Havana Syndrome

Reveal

The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

News

4.7 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A sharp sound. Followed by body numbness. Difficulty speaking. Extreme head pain. Since 2016, U.S. officials across the world – in Cuba, China and Russia – have reported experiencing the sudden onset of an array of eerie symptoms. Reporters Adam Entous and Jon Lee Anderson try to make sense of this confusing illness that has come to be called Havana syndrome. This episode is built from reporting for an eight-part VICE World News podcast series by the same name.

The reporters begin by tracking down one of the first people to report Havana syndrome symptoms, a CIA officer working in Cuba. This “patient zero” explains the ways Cuban intelligence surveil and harass American spies working on the island and his own experience of suddenly being struck with a mysterious, painful condition. When he reports the illness to his bosses at the CIA, he learns that other U.S. officials on the island are experiencing the same thing.

A CIA doctor sees reports from the field about this strange condition happening in Cuba. He’s sent to Havana to investigate the cause of the symptoms and whether they may be caused by a mysterious sound recorded by patient zero. But during his first night on the island, the CIA doctor falls ill with the same syndrome he is there to investigate.

In the third segment, reporters Entous and Anderson head to Havana to visit the sites where people reported the onset of their symptoms, looking for answers. The team shares reporting-informed theories about who and what could be causing Havana syndrome.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letton.
0:07.0	Yeah, it's me. I was for the last few.
0:14.0	Something's wrong with me.
0:17.0	It's November 2020, just outside the White House. A national security official is on his way home
0:24.0	when he hears a sharp ringing in his ears. His body starts to go numb. He's having trouble moving his hands and fingers.
0:32.0	He calls his wife, no answer. So he leaves her a voicemail, but he's struggling to speak.
0:39.0	I started to remember about an hour ago. I told her since the balance and basically for the last hour,
0:49.0	it's something I'm having a stroke or something.
0:53.0	Eventually, he manages to call a car to take him to the hospital, but doctors have no idea what's going on with him.
1:01.0	It's not until a few days later that he has a theory.
1:05.0	There has been a significant increase in reports of health incidents affecting US spies and diplomats in recent months.
1:13.0	What he experienced, felt eerily similar to the symptoms reported by US officials in Cuba, in China and Russia.
1:21.0	A range of debilitating symptoms, including headaches, nausea, vertigo, trouble seeing or hearing.
1:29.0	This mysterious illness came to be called Havana Syndrome. All previous cases were in other countries. This one was the first reported on American soil.
1:40.0	Though it wasn't known publicly, the first victims of this illness came forward in late 2016, most were US spies who got sick while working undercover.
1:50.0	Suspected cases have spread across more than half a dozen more than 130 possible cases now reported across the globe.
1:58.0	Many say they are still sick and don't feel like they've gotten a straight answer about what happened or why.
2:05.0	The public also hasn't gotten a lot of answers from the US government. What is this illness and is it some sort of attack from a foreign adversary?
2:14.0	This week, we're partnering with Vice News and Reporters Adam Entis and John Lee Anderson.
2:20.0	Adam is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter with The New York Times. He's covered national security, foreign policy and intelligence agencies for more than a decade.
2:30.0	John Lee has been a staff writer with The New Yorker for 25 years and wrote a well-known book on Cuban Revolution Leader Che Guevara.
2:37.0	The two just finished an eight-part series called Havana Syndrome. Adam and John Lee's reporting starts with the search for one of the first people to get sick.
	...

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