Cuban pesticides, not ‘sonic attacks’, may have caused US and Canadian diplomats’ mystery illness
- Dozens of officials and their families had reported suffering from ‘Havana syndrome’, with symptoms including dizziness, fatigue and headaches
- Some US citizens were evacuated from consulate in China after complaining of similar illness in 2017
Neurotoxins in pesticides used to fumigate against mosquitoes may be behind mysterious health complaints of Canadian diplomats in Cuba that had been blamed on suspected sonic attacks, according to a new study released on Thursday.
Dozens of Canadian and US officials and their families first reported in 2016 suffering from what became known as “Havana syndrome”, with symptoms including dizziness, fatigue and headaches, as well as hearing and vision complications.
Canadian and US authorities initially suspected an attack using some sort of acoustic weapon, which led to heightened diplomatic tensions between Washington and the Caribbean island nation. But Ottawa later concluded that to be “unlikely”.
In 2017, some US citizens were evacuated from a US consulate in Guangzhou, China, after suffering what appeared to be the same strange illness that befell the Cuba consulate workers in 2016. Chinese authorities said after an investigation that it was unclear what had caused the injury.
Researchers at the Brain Repair Centre in Halifax, in association with the Nova Scotia Health Authority and Dalhousie University, pinpointed possible “exposure to neurotoxins” by looking at how areas of the brain responsible for memory, concentration and sleep cycles can be damaged, and identifying possible culprits.
“This had nothing to do with acoustic attacks,” said a summary of the study by Radio-Canada’s news magazine Enquête, which obtained and made the study available online. “Nerve agents used in fumigation to eradicate mosquitoes are more likely the cause.”