Our men in HavanaPesticides May Have Caused Cuban “Sonic Weapon” Symptoms

Published 20 September 2019

A strange illness affecting the brains of Canadian and U.S. diplomats in their countries’ embassies in Havana may have been caused by exposure to pesticides, a new study says. From late 2016 to late 2017, some 40 U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Havana suffered brain damage, and exhibited a range of unusual symptoms, including hearing and vision complications, dizziness, fatigue, disorientation, and headaches. The U.S. government claimed that the diplomats had been attacked by some sort of secret sonic weapon, but a new Canadian study says that the cause was likely an exposure to low-dose exposure to neurotoxins, such as those used in commercial pesticides. From late 2016 to late 2017, Cuban health authorities engaged in an intensive fumigation campaign to block the spread of the Zika virus.

A strange illness affecting the brains of Canadian and U.S. diplomats in their countries’ embassies in Havana may have been caused by exposure to pesticides, a new study says.

U.S. authorities had suspected that the brain disorder symptoms the diplomats exhibited were the result of Cuba using a secret sonic weapon.

The BBC reports, however, that a clinical study has found that the mysterious health complaints of Canadian and U.S. diplomats in Cuba may have been caused by neurotoxins in anti-mosquito pesticides.

The Canadian study said the symptoms suffered by some forty Canadian and U.S. diplomats and their families at missions in Havana were possibly triggered by “low-dose exposure to neurotoxins.”

Those affected suffered a range of unusual symptoms, including hearing and vision complications, dizziness, fatigue, disorientation, and headaches.

The incidents, which took place from late 2016 into 2018, led Ottawa and Washington to reduce their embassy staffs in Havana, with the administration of President Donald Trump claiming that the diplomats had been attacked by some sort of secret sonic weapon.

The study, carried out by a team affiliated with the Canadian Brain Repair Center and the Nova Scotia Health Authority, gave no credence to the acoustic weapon theory.

There are very specific types of toxins that affect these kinds of nervous systems … and these are insecticides, pesticides, organophosphates — specific neurotoxins,” the study’s lead author, Alon Friedman, was quoted as saying by Canadian broadcaster CBC.

The researchers say that the patterns of brain injury “all raise the hypothesis of recurrent, low-dose exposure to neurotoxins.”

Specifically, the results were “highly suggestive” of something called cholinesterase inhibitor intoxication.

Cholinesterase is an important enzyme in the human nervous system, and blocking it through an inhibitor can lead to death. The chemical weapon, Sarin, is an example of a potent cholinesterase inhibitor, as is VX, which was used in the killing of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea’s leader.

But the low, consistent doses the researchers believe were delivered are consistent with exposure to commercial pesticides, the study’s authors said.

The BBC notes that Cuba routinely uses pesticides to kill insects that might carry disease, and that Cuban health authorities carried out an intensive program of spraying from late 2016 and throughout 2017 to stop the spread of the Zika virus, which was then spreading in Brazil and Colombia, but which was also discovered in other Latin American and Caribbean countries. Embassy records cited by Radio-Canada said that the offices and homes of diplomats were among the sites sprayed.

The study involved twenty-six people, including a control group of people who have never lived in Cuba. Participants were subjected to blood tests and brain scans. A pet dog that had died in Canada also had its brain studied.

Friedman said there were plans to extend the study to members of the broader Cuban population in cooperation with local scientists to see whether other residents had also been affected by the neurotoxins.

The Canadian researchers said that proving the definitive cause was “difficult, if not impossible at this time” - but that their hypothesis offered “a plausible explanation”.

But “other causes cannot be ruled out”, they wrote.