Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Second Update: Havana Syndrome

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

Our first ever double-update, Justin and Dr. Sydnee bring an update to an update about the very mysterious Havana Syndrome. Not only is there kind of a reversal of the last update, but the cause actually COULD be a giant microwave? So enjoy the full episode explaining the history of Havana Syndrome, the old update from 2022, and what we learned very recently. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/ Border Angels: https://www.borderangels.org/our-services.html

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Sawbones, Amanda Lerner, Miss Guided Medicine.

I'm your co-host, Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney Macquarie. Is that getting too fast? I feel like too professional, too slick. You know what I mean? I don't want to give you to like Don Imus on the SVC. Don't, but don't think about it. I broke, I didn't tell you this.

I broke on still buffering. I broke my thing. Did you? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done that before. It's broken right now. So that'll happen, that'll happen from time to time. If you do enough podcasts, eventually, you will start in an intro on a different podcast. And you'll like, I don't know how this one is.

I don't know how to end this one. I didn't do the wrong one. I forget the words I say. like the articles like little ones did i say the or uh or are or your or yeah but it's broken i it'll come back with when you lose that's kind of like losing your mantra and the when you are in that place it's usually a time you need to return to your teacher and have him or her or them work through your mantra with you to help you reclaim that who's my podcast teacher well obviously Sidney.

Go ahead, say it. I know you're going to say it. Well, just like everybody else. It's Mark Marin. Oh. Yeah. I thought you were going to say you. I was going to, but then the look you were going to give me, it just wasn't

worked with it. I mean, I guess it's better than you saying Joe Rogan. Welcome to Soaphuns. This is an update. We're going to, I don't, we bloviated for like a minute. Listen, we're, this is the, we've never done this. I don't think. This is another update.

Double update. We're updating again about Havana syndrome. And I don't want, I don't know, will this update be before the, I'll leave it up to Rachel. This update will be before the last update or that update will be excised for a new, but no, we'll have to include that update within this like Russian nesting dog, this Matrushka doll of podcasting. Well, that's very appropriate. Isn't it? Isn't it just? It's like I've been doing this my whole life.

Maybe I can cover the last update within this update. because the meaty episode is the first one. That's where we explain what Havana syndrome is. And then we updated that just a little. And I'll just explain that. All right. Sounds good. Let's take a break and we'll get right back.

Sydney, what do you got on the docket for me today? What do you got? I'm ready to learn. I got my thinking cap on. I got my stinking cap off. I don't even know why I bought it. Honestly, it seems like you're going to get a lot of use out of a stinking cap, but I didn't even think through it.

Well, when you go into Spencers, you hate to leave. leave empty hand. Yeah, that's true. And my drinking cap, that's in my back pocket because the weekend is just around the quarter. But for right now, my thinking cap is on. And my shrinking cap has not been invented yet. I have some diagrams.

I'd like to do it. Okay. Let's just. Dr. Zelensky and I have made a lot of progress on the shrinking cap. Let's just do this episode of Sawbones. That sounds like a good start. Let's do that. So there's a lot of stuff going on currently event-wise related to medicine.

But we've done episodes on most of that stuff. So I know. We got some emails like you should talk about Ivermectin. There is an episode on Ivermactin if you'd like to listen to that. It does not treat or cure COVID. Please do not take it for COVID. Please do not take horse medicines ever for anything, ever, please. So that's covered in another episode.

Masks should be worn and are great. And we did that in another episode. We can put that in a book. Been banging on that one for a while. But that's out there. So I found something else in the news that there was some recent reports about that I didn't know anything about. It has nothing to do with COVID, not that it's not important to keep talking about COVID, but we'll take a break this week. And thank you, Paige, for sending us an email to bring it to my attention that, like, hey, this might make a good episode because I read an article about it and it didn't occur to me immediately.

But Justin, have you heard of Havanais? When you do this, it's always a little bit tricky because, like, you know, you know that you talk to you. Before I asked you the other day, have you heard of Havana syndrome? Never. Okay. And first of all, I don't really want to keep calling it that, even though, like, I wanted to put that name out there because if you've heard of this, that is what it's most well known as. And so I want context, you know. And that is what if you read, if you read any of the recent news articles about it, reports about it, that's what they are calling it and all the articles.

Cool. So this is what they're talking about. We should probably try to call them anomalous health incidents. But that seems a little. You know that's less catchy, though. Well, they didn't, first of all, they haven't all happened in Havana. So even though the first ones I'll talk to you about happened in Havana. They did not all happen in Havana. And second, I just don't think it's nice to name diseases after places.

That's true. You know, like, are you ever going to take a vacation to the Ebola River? No. Right? That's not fair. No. You know, that the river is saddled with that forever. I probably wouldn't do that anyway.

I mean, I don't travel much right now at all, Sydney. I don't know if you've heard, but. I don't mean now. I just mean generally. Like, you try and you shouldn't, if you can, don't name things after places. It's hard to shut something like that off. Right, because then the place gets that connotation forever and it might not be something that, you know, that you want. Got it.

Right. So anyway. Can we keep calling it that with the understanding that we shouldn't be calling it that? because anomalous health incidence. Well, anomalous health incident also isn't specific to this. You could say a lot of things are anomalous health incidents, I suppose. This is my problem with it. The language isn't specific.

And I don't have like a better name for it. Maybe we can just start with Havana syndrome and the move from there. I already called it that. My apologies to Havana. recently it was reported that Vice President Kamala Harris had her she had a she's doing an overseas trip and it was

briefly delayed just like there was a pause it was like a couple hours so not a big incident in the grand scheme of things for the vice president but the reason that it was delayed is a little more interesting there were some what were reported as anomalous health incidents that occurred in

Hanoi which is where she was headed from Singapore. And so because of these incidents, they paused the trip, decided there was no concern for the vice president or any of her staff. It did not affect anyone associated with the vice president. And so she continued on her trip. But because of that, Havana syndrome was put in the news and trending and now here we are. Because I had no idea what it was.

I'd never heard of it. I'd never heard of the phrase. So it only dates back to 2016. That's why I feel weird. It feels weird to me that I'm not more aware of. this because it has all happened in recent years. And there was a lot of, I think, media coverage of it initially, perhaps, it seems like. So in 2016, there was a diplomat at the American embassy in Cuba who had an odd health incident.

Okay. It occurred when she was actually in her home, not in the embassy itself, but in her home there in Havana. and she was standing in her kitchen and she began to experience this severe headache and pressure in her head. Okay. A lot of these descriptions will sound like waves of pressure. Okay.

She didn't think much of it, tried to, that's a headache, I'll sleep it off. But the next morning, it was still there, and she also began to have some memory issues, some vertigo balance type issues, some trouble walking, and like sort of processing information. Like she mentioned she couldn't read a cereal box that morning,

like the back of a cereal box. So these sorts of non-specific, you know, very upsetting symptoms, but not really pointing to one specific thing. The symptoms persisted, but she didn't tell anybody at first because she didn't, she liked her job. Yeah, she didn't want to get so at home. But she would eventually learn that she was, not alone. Because around this same time period, three CIA officers in Cuba would have similar

symptoms. And this is all towards the end of 2016 and into 2017. And they would send, actually, a couple people would go back to the U.S. and they sent a couple replacement CIA officers who also had these symptoms, right? Many tended to describe this in a similar sort of progression. You have some sort of pressure. Like I said, some people said it was like waves of pressure in your head or just an intense pressure in your head. But many said that right before that started, they also had like an auditory symptom, meaning they heard something.

They heard a very strange sound. And the sound was described sometimes like machine like, like a grinding type of sound, a coarse sound, a rough sound. Other people described it like a buzzing. Like cicadas. It was compared to like a bunch of crickets or cicadas or something like that several times. Like that horrible bird you showed me. Well, does that sound like...

Remember it? It sounded kind of like machine gun like. That does sound machine gun like. What was it called? The shoe bill. Shoal. Oh, God. Oh.

Oh, guys, don't Google that one. The shoe bill stork? Bad. Shoe bill bird is just bad. Don't look. Don't look. You should look at it. This is a spooky bird.

I like this bird. This bird has personality. This bird's going to places. This bird has a point of view. Anyway, back to Havana syndrome. So they would have this sound, and then they would have this pressure, and then some of these neurological symptoms that I described are pretty similar, although some had more severe issues than others, and for some it persisted much longer, whereas for others it was very transient, right? So, like, kind of a range in terms of that. The CIA and the state department, as these individuals started coming forward and kind of reporting to their bosses, their superior officers, whatever, like this is happening.

They started trying to like put together what could what is this? What do we need to like investigate? Where could this be coming from? Is this something someone's doing? Is it some sort of espionage attack type thing? Like poison, a toxin. Yeah. Is this something someone's doing or is this just some weird random illness?

A prank. Is it the Joker? You know, this one kind of sounds like the Joker. And what's the thing is that's really interesting about this is that at the same time this sort of mysterious thing was happening in Havana, you have to understand like this is the end of 2016 and 2017. Trump has just been elected president and then assumes the presidency. This guy again.

Yeah. Plus, Castro had just died in late 2016, right? Soon after the American election. I wasn't aware of that had happened. There's a heck of a way to break it to me, but go ahead. You didn't know that happened back in 2016? Wasn't paying very close attention. Had our own problems home front, didn't we?

Well, yeah. Didn't know this old Castro. A lot of time has elapsed since then for you to. Anyway, so. Is there a new Castro? There was for a while. And then I, are you really asking me about the political situation in Cuba? I don't want to get to in the least.

Anyway, so nobody knew what this meant for Cuban-American relationships. At that time. Which had been tedious for quite some time. Yes. And had changed hopefully in a positive direction, many thought under the Obama presidency. And then with Trump assuming the presidency, there was a lot of thought. I think there was one quote I read in an article where they, the last meeting between representatives, from the Obama administration with officials from Cuba were like, listen, these new people are

nothing like us. So we don't know. Good luck. Godspeed. We don't know. There was a lot was up in the air as the point. And I am not an expert on international affairs, but I think it is fair to say that like this was a very tenuous relationship anyway. Nobody knew exactly where it was going to go and this shifted a lot. And in the middle of all this, all of a sudden we have all of these CIA and State Department people from the U.S. who are in Havana, who are having these weird debilitary. Sillotating symptoms. Okay. So they brought an E&T specialist from the U.S. to evaluate the victims. They didn't want to go with anybody who was in Havana because they didn't trust anybody. I mean, it's the CIA. They didn't trust anybody there. They wanted somebody from the U.S. who was a specialist to come in. He evaluated them. And he said, like, I think I am seeing some degree of brain damage in these individuals. It was called at one point, and this phrase would kind of stick with it, a convalued. Concussion without a concussion. Okay.

The result of a concussion without any concussion having occurred, right? Because they didn't experience any head trauma. Okay. Throughout the spring and summer of that year of 2017, the number of cases kept climbing as they're trying to, like, figure out what do we do about this, what sort of treatments or therapy, what can happen, what's causing it. Nobody really knew. And there were more people experiencing these, depending on who you asked, either symptoms or attacks is what some. begin to refer to them as. Yikes.

Right. When they talked to, when they briefed, like, agents and diplomats as to, like, what to do about this, here's what's going on and here's what you can do.

They would tell them things like, quote, get off the X. Meaning, we think you are standing in a targeted spot, so move and get away from whatever

is attacking you. Oh, crap. This is a wild story. This does not, this sounds like a movie. This does not sound like real life. This does not sound real.

One was told like try to get behind a concrete wall. Because we don't know where it's coming. Like maybe that'll stop it. Yes. So obviously they were being instructed as if this was some sort of attacking mechanism of some sort that was targeting them. Not necessarily that it was an illness that was already, you know, like it was something outside external that you could get away from as opposed to something already in their body. like a toxin or a poison or some other sort of illness of some sort. So anyway, as the symptoms persisted and for some progressed to things like hearing loss,

there was one victim of this that had to use a hearing aid eventually. The decision was made that we need to take these people out of Havana, send them somewhere to get like comprehensive evaluations testing, and put together like from a team of doctors, what the heck is happening. So they were all sent to the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania. And a team of doctors was tasked with like,

get all the data, analyze it, come up with like what in the world could cause this, whatever this syndrome is, whatever is happening in these individuals. Meanwhile, the number of attacks grew to 21. And first, like, they began to develop, and this is sort of other than the fact that it is, you know,

when there is an illness, it's important to figure out what it is and what's causing it and how do we treat or prevent or whatever. On the other part of this is like the international situation. As these attack numbers were growing, the U.S. sort of retaliated in a sense, although against who, I don't know, or for what, we didn't know. They kind of would retaliate by ordering Cuban officials out of their embassy in the U.S. So like, well, there were two more attacks. So we're sending two more Cuban diplomats back to Cuba. And, oh, there were even more attacks. So we're going to order 15 of your Cuban officials back to Cuba.

You know what I mean? Like this was sort of the U.S. policy of the way of showing, like, if this continues, there will be repercussions. And these were the repercussions. There were also in this same time. And this story is like a slower burn. It took a while to develop. There were 12 Canadian officials. who also, according to the U.S. at the time experienced symptoms, initially Canada was kind of like, hey, we're actually pretty cool with Cuba.

Like, we don't have beef. I know you guys have beef, but like we're not trying to be part of that. So we don't really want any of this mess. Now, later, there would be, like, these Canadian officials would be evaluated and there would be like financial, you know, reimbursement for their pain and suffering and treatment and stuff. So, like, there was stuff going on, but, like, initially it was very much an America, Cuba thing. But there were some Canadians called in the proverbial crossfire. Yeah, there were Canadian to experience the center.

I understand targeting Americans for sure. But, like, Canadians? Now they've gone too far. Have you seen their flavors of KD? Have you seen all the different flavors of KD these people have? Have you even seen Martin Short? You know, Shania Twain. I know.

I love Canada. You don't have to convince me. Which maybe that was part of the initial reaction from Canada. Like, everybody loves us. Nobody would... Yeah, who would do this? This can't be right. This can't be right.

It's got to be aliens. But it wasn't just American officials. It was also Canadian officials. Then, on top of all that, an American official working in China at the American consulate there reported similar symptoms. And then everybody really started becoming concern. it led to the examination of like 15 individuals in China who may have been affected. And so that really people started to sort of freak out over what was going on.

Eventually the team in Pennsylvania, the team of doctors that was examining all the original victims of the symptoms, would publish their findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA. So a respected medical journal. And they concluded that not everybody they evaluated did have symptoms. Like, for instance, of the 15 individuals in China, they said only one. They really thought fit the same syndrome. So, like, some of these people were having something like that, but didn't fall within the umbrella of what they considered what anomalous health incident, Havana syndrome, whatever you want to call it. It's anomalous, but not anomalous enough. Not anomalous in this way.

and almost in a different way. But that they had suffered somehow some sort of traumatic brain injury, some sort of concussion, it affected their neural pathways. They called it a brain network disorder. And there was a lot of theorizing at that point from them and other medical entities and government entities as to what might cause that specific pattern of brain network disorder. But nobody, like they didn't give a definitive reason, right? And you have to also know, like, in this evaluation, they looked for toxins, they looked for poisons, they looked for other sorts of, like, contagious illnesses, all those other things that you might try to rule out. They looked for all that stuff and they couldn't find a distinct causative agent, you know, that they could conclusively blame it on, right? But there were a lot of theories.

And that's what I want to tell you about next. But first, let's go to the billing department. kidding it. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that Eskilet macabre for the mouth. All right, Sid, you invited me into your parlor room and you're just about to crack this in the old open. I'm not.

Spoilers. I'm not. No one has. I'll try to relax a little bit. But there were a lot of interesting, and again, like none of this, this all sounds like science fiction. It doesn't... Yeah, none of this sounds real. But these were the theories that people started coming up with. Okay.

A directed beam of microwave radiation was the first thought. Yeah. So there was some sort of device. People thought, like, it could be small enough that it could be in a van, maybe, like, parked outside the places where individuals were. And I should say, like, as far as where were people when this happened, they were either in their homes, in the embassy or in hotels in the area. There were a couple hotels, specifically, that had, like, repeated attacks at those hotels. Okay. And it's important to note that like all the other people around them, generally speaking, I'll give you one example where this wasn't true.

But generally speaking, all the other people around them did not experience any symptoms. It was just that one person. So it would have to be a very targeted beam of microwave radiation. Also, radio frequency slash microwave radiation was another theory. So different kinds of, you know, this is the physics stuff. different kinds of beams that can be pointed at people and cause some sort of brain damage, basically. Some people were like, well, I still think it was like a toxin, like an organophosphate poisoning kind of thing, although that was thought to be pretty unlikely because they should have found, they did extensive testing on all these individuals and never found any evidence of that. There was an argument made that some pieces of the puzzle that, like, were putting together as the constellation of symptoms, should not be included.

specifically the sound. So this really threw people, like, what is this sound they're hearing this? Whether it's a machine-like or the cicada type or whatever, there was one paper published that said, actually, they're just crickets. There's a specific type of, it was either a Jamaican field cricket or an indie short-tailed cricket that was in the area at the time and makes a very loud, distinctive noise. And they thought this is what they were hearing. Like, they just happened to hear that.

and then had those symptoms and connected the two when, if they had just asked somebody else in the room, like, are you hearing that? They would have said, oh, yeah, I hear that. I know. And the people who wrote the paper said, now, we don't know what the rest of this is all about. We're just saying that we think the sound actually was crickets. That is wild. Somebody proposed some sort of sonic weapon or an ultrasound signal. there was the idea that maybe this is a mass psychogenic illness, which we've talked about examples of those on the show before.

But it is true, as they pointed out. And there's a whole book written from like an expert on mass psychogenic illness and an expert in neurology who like make their case in an entire book that this is a mass psychogenic illness. And this is not an attack of any kind. We've covered things like that. Like if you remember like the dancing plague, That's one of those?

The laughing epidemic or laughing plague they called it. Yes. There are some of these where, especially considering that their argument is as this progressed, a lot of the agents who experienced it and officials who experienced it had been briefed on it prior to experiencing it. And the thought is that, and again, this is not, and I don't know the answer. And when you suggest this, there are people who get very angry. So I'm just putting that out there. This is an incredibly controversial point because the doctors from the University of Pennsylvania said absolutely not.

It is not mass psychogenic illness. It is absolutely not that. It is something physical. We just don't know what it is. But these other professionals said, no, no, no. We really do think that's what it is. And these people are experiencing these symptoms. Their description is real.

They are feeling this way. They are having these symptoms. We just see a different cause. and you know, it's psychogenic in nature. So this is not to say that anybody is lying. It's very different than malingering. These are not people who are intentionally trying to lie and get out of work. I got you.

Many of these people love their jobs and were veterans of many years in that job and had no reason to want to leave it. So because of all this, the CDC was instructed by Congress to investigate in 2018. and the report that followed, which was called the Cuba Unexplained Events Investigation Final Report, which you can find now because... I was hoping for an acronym. Nothing good. There was like a FOIA request that I found the result of eventually that unearthed the entire report. But they really didn't arrive at a final conclusion.

What they said was like the symptoms, the history, it's also spread out because a lot of people didn't come forward right after they experienced the symptoms. at first. Like, they would hear about other people having similar symptoms and then come forward and say, actually, I had that three months ago or whatever, you know? Yeah. So it became very difficult to, when you start doing what would be, what you'd want to do in this case is a retrospective case study, right? Right.

You have these things that happened in the past and you do a case study where you just explain each kind of report on it and try to draw conclusions based on that. The problem with that is that there's a lot of bias in those. our memories are not perfect trying to put together when you knew what and when you experienced what and do you think it sounded just like a cicada because you later heard somebody else say that and then you know i mean that's and that's just the i'm sure like you said you're being briefed on these things you're probably like pretty vigilant for that right hypervigilant for yes exactly and so they they said you know we can't identify a mechanism um we we don't know we they did put a case definition to you together. Like, we do think we know what, whatever this is, what it looks like. There are two phases, they felt. The first had headache, pressure, confusion, the auditory symptom, whatever it is, vision, issues, balance issues, nausea. And then at some point later on, you would continue to have some of the balance issues and maybe they would worsen or inner ear type issues and then some cognitive

effects, like memory issues or processing issues, that kind of thing. They said they went over everybody and said not everybody who Has reported these symptoms Actually fits this definition, but some of them do And then they shrugged and said I mean we need more data We could set up like a prospective case study where if new cases come in We could study them as they come in but like we don't really know what to do With this data

Is this doing like permanent sort of damage or is this more of a transient thing It was different for different For some, it was transient. For some, they continued, even if the majority of their symptoms eased, they continued to have, like, occasional headaches or fatigue or hearing problems forever. So it was variable. After the initial cases in Havana, the U.S. government finally decided to reduce its diplomatic presence in Havana. So we were sending Cuban diplomats back to Cuba. at this point, the government decides in August of 2017, we need to pull our people out of the embassy there.

Not all of them, but a lot of them. So they greatly reduced the number of diplomats there. And Trump even made a statement at that point that he thought Cuba was responsible for the attacks in October of that year. Was that the opinion of the U.S. government well researched by some of our top people? Or was it just Trump on the toilet? Just fired one off. Yeah, for all I know. And then the Canadian diplomats would then eventually be evaluated and have evidence of some of these same things. And they actually reduced their diplomatic presence there in 2019.

And a lot of the reason that this was happening, and again, it's a very complicated time because I don't think anybody would say the Trump administration had the same views as the Obama administration on, well, anything. And definitely not Cuba. and what to do next. But because of this, there was this argument, this sort of like theme, our people aren't safe there. And if we can't protect them, what are we doing there?

And if we're getting harmed, get our people out of there. That became like a recurring theme through a lot of these, especially like with Rex Tillerson. That was a lot of Rex Tillerson's argument was, well, just get them out of there. Why are we even there?

Just bring them all home. Forget it. Forget it. We need to get out of Havana. As this is happening, cases are going to continue. to occur outside of Havana. So American diplomats, members of the intelligence community, members of the U.S. military,

are beginning to report attacks starting in late 2017, all over the world. Moscow, Poland, Georgia, Taiwan, Australia, Colombia, Kyrzikstan, Uzbekistan, Austria, all over the place, okay? Okay. So that, which is why Havana syndrome is not completely accurate. Right. So we have all of these reports from all over the place. The most worrisome in terms of the U.S. government came in 2019 when a White House official experienced similar symptoms when they were walking their dog where they lived in their Virginia suburb of D.C.

And then in November of 2020, another incident occurred very close on the ellipse, the lawn that's like to the south of the White House. Another incident occurred there. And so this became very concerning, right, to U.S. officials. Like, now we're having people experiencing these symptoms that, I mean, at least the Trump administration felt was an attack of some sort with some sort of weapon that we don't know about that close to the White House. Obviously, at that point, there was a lot of concern. There was this one too, like anonymous account of a military official in some country. that was not identified, but it was a country

that was noted to have a strong Russian intelligence presence as well. This is where that connection will come, where he claims that he pulled into an intersection and while he was waiting at a red light, he began to experience these symptoms very intensely, like the pressure and the pain. It all hit him all at once,

and his two-year-old was in the back seat, just started screaming. And he sped out of the intersection and all the symptoms went away, and his two-year-old was fine. That's weird. This is also weird. This past year, we have noted, like in 2021, there have been several different incidents in Vienna.

So it seems to be that was the new hotspot, so to speak. But then even more recently, there were a couple cases in Berlin and now, Hanoi, just this past week. So what is happening? Obviously, Trump blamed Cuba. Cuba adamantly denied that they were doing any of this. And a lot of people at the time sort of said like this isn't, I guess, and I don't, again, this is not my area of expertise. But I guess the idea of them, like, attacking American officials and diplomats to harm them was less common. Like, that is a less common thing.

Like, there's definitely, I guess all the spies spy on each other. Like, everybody's listening to each other. Everybody's watching each other. Like, collecting info on each other is just sort of. accepted within the espionage community. They're either paying somebody the scorpions to write winds of change or they are spying each other. But the idea that they were like targeting with this sort of intent to harm, I guess,

seemed less common. And so a lot of people weren't convinced that Cuba was doing anything. And the Cuban officials said absolutely we're not doing anything. There was also Cuba helped the U.S. for a while try to investigate whether there was like a third party involved, like another country who was coming into Havana and harming American diplomats and officials. You mean the Russians right because it's definitely the Russians. So Russia was everyone's leading. Initially the Russia and China were thrown out as the two possible perpetrators. Russia was what everybody seemed to think.

Yeah, they like to get a little spice here. Well, in terms of like why they thought it was Russia, I can't find anybody who's arguing anything more than, well, it just seems like Russia. It feels like Russia. Like it feels like Russia. I mean, like, that was really what it seems like a lot of people in the intelligence community were saying, like, well, I mean, it kind of feels like Russia. But there's no evidence of any of this because we don't even know that it was a thing being done, right? Like, we don't have a weapon that we're looking for, a device. there were all these theories of like, well, maybe it was

like a listening device that is malfunctioning and causing problems. So maybe that's why nobody knows about it because like, well, yeah, we got bugs all over the place, but we're not trying to hurt you, but maybe it's a bug that also hurts you, but you didn't know. This all seems like a stretch. But like it's being, all these countries are being accused of doing something when we don't even know 100% that something was done. Right.

Right. Last December, the CIA had an official task force created to investigate the incidents in response largely to the ones that happened in, you know, D.C. Because that was so upsetting to everybody. And this has been... Sorry, I just saw the acronym. The act that was passed. So, yes. So the CIA has a task force this past December was created.

This has been expanded since then. People have been added from the state department and other federal agencies. to help Biden has made this one of his priorities too. And in June, the helping American victims afflicted by neurological attacks. Havana. Act was passed in Congress. Now we can say the Havana syndrome is not a reference to the Cuban capital, rather a...

The act that was passed, yes, to provide financial assistance to those affected by it. And I think this was like bipartisan, full support, like passed unanimously or something. like huge support. Anyway. So, you know, I don't know what I, you know, I tried to read this as like a physician with like a, from that medical standpoint, what does this sound like. Yeah. I am not familiar with any of these kinds of devices or weapons or whatever you'd want to call them that could cause that. I'm not saying that's impossible because it's outside.

Yeah. my area, but certainly I've never read or seen that. There were, I should mention that a lot of the doctors who felt like there was like some sort of damage that had occurred, like actual like you could see, they did these functional MRIs and saw these changes, and that's how they based it. They said, well, I mean, we're seeing like damaged neural pathways on these MRIs. So this isn't, you know, we know something happens. happened because we can see it, right? That was a lot of the basis. What's tough is that the people who wrote the book about mass psychogenic illness, that their argument was very much that, well, you can see those changes, though, after trauma, like after emotional trauma, after psychological trauma, people who experience mass psychogenic illness also have these changes on MRI because the brain is really complex, really complicated. And if you are experiencing these symptoms and

especially if you become convinced that you have been attacked by something It has a traumatic effect on you It has a traumatic effect on the brain I mean like that it's all linked right Like the way we feel and our mental health And our physical health and the things we experience Physically as well as emotionally

It's all connected and so to To tease it out with one Imaging study or I mean it's very difficult It's so it's tough And that's not me arguing that it is my mass Psychogenic illness because I don't know I don't know I don't know I will say that that from the accounts of the individuals who had these experiences,

and I think the vast majority are anonymous, because some of them might still be working in those super secret jobs, they are really experiencing something. They are really having some, they really did have symptoms or really continue to have some sorts of symptoms. That I do not doubt. Now, what caused them? I have no, it's a mystery.

It's a very strange, history. But it, but it's this weird, mysterious thing that happened and is continuing to happen and has hugely impacted American foreign policy. Yeah. We don't know. And we don't have a medical explanation for it. Maybe something will come from all these investigations that are happening this year, but I don't know. That's so strange. It's very strange. And I would say that we have more pressing matters to attend to what with the pandemic. Yeah, but like, I don't know. Maybe this laser is like the scariest thing.

Who knows? Are you scared now? Did I think you out? No, I'm scared. Anybody could blast you with this thing. I don't think. This van beam. I read,

I read like one article where it was like a civilian saying that they had had some symptoms and that they called like the government to say like, hey, I had those two and they were like, we're not really interested in any civilians who are. So like, I don't. I don't want it to catch, well, I mean, then you could start to get into, like, then the waters would get truly muddy, right? Because then you could, maybe you could have a hybrid where it is like a real thing that is happening and also a mass psychogenic illness. Well, but I mean, it was really weird because it seems to be very targeted at intelligence officials, military officers. It was like a one was a doctor, but he was also employed by, I don't, the embassy or the CIA, somebody.

He was associated. So, like, everybody who is part of these studies is affiliated somehow with the government. But there may be accounts of people who aren't. Oh, well, and some were family members. I should say that that's not entirely true. Some were the family members who were in the area of people who were affected. That's wild. But, like...

That's truly wild. I don't know. It's a very... Obviously, we have a lot more questions than answers with this. But that is what that is. That's why it's in the news. It was something to think about. There's something to think about and talk about and discuss that isn't COVID for a little bit.

How about that? As we mentioned at the beginning before we wrap up here, we did want to talk about this has been back in the news again, Havana syndrome. We saw popping up in headlines, especially since for various reasons, diplomacy has taken a forefront in the global conversation recently. And Havana syndrome has been popping up. That's true, Justin. I mentioned that we, you know, in very recent months, have had more investigation, more interest into looking into the causes of Havana syndrome. In October, as I mentioned, President Biden signed the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks Act. Can you remember?

I already said this. It's Savannah. It's Savannah. Okay. Now you know it. Now you know it now. Yeah. It's really good.

Yeah, that was really good. A clean one. I know. to provide for compensation for people who have experienced the symptoms. And then they had like a special committee looking into possible causes, like investigating it. It was an effort from multiple agencies like the Department of Defense and the CIA and all these groups were looking into like what is behind it. And in part, if you really think about it, you know, this is sort of predictable. If you're going to compensate people who have experienced this, you have to define who those people are.

Right, right. And so part of that, part of the job of this, I don't want to say detective group. But that's what they are. It's okay. It's like they're like a Scooby-Doo gang. Yes, basically. Mystery-solving crew. Yeah.

Part of their job was going to be to say, actually, you didn't have. that because otherwise you have to give everybody benefits who said they had it. Right. Everybody could have it. You can't prove it because we don't really understand it. Exactly. So I feel like this popped back into the news recently because of that controversy. You started hearing some reports about like what the CIA was thinking about this and some people got upset about those results.

Because it's all kind of preliminary too. It's important to say. So the first thing that emerged, there were some stories that the CIA was really. reporting that they did not feel that this was any sort of coordinated attack. Okay. Specifically, as we had talked about, there was a lot of thought like, man, this is very timely. Doesn't this seem like something Russia would do? And everybody sort of thought, like, yeah, this feels.

Feels Russian. Feels Russian. And the CIA is kind of like, eh, we don't really think that this is anything like. Like, this isn't some coordinated conspiracy or attack from another country or something like that. Like, they feel like that was not it. Now, a lot of people were immediately like, yeah, the CIA doesn't know what they're talking about. Basically, they felt like, in part, it undermined their experience. Like, they're having these symptoms and to have that.

And I should note that the CIA wasn't saying this doesn't exist. It's just deciding who did and did not have it. They had done, this investigation has involved, you know, interviewing thousands of people who are experiencing symptoms. And a lot of people, according to the report, and I am just telling you what is being reported, I have not interviewed any of these people. I am not, I am not sharing my medical opinion. Right. This is just purely what has been released. The feeling was that many, many, many of those people, their symptoms could be attributed to something else.

to another medical condition, something environmental, something, right? So a lot of them were kind of removed from the pool of possible victims. Now, they did say there were cases of people who experienced something that they could not attribute to another medical condition or some sort of like psychosocial stress or something. I mean, that was part of it. We're not saying this isn't real. We're just saying that some people, in our opinion. The majority of people who are experiencing this, you could attribute it to something else. And there still is a subset of people we can't explain.

And we do not believe that whatever is causing it, this subset of people is that it's some sort of coordinated attack. Okay. Which would be different, I guess, than like one-off sort of, I don't want to use the word terrorist element. But, I mean, I guess that's what we're talking about. Like, lone wolf. Whoa. I don't know. You're saying it's a lone wolf?

I'm not saying it's a lone wolf. I've waited for a lone wolf on this show for over 300 episodes. I'm not saying that. I am saying that just because it's not a whole country doing it doesn't mean somebody's not doing something. Does that make sense? Yes, I guess so. It could also be skunk works, you know, real black up stuff. So part of...

Blue wolves, maybe. So the thought is that maybe... there really is some sort of electromagnetic weapon that is being used. As I say, I know how this sounds. Is it some sort of directed energy device?

Energy being or the death ray. We're not necessarily ruling that out at this point. Okay. Okay. that we're still kind of there like just because we don't think that that Russia is attacking us and whole doesn't mean that that's not happening and I was reading I was like is this something that has happened before and like I guess there were times like where the Soviets were

attacking the U.S. embassy with like microwave radiation so I guess that is that is something that can happen But that was the controversy that's come out in the news. So the CIA sort of came out and said it isn't a big conspiracy, and a lot of these cases probably are not an anomalous health incident. They're something that we can explain. And then a lot of people got upset about that and felt like it was being sort of brushed under the rug maybe or underestimated. And then there was some clarity that there's still stuff we don't understand. There still could be some sort of directed. energy, weapon.

You have a hard time talking about cool stuff, Sydney. I don't know what's wrong with you. It just feels very sci-fi and fake, and I know it's not. I'm just saying, like, as I say it, which I think is what a lot of the victims of this are struggling with. When you say that out loud, people look at you and go, I'm sorry, what? Say again?

What do you think? Like a sonic screwdriver attacked you? Like, what are you saying? But, like, they haven't ruled that out. Just because it sounds far-fetched doesn't mean, I mean, look at the times we're living in. Yeah, right. That's true. So those are sort of the updates.

They're still, I mean, they're still looking into this stuff. Like, it's not like they concluded the whole investigation and everything was done. I guess that 60 Minutes did a big, I didn't watch 60 Minutes for this. I'm sorry. I don't have 60 minutes to go watch 60 minutes. I think it's like 44. So you'd be. Really?

Yeah, because commercial breaks. But there was like a big 60 minutes. minute's report because in addition to these new things being released from the CIA, there were also a number of White House employees, White House officials under the Trump administration who have since come forward and said, like, I experienced some of this stuff in the White House. Like, I experienced, I mean, like, I think there was something going on that we weren't addressing. So, you know, that's scary. So there you have it. Okay, so what's happening now?

Sorry about all. Hello, welcome back. We're in 2026. Here we are. We're in 2026. We're in March of 2026. Everything is different. Sorry if you're in the past and you just found out.

Anyway, so we kind of left it off that the consensus opinion, and this is what our last update on Havana syndrome said, is that this is probably a mass psychogenic illness. that this is, that this, they're not connected to some sort of attack or weapon or device from a foreign adversary that this is not intentional, uh, that the, you know, the CIA concluded in the last report that was done. They didn't even, you know, they stopped calling it Havana syndrome. They were anomalous health incidents. And they were basically saying like, you know, a lot of the things you're experiencing, you probably need to talk to somebody and you need help, But we don't need to worry that somebody's out there attacking us with some sort of secret James Bond-like weapon. And that was the last we heard until 60 minutes at CBS.

They just did a report this past week on Havana syndrome. And to be fair, I should. Ahi. Now is Ahi. Right? Ahi. Ahi. No, it's Havana syndrome to them.

Okay. Because there are investigators at CBS and working through 60 minutes and through another news outlet, The Insider. They have all been kind of working on this for a long time. Like this is not, like there's a book coming out later this year from two of these reporters about Havana syndrome. So this is clearly an area of interest. Maybe another update left. Yes. And they have been following any kind of, because there continues to be this sort of controversy.

is it real, and I shouldn't say is it real? Is it actually an attack by some sort of weapon that is producing physical symptoms, or is it a psychiatric condition that also needs help, but we don't need to look for like an adversary? Right. This is ongoing, and there is allegedly still dispute within the CIA, and even the report that finally said, no, this is mass agogenic illness, there continues to be question, and even like physicians who came forward and said, that's not that. conclusion I came to, I was part of that, and that wasn't actually what I said. So there's been this sort of like rumbling, and then 60 Minutes puts out this piece this past week and says, uh, not only do we now know that it was caused by some sort of miniaturized microwave weapon. So if you remember, what I said in the original episode is that the theory was that if we

use some sort of microwave, I don't want to say gun, ray gun. Remember we used to say Blaster instead of guns, so we didn't say gun. Yeah. Some sort of microwave blaster. I've been thinking it, in my head, I started calling it because it's like they're, I'm thinking of it like a radio dial or they're like tuning it in and frying your brain. So I think of it as the Ahi Tuna. This is what I start calling in my head.

You can call it that. But the thought was that in order to be a long range weapon, basically, it would have to be very large. And so it wouldn't be something that you could conceal. Well, allegedly, there is. a small microwave weapon. We know that it exists because the U.S. purchased it last year on the black market through the Department of Homeland Security using Pentagon funding.

We bought it from a Russian crime syndicate. Okay. Yep. Normal. So we got on the Silk Road. We bought a brain laser from the Russians. Uh-huh. we have been testing it for the last year on animals to see, specifically rats and sheep, to see if it does the things to them that people with Havana syndrome say they experienced.

Okay. And where are we at on that? Well, according to 60 minutes, yes, it does. And this is like we like solved. Puzzle solved. It's this crazy brain frying laser beam. Yes, that there is a very small, easily conceivable microwave weapon that does not create heat, so it's not like a microwave oven, okay? It doesn't use a lot of power, and the range is several hundred feet. It can penetrate windows and drywall. While it is not all Russian in origin, there are components of it that are definitely Russian, and that it, the programming of it, it's the software. That's what everybody keeps saying.

Shapes a unique electromagnetic wave that rises and falls abruptly and pulses rapidly. And it's so, oh my, it's a phaser. It's a phaser set on stun, honey. This is it. Do you know how close we are to first contact? Listen, pretty soon there's going to be a rocket. And we're going to be about to make first contact. Okay, listen.

I don't know what you're talking about. Phaser is a handheld device, right, in the world of Star Trek. Okay. That they, you point at people and you can sit on kill. But this is the Federation we're talking about. Starfleet, we're like the good guys, right? So we, they sit in on stun usually. But if you think about it, like range of several hundred feet, shoots a beam, fries your brains up real good.

It's a phaser. Well, I guess, yes. Okay, go on. But it's not thermal energy. Yeah, and phase a, yeah, I mean, like, you can. use a, listen. It's like pulsed electromagnetic energy that disrupts. It's kind of, it does what your neurons do.

It's just wrong. If you're asking me if you could crank a phaser a weird way and burn a hole through metal, sure. Yeah, probably. But like, I'm just saying you can also set it this time. We've got to start somewhere. The problem, so what is giving this validity is, one, the way this. Gene Roddenberry and his incredible imagination.

Star Trek. And 60 years of science fiction excellence gives it validity. Why does Star Trek new validity? It is a fair point that science fiction often predicts, you know, stuff that we make later. You know, that's why flip phones are the way that they are because the tricorder designs. Yes. So, I mean, this is true. This is true.

The advancements in science and technology, yes, sci-fi predicts. Here's what, this is like a bombshell thing, right? Like the fact that I read this and it wasn't. A phaser is more of an electromagnetic. Now, if you're not photon torpedoes, those are a, good. different kettle of fish. I read this and I was like, what is everybody saying about it? Because like I have like several different news apps on my phone and I went to them and none of

them were talking about it. And so then I started thinking, why is this is huge, but maybe it's just that we've done two podcast episodes on it, so it's huge to us. But this feels like a huge thing for multiple reasons. One, the CIA and the U.S. government had kind of dismissed all of these individuals who were suffering from Havana syndrome. and now that, you know, if this is accurate, that's wrong. Two, a weapon like this, we didn't think was possible.

We thought the way the weapon worked was indeed plausible, like that was in the initial reporting on it and an investigation of it. But the thought was that it would have to be this gigantic thing and we would notice it. So a miniaturized version, we didn't think was possible, but apparently it is if this is true. Three, the government has known this for over a year and has been hiding it from us. Wait, our government, the one that we live in has been hiding this from us? This government? The implications are that if it came from Russia and at least was partially Russian in origin, then was Russia attacking U.S. intelligence officials with this weapon?

Is that what we are? There's no way of knowing that. We've got to let that one slide. Right. Well, I mean, that's what I'm saying. The implications of this from 60 Minutes in CBS are gigantic. Yeah. And the fact that it's not being widely covered by other news agencies is interesting and makes it all, like it calls a lot into question.

And I will say the sources for this reporting are confidential. The main former TIA official that they interviewed is anonymous, like uses a different name. So we don't have external validation right now. We have inside sources who are anonymous. and I'm not saying so that's not true. I'm just saying we have not validated it with secondary or tertiary sources

that say, yeah, what that person is saying is indeed true. We don't know. We haven't seen the weapon ourselves. We haven't talked. We haven't been in the lab. We haven't seen the sheep. None of that has happened.

That's great. You can still be surprised. Right? It's really special. But I will say that there was a report from CNN back in January that did say the Pentagon bought a device

that may be linked to Havana. syndrome. So like there was some reporting on this earlier this year that I guess we all missed. It's just 60 minutes did this big thing on it. There also, I will say, was an article that came out just a couple hours ago on Barstall Sports that said the P-60 Minutes ran this past weekend on Havana syndrome was absolutely terrifying and said the U.S. government bought a Russian brain-frying ray gun and didn't tell anybody. Yeah. Which is all true. I will just put this little caveat on it. So this is wild. It could mean that it is the result of the weapon that we theorize. that we didn't think could exist but did exist

and that some sort of foreign adversary, we don't know who, right? Anybody could have had this weapon if it does exist. Some sort of foreign adversary intentionally attacked these individuals and their families, the people around them, with this weapon. That would be what this would imply.

I will say, and there are several other outlets that are pointing this out because there's not a lot of reporting on it yet. One, this is going to come up. I think there are going to be some congressional hearings with the CIA director in a week or so, this is going to come up. There are several members of Congress

who have always believed Havana syndrome is caused by a foreign adversary, and they're going to be drilling in on this, so a lot more conversation is going to be happening about this. It's causing a lot of fracturing within the CIA. It's pitting people who have always believed in this against those who have defended that there's no, as they keep saying, there's no there, there's no there there.

It's nothing. It is also coming from CBS, which I think we should note is now headed up by Barry Weiss and this sort of reporting Mr. Deep Voice the Lovemeister himself No, no

Whatever, whatever, that is not. Love his stuff. Not Barry White. Oh. Very Weiss. I do think it is worth noting that some have asked the question

is it is a convenient time Anything, just anything to talk about. It is a convenient moment. to pull this out for the federal government, for the Trump administration. It's a convenient moment to begin to pin these sort of actions, these sort of offensive actions

on whatever nation maybe you want to target next. And maybe Havana syndrome is named for Havana, Cuba. And maybe there's been a lot of talk from the Trump administration about Cuba. I think that that is, I think all of this needs to be considered as we move forward

and critically assess this new information. And you know what? It's all wild. As I read it, I really, my brain is exploding. I don't know how to comprehend that this weapon exists, that it was being used, and that we're just finding out about it. And it's not all over. I don't know how this isn't everything that we're talking about.

Like, why is nobody talking about that? I don't understand. It's wild. It's absolutely wild. It was on 60 minutes. Wasn't that like the, when I was growing up, when I was growing grown up news, it was like the boring grown-up news. You watched 60 minutes. Not phasers are real news.

Yes. There's a ray gun. We bought it from Russia. We bought it from the Russian mob, and we've been testing it on sheep for a year. Thank you so much for listening to Sawbones. Thanks to the taxpayers for the use of their own medicines as the intro and outro bar program.

Thanks to you for listening. Hey, I want to ask, my little brother, Griffin came out with a choosier and adventure book that he wrote all on his own called the Stolode. Way. Chit Your own Adventure of the Stowway. If you remember that franchise when you were younger, it's still cranking along. And Griff wrote

a new one. It's for readers 8 to 11, but I think pretty much in A-Bay is going to enjoy it. So it's $10.00. You can go to Bit.0.Y.4.S.Griffon Stoway. Or buy it in a store. A local bookstore. Be called to you. That's going to do it for us for this week. Until next time, my name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sidney McRoy. And as always, don't drill a

hole in your hand. Maximum Fun. A Worker Old Network. Of Artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.