乔·拜登总统签署了一项法案，为“哈瓦那综合症”的受害者提供财政援助和更好的医疗保健。哈瓦那综合症是影响数十名美国人员的神秘健康事件，最初在古巴发现，现在包括几个国家。
在闭门签署仪式后，拜登在一份声明中表示，他的政府正在集结美国政府的“全部资源”，以照顾受害者并“查明这些事件的真相，包括确定原因和谁应该负责”——这个谜困扰了美国官员近五年。
《哈瓦那法案》授权中央情报局局长和国务卿根据详细的标准向受影响的雇员提供脑损伤的财政支持。它还要求这两个机构向国会报告这些款项是如何支付的，以及是否需要采取额外行动来帮助受害者。
一些受影响的人员私下抱怨，在某些情况下公开抱怨，他们无法获得适当的医疗服务，在某些情况下，他们质疑美国政府是否认为他们受伤了。
“长期以来，遭受定向能攻击的美国公务员和他们的亲人被剥夺了他们需要和应该得到的照顾。这是不可接受的，”新泽西州参议员珍妮·沙欣说，她是该法的合著者之一，多年来一直为受害者辩护。她补充说，该法案的颁布将有助于“消除关键医疗护理的障碍，并为脑损伤人员的康复铺平道路”。
美国外交官、间谍和其他官员现在已经在几个国家报告了奇怪的经历和虚弱的症状。症状包括头痛、头晕、认知困难、耳鸣、眩晕以及视觉、听觉或平衡障碍。许多官员在报告事件多年后出现症状，而一些官员被诊断患有创伤性脑损伤。
在某些情况下，特别是2016年底和2017年全年首次在古巴报道的情况，美国官员描述了强烈的压力或振动感，有时还会发出尖锐或啁啾声。
目前还不清楚有多少美国官员已经确认了医疗症状，但据称最近几周又有几个国家报告了新病例，包括印度、塞尔维亚和德国。据报道，越南发生的一起事件推迟了副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯8月份的越南之行。除了古巴40多名受影响的工作人员之外，美国政府已经正式承认了中国、俄罗斯、乌兹别克斯坦、奥地利和美国报告的事件，尽管白宫表示，绝大多数事件都是在海外报告的。
“解决这些事件一直是我的政府的首要任务。我们正在动用美国政府的全部资源，为受影响的人提供一流的医疗服务，并彻查这些事件，包括确定原因和谁该对此负责，”拜登在周五的声明中说。
他的国家安全委员会正在领导一项政府范围的调查，而中央情报局和国务院也有自己的内部工作队来协调他们的反应。
许多“哈瓦那综合症”(美国政府现在称之为“异常健康事件”)的受害者多年来一直在努力获得他们寻求的医疗保健。许多其他人，包括没有受到影响的国务院官员，对特朗普和拜登政府缺乏关于报告病例的信息感到沮丧，相反，他们经常从媒体上了解报告的事件。
根据美国广播公司新闻首次获得的这份说明，国务卿安东尼·布林肯在8月份就这一问题向所有工作人员发出的第一份说明中承认，政府“能够并将做得更好，让你们了解我们为获得答案、支持受影响者和保护我们的人民所做的努力”。
但缺乏信息的部分原因是，美国政府对曾经被称为“健康攻击”的东西知之甚少，包括造成这些攻击的原因。
去年12月，美国国家科学、工程和医学科学院发布了一份报告，结论是“定向脉冲射频能量似乎是解释这些病例的最合理机制，尤其是在早期症状明显的个体中。”
中央情报局局长比尔·伯恩斯已经会见了该局受影响的人员，并加大了解决这一谜团的力度，他也推动了这一发现——在7月份告诉NPR，“肯定有很大的可能性”一些演员是事件的幕后黑手。
但上周，美国国务院解密了一份2018年的秘密报告，该报告在某些方面对这一理论提出了质疑。由杰森(JASON)主持，JASON是一个独立的科学咨询小组，成立于冷战期间，目的是就国防科学技术向美国政府咨询，该小组的结论是，无线电或微波能量无法产生一些美国驻古巴外交官记录的声音和他们报告的医疗症状。
相反，它说，这些声音是“机械或生物的起源，而不是电子的。最有可能的来源是印度短尾蟋蟀，芹菜无刺芹。"
但一名高级政府官员告诉BuzzFeed News，其调查结果“不符合拜登-哈里斯政府对AHI(异常健康事件)的理解，也没有通知我们的回应”。BuzzFeed News就JASON报告提交了《信息自由法》请求，并首次对此进行了报道。
无论如何，这份在其他几个国家报道事件之前撰写的报告确定，声音本身并没有伤害外交官，而是可能“被对手作为欺骗引入，以掩盖一种完全不相关的方式导致外交人员生病。”
Biden signs law to expand health care for 'Havana syndrome' victims
President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that provides financial assistance and better health care to victims of "Havana syndrome," the mysterious health incidents affecting dozens of U.S. personnel first identified in Cuba and now including several countries.
After a closed-door signing ceremony, Biden said in a statement that his administration is marshalling the U.S. government's "full resources" to care for victims and "to get to the bottom of these incidents, including to determine the cause and who is responsible" -- a mystery that has confounded U.S. officials for nearly five years now.
The HAVANA Act authorizes the CIA director and the secretary of state to provide affected employees with financial support for brain injuries under detailed criteria. It also requires both agencies to report to Congress on how those payments are being made and whether additional action is needed to aid victims.
Several affected personnel have complained privately, and in some cases publicly, that they have not been able to access proper medical care -- in some cases questioning whether the U.S. government believes they are injured.
"For far too long, U.S. public servants and their loved ones who've suffered from directed energy attacks have been denied the care they need and deserve. That's unacceptable," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., one of the law's co-authors who has advocated for victims for years. Its enactment will help "by removing barriers to critical medical attention and paving the way for personnel with brain injuries to recover," she added.
American diplomats, spies and other officials have reported strange experiences and debilitating symptoms in several countries now. Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, cognitive difficulties, tinnitus, vertigo and trouble with seeing, hearing, or balancing. Many officials have suffered symptoms years after reporting an incident while some have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries.
In some cases, especially those first reported in Cuba in late 2016 and throughout 2017, U.S. officials described intense feelings of pressure or vibration and, at times, a screeching or chirping sound.
It's unclear how many U.S. officials have confirmed medical symptoms, but new cases have been allegedly reported in several more countries in recent weeks, including India, Serbia and Germany. One reported incident in Vietnam delayed Vice President Kamala Harris's trip there in August. Beyond more than 40 affected staffers in Cuba, the U.S. government has officially acknowledged reported incidents in China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Austria and the United States, although the White House said the vast majority have been reported overseas.
"Addressing these incidents has been a top priority for my Administration. We are bringing to bear the full resources of the U.S. Government to make available first-class medical care to those affected and to get to the bottom of these incidents, including to determine the cause and who is responsible," Biden said in his statement Friday.
His National Security Council is leading a government-wide probe, while both the CIA and the State Department have their own internal task forces to coordinate their responses, too.
Many victims of "Havana syndrome," which the U.S. government now refers to as "anomalous health incidents," have struggled for years to get the health care they seek. Many others, including State Department officials who haven't been affected, have been frustrated by the Trump and Biden administrations' lack of information about reported cases -- instead often learning about reported incidents in the press.
In his first note to all staff about the issue in August, Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged the administration "can and will do a better job keeping you informed of our efforts to get answers, support those affected, and protect our people," according to the note, obtained first by ABC News.
But the lack of information stems in part from how little the U.S. government knows about what was once referred to as "health attacks," including what is causing them.
Last December, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a report that concluded that "directed, pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases, especially in individuals with the distinct early symptoms."
CIA Director Bill Burns, who has met with his agency's affected personnel and escalated efforts to solve this mystery, has boosted that finding as well -- telling NPR in July there's "certainly a very strong possibility" that some actor is behind the incidents.
But last week, the State Department declassified a secret 2018 report that cast doubt on that theory in some corners. Conducted by JASON, an independent scientific advisory group created during the Cold War to consult the U.S. government on defense science and technology, it concluded that radio or microwave energy could not produce the sound recorded by some U.S. diplomats in Cuba and their reported medical symptoms.
Instead, it said, the sounds were "mechanical or biological in origin, rather than electronic. The most likely source is the Indies short-tailed cricket,Anurogryllis celerinictus."
But a senior administration official told BuzzFeed News, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the JASON report and first reported on it, that its findings are "not aligned with the Biden-Harris administration's understanding of AHI (anomalous health incidents) and it has not informed our response."
Either way, the report -- written before incidents were reported in several other countries -- determined that the sounds themselves were not injuring diplomats and could instead have been "introduced by an adversary as deception so as to mask an entirely unrelated mode of causing illness in diplomatic personnel."
