(FiveNation.com)- The doctor working for the CIA to investigate Havana syndrome was stricken with the mysterious ailment himself while spending time in Cuba, and he recently spoke with CNN about his experience.
The doctor, who assumed the name Dr. Paul Andrews when speaking with CNN to remain anonymous, was in “disbelief” when he found out that he was infected with the illness that he was investigating.
Many U.S. diplomats have reported coming down with debilitating symptoms out of nowhere, in what officials have now come to term Havana syndrome.
In talking with CNN, the doctor recalled that he started feeling odd on the morning following the first night that he spent in Havana, Cuba, in 2017 to investigate various reports of the ailment. He recalled:
“This can’t be happening. And I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute, and things were getting worse and worse and worse. I’m really in disbelief. And I start to think, is this a dream? I had no idea.”
The medical name for Havana syndrome is AHI, or anomalous health incidents. It’s technically considered to be an injury to the brain that affects a person’s balance as well as causes nausea and brain fog.
Over that summer in 2017, the doctor traveled to Cuba so he could investigate what Havana syndrome might be. That trip happened not long after the first reports of U.S. diplomats suffering from these symptoms.
He told CNN that he woke from a sleep around 5 a.m. with nausea, pain in his right ear as well as a really bad headache. He also said that he heard what he described as a clicking sound that was similar to what he heard on old audio clips of “pulsed electromagnetic energy” signals.
His first response was to go into the bathroom and put headphones on. His symptoms didn’t subside, though, so he tried to check out of the hotel an hour later. He had trouble opening doors, though, was disoriented and dizzy, and was suffering some loss of his short-term memory.
The doctor is one of dozens of people who have reported coming down with similar strange symptoms out of nowhere while traveling in Cuba. To this day, though, neither the medical community nor the CIA has been able to get to the bottom of what causes it, where it comes from or who may be initiating a targeted “attack.”
In speaking with CNN, the doctor was not happy with how leadership at the CIA have handled the entire issue back then. He explained:
“The narrative just was going the wrong way, and no matter what I did or said to people, that just continued. In fact, to this day, a lot of things that were done seemed not appropriate to my standards.
“Another person at one point told me as an aside that he or she thought they may have been hit and that they’re hearing and/or pain in their ears was present, and I said, ‘are you going to report this?’ And they said, ‘absolutely not.'”
