Talk:Havana syndrome

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Havana syndrome article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: 90 days

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Skepticism High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

United States Mid‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Cuba Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cuba, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Cuba related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CubaWikipedia:WikiProject CubaTemplate:WikiProject CubaCuba articles

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject Cuba task list:

Task list

New article announcements:
Requests: Ambrosio Cave, Calero Cave, Centella Cave, Cuba and the United Nations, Cuban Liberation Army, Cuevas de Punta del Este, Cura Cave, Patana Cave, Pluma Cave
Stubs: Dollar store (Cuba)
Verify: History of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista
Update: Nochebuena
NPOV: Armando Valladares, Delfín Fernández, History of Cuba
Copyedit: Armando Peraza, Bay of Pigs Invasion, Fabio Grobart, Julio Antonio Mella
Cleanup: Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, Antonio Maceo Grajales, Bay of Pigs Invasion, History of Cuba, List of Cubans, Máximo Gómez, War against the Bandits
Style: Fidel Castro
Expand: Cuba–Soviet Union relations, Baseball in Cuba, Religion in Cuba, Havana's International Book Fair, Cuba–Venezuela relations, Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirven

International relations Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject International relations, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of International relations on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.International relationsWikipedia:WikiProject International relationsTemplate:WikiProject International relationsInternational relations articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Russia Mid‑importance

	Russia portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Russia, a WikiProject dedicated to coverage of Russia on Wikipedia. To participate: Feel free to edit the article attached to this page, join up at the project page, or contribute to the project discussion.RussiaWikipedia:WikiProject RussiaTemplate:WikiProject RussiaRussia articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

China Mid‑importance

	China portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject China, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of China related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChinaWikipedia:WikiProject ChinaTemplate:WikiProject ChinaChina-related articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Military history: Asian / Canadian / Chinese / North America / Russian & Soviet / United States / Post-Cold War B‑class

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

B

This article has been rated as B-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Asian military history task force
	Canadian military history task force
	Chinese military history task force
	North American military history task force
	Russian, Soviet and CIS military history task force
	United States military history task force
	Post-Cold War task force

Physics Low‑importance

	Physics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report. The week in which this happened:

August 22 to 28, 2021

Daily pageviews of this article

A graph should have been displayed here but graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at pageviews.wmcloud.org

This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

Palmer, Rob (2019-02-05). "Were the 'Sonic Attacks' on American Diplomats Just Sci-Fi?". Skeptical Inquirer.

The following Wikipedia contributor has declared a personal or professional connection to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view.

103.152.126.102 (talk · contribs) This user has declared a connection. (declared here)

Suggestions for a reorg

Reports, investigations and/or studies are discussed in too many sections of this article to be reasonably followed regarding what happened when. And the order of these I think is more important than things like where they were associated with (Cuba/China...) I just combined two of these subsections that were both in the Cuba section into one, but there are still too many separate areas (I count 3 at least). I suggest all such material be combined - chronologically - into just one section. I'd like to get consensus on this before spending the time to do it. Rp2006 (talk) 20:48, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No response, so I will attempt a restructuring. Rp2006 (talk) 23:57, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK... I took a stab at it. Moved all the reports, analysis, etc to a new section. Out of time for now, but the basics are complete. Still need to verify the material in each year is applicable as well as not redundant. I'm sure within each year it can be organized in some way as well. (Positive vs negative findings? By agency doing report? Also: one problem was that it wasn't obvious where to put something that was commissioned in one year but released to the press later... not sure the material is consistent yet regarding that issue.) Rp2006 (talk) 01:11, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Probably! Rp2006 (talk) 06:09, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

is Havana Syndrome unproven?

civilians cases like Len Ber, M.D. have now been diagnosed by Dr. Hoffer who diagnosed the diplomats. Babies across the homeland and their mothers while they try to nurse are also confirmed cases with acquired brain and vestibular organ damage. its not unproven. Tinyurl.com/havanababy Medicineowl (talk) 11:27, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That is not an RS. Slatersteven (talk) 11:38, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Short description

@Slatersteven "Anomalous health incidents" does not give any more information than the title, and I don't see any problem in my preferred version. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But this is what they were. Slatersteven (talk) 15:47, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And what I wrote is what it is, with the added benefit of disambiguation, a primary purpose for short descriptions. When an average reader searches and sees the short description "Anomalous health incidents", they're not going to know that it was a former name or anything about the syndrome other than the fact that it is related to health (duh). Being a former name is not a criterion for short descriptions, and I don't see why it should be. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Did you read the article, not all the incidents were over seas (for a start). Slatersteven (talk) 16:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your suggestion is problematic for the reason that families of officials have also claimed symptoms. Also, people in the United States, including at the White House, have claimed symptoms. Rp2006 (talk) 16:07, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. Well, wouldn't adding a "mostly" solve that? Aaron Liu (talk) 16:17, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

New section summarizing explanations that have been speculated?

Kudos for all editors that have worked on this article in the past ... lots of good information & sourcing. However, it appears to be lacking a key section: a summary list of the explanations for Havana Syndrome that have been hypothesized over the years. For comparison, the MH 370 article has the section Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#Speculated_causes_of_disappearance.

Some speculated/hypothesized explanations for Havana Syndrome (from the article's existing sources) include:

* Stress (of working overseas, under surveillance);  PTSD
* EM attack from hostile adversary (microwaves, etc)
* Crickets
* Toxins or pesticides
* Psychogenic (hysteria, psychosomatic, etc).

Providing such a section would be very useful to readers. The tricky part would be not duplicating all the detailed text already in the other sections (esp the Research/Study section). So maybe the best approach would be to keep the proposed new "speculated/hypothesized explanations" section terse and leave the details (as-is) in other sections.

Thoughts? Noleander (talk) 23:15, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm starting to add the new section (proposed above). The goal is to keep it terse: just a summary. All pre-existing content & cites int eh article are not changed. The "Criticism of media coverage" section was merged into the new "Speculated causes" section initially. I'm trying to decide if that is best or not. If anyone has any suggestions please post a note here. Noleander (talk) 19:29, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I like it in general. Made a change to one subsection I thought gave the wrong idea. Rp2006 (talk) 18:03, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also... Not at all sure there SHOULD be a crickets section here, as it is an outlier... No one thought the sound CAUSED the ailments. Gonna try a slight re-org to better handle this issue. Let me know what you think. Rp2006 (talk) 18:10, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to review the changes and making some additional improvements. I'm not sure I understand how the psychogenic section is now organized though ...it now it looks like there's five various types of psychogenic causes such as financial incentives. that's not quite right... those five subsections are just aspects of the the single psychogenic cause. Noleander (talk) 20:48, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe "non-physical" is better? 22:14, 23 March 2024 (UTC) Rp2006 (talk) 22:14, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think of the latest mods to the section (to make header statements prior to the sub-sections)? Rp2006 (talk) 22:26, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Current sections are still not quite sensible... the way I see it, "Psychogenic" is a single cause. The subsections (media, etc) are simply details about _why_ the Psychogenic cause was not (and is not still?) widely publicized by the CIA & State dept.

I'll make an edit to the section headers & levels (no content or text change) to show what I'm talking about, and you can check it out. Noleander (talk) 23:27, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I made the change to the section depth. I also added a transition sentence so the nature of the four subsections under Psychogenic section is clearer to readers, viz: Commentators have suggested several reasons why the psychogenic hypothesis was not widely embraced in the early years of Havana Syndrome, including political motivations, financial incentives, and media sensationalism. Noleander (talk) 23:34, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looking good! Rp2006 (talk) 04:02, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bias on this page

There is clear evidence of bias on this page, towards the idea that psychogenic factors caused this Syndrome, and away from the extensive studies that have demonstrated the plausibility of electromagnetic (pulsed radiofrequency) and acoustic (ultrasound) energy as causes of some cases. The findings of the 2020 NASEM report are misportrayed, and the work of the IC Experts Panel is largely ignored (https://media.salon.com/pdf/22-cv-674%20Final%20Response%20Package.pdf). The many flaws of the 2024 NIH publications in JAMA are also ignored (https://jamanetwork-com.laneproxy.stanford.edu/journals/jama/fullarticle/2816534). Psychosocial factors cannot explain the subset of cases with acute onset audio-vestibular signs and symptoms and strong location-dependence. David657293457056 (talk) 01:26, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]