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afaik posts can't get downvotes on hn, only comments. My karma is north of 14k. Maybe I haven't unlocked some undocumented downvote privilege, but if it exists, it's certainly not public and the barrier to entry is quite high.
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5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients
31–40 of 100 posts
Re: 5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very unrelated but if anyone reading this is dealing with long covid/brain fog related symptoms, try famotidine (pepcid).
What's the justification for this recommendation? I find this really curious since I had some stomach acid issues that started during the pandemic (like, perhaps late 2020) that I assumed were stress related. I don't remember actually getting COVID in that time span (my uni was testing us every 3 days so I would have noticed if I had it around then). My primary care prescribed me famotidine for it in ~2022 which help…
Re: 5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't for example see ME/CFS or Long Covid neural damage on a typical MRI but when you do autopsies you find a host of problems including complete viral RNA and intrusion of the immune system that shouldn't be there. Given the similar presentation of Havana syndrome to ME/CFS it would seem sensible to look for some of the similar markers of vascular brain damage with the process developed there by Jared Younger a…
Very unrelated but if anyone reading this is dealing with long covid/brain fog related symptoms, try famotidine (pepcid).
Why?
"However, studies have shown that famotidine is not effective in reducing mortality or improving recovery in COVID-19 patients.[38]" Borrell B (26 April 2020). "New York clinical trial quietly tests heartburn remedy against coronavirus". Science Magazine.
A lot of Long Covid seems to be related to mitochondrial damage. You'd probably be better off getting some creatine (which is commonly available because weightlifters use it) and seeing if that helps. Creatine is at least well documented to improve mitochondrial funciton.
Re: 5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients
#34> Yet sophisticated MRI scans detected no significant differences in brain volume, structure or white matter — signs of injury or degeneration In case it wasn’t clear: Neuroimaging can’t visualize every possible problem. They performed one type of testing and didn’t find anything. That’s not the same as concluding that there are no problems. It should go without saying that a clean MRI isn’t proof that other neurolog…
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
It's a pithy saying, but misused here.
Not bothering to look into it would be "absence of evidence".
Extensive looking into it and finding nothing much across many different people and many different scans by many different researchers is a form of evidence.
Re: 5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients
#35Everyone who looked at Havana Syndrome when it came out with a critical eye realized immediately it was a BS story. Sonic weapons? Oh please. Thing is, this sort of thing happens all the time. A prominent and current example is cops and fentanyl. If you listen to cops, they will tell you that just being in the rom with fentanyl can be deadly, breathing it in can be deadly. I'm not sure where this started but it's bec…
>Crime is lower on pretty much every metric than it was 20-30 years ago where the last big panic set in the mandatory minimum mania and the carceral state exploded.
Crime was very high in the 1990s though and it's regulation wasn't from a sudden "panic" but a steady growth from 1950 as it climbed from 5 deaths by homicide per 100,000 in 1950 to 10.4 in 1980 and 9.4 in 1990.[0] If anything there is more "mania" about semiautomatic weapons which have contributed a minuscule amount to these deaths. But I don't think discussing either issue in terms of who has more mania is helpful in any event.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2019/005-508.pdf (Table 5)
Re: 5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients
#36The symptoms sounded like burnout from the beginning. Hypochondria is a common symptom of stress, depression, and other mental disorders. A scary and confusion symptom when one does not have tendencies for it normally. There isn't one clean piece of evidence for any energy weapon or attack hypothesis. It's about time the mass hysteria surrounding Havana syndrome is laid to rest.
The hysteria wouldn't even have started if it wasn't for the "top men" hypothesis. If women had experienced similar symptoms absolutely no one would have suggested sonic weapons over stress from overwork or other psychogenic factors. The underlying idea is that male diplomats with prestigious careers are highly-trained professionals or something and thus immune to outbreaks of mass hysteria. That clearly is not the case.
Re: 5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very unrelated but if anyone reading this is dealing with long covid/brain fog related symptoms, try famotidine (pepcid).
Why? "However, studies have shown that famotidine is not effective in reducing mortality or improving recovery in COVID-19 patients.[38]" Borrell B (26 April 2020). "New York clinical trial quietly tests heartburn remedy against coronavirus". Science Magazine. A lot of Long Covid seems to be related to mitochondrial damage. You'd probably be better off getting some creatine (which is commonly available because weight…
Because Mast cell activation syndrome is a common outcome and antihistamines can reduce the impact and gradually calm the gut inflammation process down and quite a lot of Long Covid patients feel better on it.
Re: 5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients
#38Everyone who looked at Havana Syndrome when it came out with a critical eye realized immediately it was a BS story. Sonic weapons? Oh please. Thing is, this sort of thing happens all the time. A prominent and current example is cops and fentanyl. If you listen to cops, they will tell you that just being in the rom with fentanyl can be deadly, breathing it in can be deadly. I'm not sure where this started but it's bec…
>Crime is lower on pretty much every metric than it was 20-30 years ago where the last big panic set in the mandatory minimum mania and the carceral state exploded. Crime was very high in the 1990s though and it's regulation wasn't from a sudden "panic" but a steady growth from 1950 as it climbed from 5 deaths by homicide per 100,000 in 1950 to 10.4 in 1980 and 9.4 in 1990.[0] If anything there is more "mania" about…
Homicides in the US today are 7.8/100k, which is still above the 1950 number. I wonder what accounts for the difference. Globally, the US has a higher rate than other countries likely due to guns, but it’s not like guns were illegal in 1950.
Re: 5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients
#39The symptoms sounded like burnout from the beginning. Hypochondria is a common symptom of stress, depression, and other mental disorders. A scary and confusion symptom when one does not have tendencies for it normally. There isn't one clean piece of evidence for any energy weapon or attack hypothesis. It's about time the mass hysteria surrounding Havana syndrome is laid to rest.
This was another hysteria that was constantly government-fueled, and discussion of it completely disappeared once the people who met every morning to whiteboard how best to push it were assigned to other projects.
It's very strange that the serious position is to pretend like this was an organic social phenomenon, an incident of mass psychology, and ignore the fact that it was always, as far as any science goes, a physically impossible proposition, entirely fueled by successive administrations advocating for it in every mainstream media outlet. This was another reason why Russia was a nation of comic book style evil geniuses that have to be stopped: a bond-style brain scrambling sound ray.
Any sort of lesson learned that doesn't focus on the fact that this was a fraud, not a mistake, was not a good lesson to learn. But instead of learning any lesson, people are going to just forget about it, and when reminded, still think that it really happened.
That all the comments on this page are people saying that this syndrome - that has never been any definitive trace of, caused by a mystery sound weapon which we have no physical theory of how it would operate (only that at night it sounds just like crickets) - is actually still real and really happened, is shocking.
Re: 5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients
#40Everyone who looked at Havana Syndrome when it came out with a critical eye realized immediately it was a BS story. Sonic weapons? Oh please. Thing is, this sort of thing happens all the time. A prominent and current example is cops and fentanyl. If you listen to cops, they will tell you that just being in the rom with fentanyl can be deadly, breathing it in can be deadly. I'm not sure where this started but it's bec…
> Everyone who looked at Havana Syndrome when it came out with a critical eye realized immediately it was a BS story.
There is a lot of bullshit around it, sure, but no one seem to dispute the reality of the symptoms. It may be psychosomatic, and I honestly think it is the most likely explanation, but it doesn't solve the problem. If diplomats in Cuba went crazy, then why did they go crazy? Diplomats are people and I prefer when people don't get crazy.
Somebody here suggested a form of burnout, fine, then why did people in Cuba burn out? Burnout is not BS, and maybe something has to be done about the work conditions. And maybe, with that knowledge, if similar symptoms appear elsewhere, it would be a good occasion to send an work inspector.