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posted by janrinok on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the voices-in-my-head dept.

Two American diplomats stationed in China were reportedly evacuated from the region after being sickened by a mysterious ailment linked to odd sounds.

The two Americans evacuated worked at the American Consulate in the southern city of Guangzhou, the New York Times reported Wednesday, adding that their colleagues and relatives are also being tested by a State Department medical team.

American officials have been worried for months that American diplomats and their families in Cuba -- and now China -- have been subjected to a "sonic attack," leading to symptoms similar to those "following concussion or minor traumatic brain injury," the State Department said in a statement Tuesday.

The new cases broaden a medical mystery that began affecting American diplomats and their families in Cuba in 2016. Since then, 24 Americans stationed in Havana have experienced dizziness, headaches, fatigue, hearing loss and cognitive issues, the State Department said.

[...] The nature of the injury, and whether a common cause exists, hasn't been established yet, the department said.

Previously: Sonic Attack? U.S. Issues Health Alert After Employee Experiences Brain Trauma in Guangzhou, China

Related: US Embassy Employees in Cuba Possibly Subjected to 'Acoustic Attack'
U.S. State Department Pulls Employees From Cuba, Issues Travel Warning Due to "Sonic Attacks"
A 'Sonic Attack' on Diplomats in Cuba? These Scientists Doubt It
Cuban Embassy Victims Experiencing Neurological Symptoms
Computer Scientists May Have Solved the Mystery Behind the 'Sonic Attacks' in Cuban Embassy


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:32PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:32PM (#689999)

    24 Americans stationed in Havana have experienced dizziness, headaches, fatigue, hearing loss and cognitive issues

    Two "fake news" angles.

    The first is that sounds like the result of watching legacy CNN propaganda, sure they're not just bored couch potatoes? I mean, nothing causes dissociation from reality quite like watching CNN or reading the washington post.

    Somewhat more serious, it doesn't pass a diplomatic smell test that one country would use a weapon of mass destruction casually on an entire embassy for a very long time despite continuous media coverage reporting it, outside of a shooting war, of course. Sure kill some individual spy in a dark alley one night, or poison a defector on the street, but this is on the scale of "dirty bombing" an embassy, or putting the entire compound under daily random mortar attack IF its true as reported, which of course isn't the case. My guess is this is a mix of "toyota accelerator jam" problem where the symptoms only appear when the media cameras are providing attention to people who really want attention, or its just outright fake news and god knows why but the legacy deep state wants a war with Cuba because we don't have enough war in this world. I don't know how a war with Cuba benefits Israel or any of that, but clearly someone want a war pretty bad.

    If its not a "fake news" story I suspect its more prosaic like simple industrial waste, just like the inevitable health damage from being posted to work in China, left wing authoritarian regimes are famous for massive pollution damage to the environment, much worse than capitalist countries, so its all a bunch of nothing, just a leaky pipe at the insecticide plant a mile upwind or a buried rusty drum of god-knows-what at some old factory down the road is leaking into the air or similar. Its an extreme Americanism to only worry about a couple diplomats while a dozen or hundreds of times as many citizens in the street are collapsing from the same poisoning or whatever. Humans are only "equal" when they're immigrants promising to vote for the right people in exchange for taxpayer funded giveaways, otherwise F those people let em die, is a very American way to look at it. So if this is a real story and not 100% fake news, what do the doctors say about the sick Cuban neighbors of the embassy who surely are visiting the local (free) medical offices? I mean, if there's 24 American casualties of some area mass destruction weapon, surely there are 240 or so sick locals? Where are they? Why isn't the CDC there in case its viral zika flu or whatever? How do they know its not biological in origin?

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