The National Institutes for Health has abruptly ended its study of "Havana Syndrome" after it learned that the CIA forced people to participate in it. Though the agency isn't named in the NIH's announcement, CNN reports that "some of the people who reported being sick previously claimed that the CIA made them join the research as a prerequisite for getting health care."
"They wanted us to be a lab rat for a week before we actually got treatment at Walter Reed — and at bare minimum, that is unethical and immoral," Marc Polymeropoulos told CNN in May.
Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who says he has been sick, is an advocate for those struck by what the US government calls "anomalous health incidents." He said in May that he believes that participation in this research was "ordered" by senior leadership at the CIA.
In March, the CIA issued a statement that denied that people were required to participate. The agency did not respond to CNN's request for comment Friday.
Forced participation in a study is considered highly unethical and is extremely uncommon, ethicists say.
Havana Syndrome—a mysterious collection of ailments suffered by U.S. personnel serving at embassies abroad—is widely thought to be a somatic disorder. Hyped by credulous national security reporters as caused by electromagnetic weapons (or other tall tales from three-letter agencies), the whole saga is now so murky that to discuss it at all is to juggle conspiracy theories.
Previously:
• New podcasts about 'Havana Syndrome'
• US intelligence officer's crazy memoir features Havana syndrome, psychic powers, amnesia, and a mysterious Air Force program
• CIA: Havana Syndrome 'unfounded'
• After years of bullshit, government concludes 'Havana Syndrome' is bullshit
• 'Sonic attacks' on US embassy in Cuba may actually have been insecticide poisoning
• U.S. Senator: 'directed energy attacks' responsible for so-called Havana Syndrome
