The ‘Havana Syndrome’ with Jon Lee Anderson and Adam Entous

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

NBCNews

News, Nbcnews, Why Is This Happening?, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Chris Hayes, Politics, Government, Society & Culture, Msnbc, Withpod

4.6 • 8.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Starting in 2016, U.S. diplomats and spies began reporting a wide range of mysterious and debilitating medical symptoms, first in Cuba and then around the world. Doctors who initially treated patients couldn’t come up with a diagnosis and some just called it “The Thing.” Patients said they felt like they were hit by an invisible, directed pressure while stationed on government property, or sometimes standing in their own homes or hotel rooms. The intense health effects, which some have referred to as potentially psychogenic, included high pitched ringing in ears, vertigo, memory loss and brain zaps. The set of medical conditions became known as Havana Syndrome. Why has investigating this been so difficult? Who or what force could be behind all of this? Although the C.I.A. has maintained that it’s unlikely that the cases were caused by foreign adversaries, many questions and doubts remain about the agency’s findings. Award-winning journalists Jon Lee Anderson and Adam Entous explore some of these questions in a new Vice World News 8-part podcast aptly titled “Havana Syndrome.” Anderson and Entous join WITHpod to discuss the events leading up to the first reported Havana Syndrome cases, the global blame game that followed, what technology could be the culprit and more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The timing for me was everything.
0:04.0	I mean, there was seem to be no coincidence in the timing.
0:07.3	I mean, I'm bad at math, but 2 plus 2 has always been 4.
0:10.5	So, Trump wins, Fidel dies,
0:13.4	and three weeks later, CIA agents at the Embassy start getting zapped.
0:18.6	Bottom line is, some mysteries are really, really hard.
0:22.6	Just like Havana's syndrome has proved to be very hard.
0:25.2	Hello and welcome to Wise This Happening With Me, your host, Chris Hayes.
0:35.6	You know, in the course of my work, there's sort of different buckets of stories, right?
0:39.0	So, there's stuff that I have covered for a long time and know really well, you know,
0:43.3	the back and forth on politics or domestic policy or, you know, the attempt to repeal Obamacare, right?
0:48.6	Well, I covered the ACA being passed, and I know a lot about it.
0:52.6	I've talked to a lot of people and reported on it, and then when they try to repeal it,
0:55.5	know a lot about that.
0:56.5	And in an area that I have some kind of built-up expertise.
0:59.5	And then there's like an enormous, much larger category of things.
1:02.7	I don't know that much about, but, you know, surface in the news,
1:05.5	and we do our best to find people who do know about the balloons, for instance,
1:09.6	the Chinese spy balloon that floated over the country.
1:13.2	And, you know, COVID's a great example, right?
1:15.5	When it began, like, I don't have a background epidemiology or public health,
1:18.5	but it was clear to me that it was going to be the most important story
	...

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