunderstood by almost everyone, including the authors of this report (they say that vestibular and balance symptoms would be "hallucinations" and are very uncommon, and liken them to schizophrenia).

According to the DanFunD study, the prevalence of functional disorders is about 16% in the general population (which includes all the symptoms being discussed).

[boomboomsubban]

> The authors obviously decided these explanations didn't fit the clinical observations, and I suspect they're thorough enough to consider that they're looking at nothing.

The report stated that they were lacking too much data to determine it was a mass psychogenic illness, and could not make a conclusion on the subject. It would still fit the available data though.