
Were the Cuban sonic attack victims actually poisoned? - fern12
https://www.thedailybeast.com/were-the-cuban-sonic-attack-victims-actually-poisoned?ref=wrap
======
awalton
Literally from the first moment the story broke, I had completely discounted
the magical sonic weapon theory and was wondering what was in their
environment and whether they had instead been poisoned. It fits _vastly_
better, and there are much better questions to be asked probing the nature of
the poisoning. The entire "sonic weapon" angle seemed to be some kind of
fabrication to _immediately_ drum up Cold War feelings against Cuba and the
ongoing efforts to end the embargo and return to normalcy.

In fact, it was this very story that makes me wonder to this day if Obama's
move to normalize relations with Cuba in 2014-15 was the inciting incident
behind Russia's decision to start the Digital Cold War in the first place.

~~~
rangibaby
> In fact, it was this very story that makes me wonder to this day if Obama's
> move to normalize relations with Cuba in 2014-15 was the inciting incident
> behind Russia's decision to start the Digital Cold War in the first place.

I think NATO's assassination of Gaddafi was a disaster re: relationship with
Russia

2011: "Putin blamed himself for letting Gaddafi go, for not playing a strong
role behind the scenes" [0]

2012: US threatens military action in Syria: "red line"

2013: Russia gives refuge to Edward Snowden

2013: John Kerry gives Syria a week to destroy their chemical weapons.
"(Syria) isn't about to do it and it can't be done". Lavrov immediately
negotiates a non-military solution. [1]

2014: Direct Russian intervention following the overthrow of the Ukrainian
government (cf Yugoslavia)

2015: Full-scale Russian military props up the Syrian government side in the
Syrian civil war (cf Libya)

2016: Russia is accused of manipulating the US election

[0]
[http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2017/04/obamas_red_li...](http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2017/04/obamas_red_line_failure_brough.html)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_2118)

~~~
pharke
It amazed me at the time of the 'red line' incident how little credence most
people gave to the threat intimated by Russia should the US take action in
Syria. Those on the right took it as a turn to jab at Obama over perceived
weakness and the Left was in a frenzy to initiate some kind of 'humanitarian
police action' with neither side seeming to give a damn that their leaders
were standing toe to toe with their Russian counterparts in the first credible
example of brinkmanship in the new millennia.

~~~
fortythirteen
Not a perceived weakness, proof of just how terrible a negotiator he is. You
should never declare a "red line" if you won't adhere to it.

Think of it through an example of a micro-negotiation. Look at parents who
constantly tell their children "if you do _x_ I'll do _y_ " but never follow
through on it. All their children do is push their boundaries to see just how
much they can get away with. It totally destroys any ability to have a normal
relationship built on mutual respect.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Perhaps more of a failure of intelligence than negotiation -- it seems the
Americans at the time perceived the Russian support for Assad as lukewarm and
gambled on a weaker Russian response. It seems that Obama may really have
meant the red line, until it became clear too late what the cost would be.

~~~
fortythirteen
I highly doubt that, since his administration was actively financing anti-
Assad groups, including violent religious extremists. We've been fighting a
proxy war with Russia in the Middle East for roughly seventy years and Syria
has been Russia's #1 ally in the region for decades. He'd have to have his
head in the sand to think that Russia would allow him to directly take out
Assad's forces.

He made a horrible decision that reeks of hubris, thinking that nobody would
call his bluff.

------
tyingq
I don't know that there's enough info for an outsider to reliably guess what
actually happened...poison, versus microwave attacks, versus sonic attacks,
etc.

However, there seems to be enough smoke to assume "some kind of deliberate
attack".

That, on it's own, seems enough to dictate the path forward. More onus and
pressure on the Cubans to solve it. Certainly they could provide an
environment immune from most vectors.

~~~
duncanawoods
>> However, there seems to be enough smoke to assume "some kind of deliberate
attack".

I strongly disagree. Its highly irresponsible to claim an illness of unknown
source is an attack and turn ignorance into casus belli. The unquestioning
certainty of an attack absent of evidence has fuelled my skepticism. I'd
consider self-inflicted foolishness from US's own incompetent secret services
more likely than an "attack".

~~~
tyingq
There's a wide gulf in between "more pressure on the Cubans to provide a safe
environment" and "casus belli".

I'm arguing there's enough evidence to ask for more action, not warmongering.

------
spyder
How could it be tinnitus if there is a recording of the sound?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocwjNJ6EGyQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocwjNJ6EGyQ)

~~~
zamalek
This is to the degree of wild conspiracy theories; however, this whole Cuba
incident defies all explanation. Sonic sounds plausbile for other reasons,
such as the locality of the phenomenon (the victims didn't experience the
effects if they moved). However, let's face it: sonic attacks are. just.
_impossible._ There's E.T. It's never E.T. Furthermore, why would E.T. attack
political officials in Cuba for, so far, no fallout effect? Poisoning? That
doesn't explain the locality of the effect. Microwaves? Some people were in
rooms, we can assume that they were shielded by concrete and microwaves aren't
known to have these effects without other effects presenting more severely
first. Gamma rays, or some beyond-gamma emission? Particle accelerators aren't
that portable.

When I first heard about this I basically gave up on all explanations after
things started becoming too crazy. The simplest explanation I have right now
is a combination attack - you poison officials with "something" and activate
it with some combination of other triggers (including sonic, as we have the
recordings you linked). This explanation is full-blown Fringe and I don't like
it for that reason, but this is really starting to defy all simpler
explanations.

I really don't know what to think at this point: it is becoming science
fiction.

~~~
cptskippy
Is it possible they were poisoned, or otherwise exposed to something that made
them hypersensitive to otherwise normal environmental radiation? I know when
I'm sick with a sinus headache that certain frequencies of sound like
fluorescent lights and CRT TVs put me on edge.

------
sowbug
"Salvi said drugs prescribed to alleviate the side effects of chemotherapy,
like Cisplatin...." Correction: Cisplatin _is_ the chemotherapy drug that
causes those side effects. It is indeed ototoxic.

~~~
agumonkey
let me add that in the case of cisplatin, morphine to ease the pain is the
vomit inducing compound (sadly)

------
tritium
If this story keeps showing up in the news, but without any real information,
I’d suspect that this constant simmering vagueness belies undisclosed
information locked behind operational secrecy that prevents the public from
understanding the media pressure and the suspicion.

This is to say, fingers are being pointed, but we only receive incomplete
information. It’s sort of like seeing two neighbors bicker about trash
collection and garbage cans, but they leave out glaring details about known
trash can abductions by space aliens, that they’ve been summoning with multi-
colored LED flash lights.

------
rev_null
What if it was an accidental poisoning? Maybe the embassy got a shipment of
bad rum. Methanol poisoning would explain the white matter damage and
disorientation.

~~~
toomanybeersies
It's borderline impossible to accidentally get methanol poisoning from
distilled spirits.

The vast majority of cases you hear about on the news are due to spirits being
cut with industrial methanol, or people accidentally drinking industrial
methanol in the belief that it's ethanol.

Poorly distilled spirits are going to taste bad, but they aren't going to kill
you (except for ethanol poisoning).

Also, if it was methanol poisoning (deliberate or not), they'd have severe
vision impairment, which we haven't heard anything about.

~~~
razakel
>The vast majority of cases you hear about on the news are due to spirits
being cut with industrial methanol

So methanol poisoning is more likely to be the result of fraudsters selling
fake branded bottles of spirits, rather than moonshine?

~~~
NKZZ
Not just more likely, it's a matter of certainty.

Ethanol is one of the possible treatments to methanol poisoning. Drinking
badly made moonshine that has some methanol is like drinking both the poison
and the cure (because ethanol will compete for treatment within the liver
against methanol).

It's really impossible to get poisoned by methanol by accident. If you drink
enough methanol to suffer from it it's because people added a large amount of
it to your drink. Whatever methanol is found in badly made moonshine just
isn't enough to show any effect, not when you consider the fact that the
ethanol of the moonshine will pretty much stop your body from absorbing
methanol.

------
c3534l
I'm going to guess it's not a physics-breaking, direct and conspicuous attack
on foreign diplomats for observable reason.

~~~
boomskats
I'm not sure it wasn't a false flag if I'm honest, especially considering the
amount of publicity & nature of reporting around the incidents.

------
drpgq
As a Canadian, this has always seemed weird that they were Canadian victims
too. Sure Canada is a US ally, but there's been a pretty big difference in
policy toward Cuba between the two.

~~~
totalZero
I wonder if the Canadians and the Americans frequented the same places in
their off hours.

~~~
ctack
Possibly it was something in a restaurant's food or bar.

------
mehrdadn
...poison? Aren't there actual recording(s) of the sounds? [1]

I guess this doesn't rule out them having bee poisoned on top of it, but it
sure does raise eyebrows. Are they hypothesizing sounds were used to cover up
the poison or something?

And given that even the article acknowledges some had concussions (here's
another source I saw it in [2]) I'm not sure why the poison hypothesis is
being entertained?

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghdLfQsztBo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghdLfQsztBo)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/mystery-of-
son...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/mystery-of-sonic-weapon-
attacks-at-us-embassy-in-cuba-deepens)

~~~
anon1253
Sound could be a red herring

------
arca_vorago
FBI and other sweeps have repeatedly turned up nothing localized, so whatever
is transmitting is likely not in the building(s) unless they are passive-
reflectors. The general public probably have no idea just how advanced
directed energy weapons are these days, which is what I am guessing this is,
but I think they might be _much_ longer range than people thing. Of course
it's all speculation.

------
ackfoo
Because of the embargo, Cubans are using a lot of stuff that the rest of us
got rid of a long time ago.

I would guess that the cause is something in the environment to which native
Cubans have developed a tolerance or else an avoidance habit.

Embassy personnel go there and live in the community without these habits or
tolerance, and some of them get sick.

~~~
matt4077
I've been to Cuba for three months, and a friend spend a year there. It's
really not uncommon for foreigners to do so. This isn't North Korea.

We didn't develop any symptoms that cannot be explained by either "ethanol
poisoning" or "sunburn".

------
helyerart
Something like this may explain the localized noise:
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431264-600-ultrason...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431264-600-ultrasonic-
speaker-lets-you-whisper-to-people-30-metres-away/)

------
debt
Could be a stolen US/China weapon or at least a stolen smaller component of a
larger US weapon. Or stolen IP of some new weapon which was then built by the
thieves.

Maybe this was originally supposed to be use as a component of missile defense
and now it’s been repurposed as a brain melter.

I only say this because I don’t know if many countries have the budget to
develop advanced, new weaponry.

This may be a leak of epic proportions as some group is running around with
some deadly advanced new weapon.

The existence of these weapons might reveal which weapons our government is
focused on.

------
KboPAacDA3
Intense stress can also cause these symptoms.

------
Nicksil
Skeptoid had a very interesting episode [0] on this subject recently. The
analysis points to a mass psychogenic event; makes sense.

References and further reading located at end of article.

[0] [https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4603](https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4603)

------
Gibbon1
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciguatera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciguatera)

Duh.

~~~
QAPereo
Do you really think a battery of tests weren’t run for any toxin with an
acceptable symptom profile? Ciguatoxin is hardly undetectable, along with
virtually all of the pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, and toxins listed.

~~~
Gibbon1
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579736/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579736/)

"In the absence of a human biomarker to confirm CFP, the diagnosis of CFP is
based on the clinical scenario and the patient’s recent fish-eating history.
CFP is associated with gastrointestinal (GI), cardiovascular, neurological and
neuropsychiatric symptoms and signs."

~~~
QAPereo
Doesn’t really explain the tinnitus, the recorded sound, and while you’re
right that no human bio markers exist there are characteristic forms of
demyelinating injuries. There’s really never a reason to be that focused on a
differential diagnosis, especially when there is no treatment.

...Unless you’re a nation state that really wants to figure it out. If you’re
willing to put people through hell just to diagnose them, it’s probably
doable.

------
fgGAMI
They all had sex with the same prostitutes exclusive to US diplomats and
contracted a form of syphilis that causes brain damage.

~~~
verelo
Fact or opinion? Legitimately curious.

~~~
craftyguy
That there is an 'opinion'.

------
basicplus2
Microwave attack/accident

