Call for U.S., Canada and Cuba Joint Investigation of Medical Problems of U.S. and Canadian Diplomats in Cuba  

Luis Velázquez, a Cuban neurologist who was recently appointed president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, has asked the US and Canadian national science academies for a joint scientific inquiry to examine the evidence behind the alleged attacks on U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Cuba.[1]

The need for such an investigation was buttressed by a letter published in the Journal of Neurology, by Sergio Della Sala and Robert McIntosh, both neuroscientists at the University of Edinburgh, who claim that a U.S. report by University of Pennsylvania scientists is seriously flawed.[2]

Della Sala said much of the evidence the doctors used to propose a new concussion-like syndrome came from six diplomats who each took 37 cognitive tests. The tests looked at visual and auditory attention, working memory, language, reasoning, movement and other cognitive abilities. In their report, the US doctors reveal that all six embassy staff who had the full battery of tests had some brain impairment or another.

But Della Sala and McIntosh say anybody who took the tests would have been classed as impaired. They point out that it is standard practice with cognitive tests to measure people’s performance against others in the population. Often, a person has to score in the bottom 5% to be considered impaired. But the US doctors set the threshold at 40%, meaning that by definition, four in 10 who take the test will be “impaired”.

Della Sala and McIntosh ran a simulation that looked at the probability of passing all 37 tests when the threshold for failure was set so high. “The chances that somebody will be without an impairment is zero,” Della Sala said. “We ran the simulation 1,000 times, and never, ever is there one single individual who appears to be normal. They are all classed as impaired.”

Mark Cohen, a professor of neurology and pioneer in functional brain imaging at University of California, Los Angeles, said there was insufficient evidence to link the diplomats’ health problems to the sounds they heard. “These are symptoms which are typical of many, many causes,” he said. “It is an incautious leap to presume that the cause was related to the reports of sounds heard by these diplomats.”

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[1]  Sample, Cuba calls on US and Canada to investigate ‘sonic attack’ claims, Guardian (May 29, 2018).

[2] The University of Pennsylvania study is referenced in these posts to dwkcommentaries: Discovery of Brain Abnormalities in U.S. Diplomats in Havana with Medical Damage (Dec. 6, 2017); Medical Report on U.S. Diplomats with Health Problems Occurring in Cuba (Feb. 16, 2018); Cuba’s Latest Commentary on “Alleged” Health Incidents Affecting U.S. Diplomats in Cuba (April 27, 2018). Other posts about this situation are listed in the “U.S. Diplomats Medical Problems in Cuba, 2017-18” section of List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: CUBA.