ah hello and welcome to wells of birth, scribing diseases to the evil doing of anatomy is an own human habit that can be traced in many historic injustices from that which croc trials to call upon one would seem that in this age of science and rationality would have moved beyond costing unproven recrimination at least at the state level, but not so fast. take the so called havana syndrome and mysterious condition set to be afflicting the american diplomatic and military personnel abroad. it's barely diagnosed with whiteness. seems to be an act of aggression. what is it symptomatic? well, to discuss that i'm not joined by rovers bartholomew on there. we see a lecture in the department of psychological medicine at the university of hoffman

and also have an a syndrome math psychogenic, illness. the real story behind the embassy mystery and hysteria. dr. bartholomew's . great to talk to you. thank you very much for your time. thank you. it's been more than 300 years since the salem witch trials, which are now considered to be one of the most notorious cases of bi massey in colonial america. and what's striking to me about it is how similar the per perfect symptoms back than worth to the describe manifestations of the so called cabinet syndrome, headaches, loss of balance and hearing, piercing sensation, disorientation compromise, mental ability, do you see anything in common there? absolutely, and you know, when i think of this case, what i think of is shakespeare in a midsummer night's dream, and there's a quotation from that that goes like,

or in the night. imagining some fear. how easy is a bush, suppose it of bare. and in this case, we are literally talking about the russian bear and look, i can summarize this entire episode in a single sentence and it goes like this. it comes from an old medical adage. when you hear the sound of speech in the night 1st, thank horses, not zebra, it's the doctors at the state department. well, for the most exotic, i pompous is early on and people keep attacking me and they say, you don't know what you're talking about. concussion like symptoms, white matter track changes. hearing loss, brain damage, that's not bad psychogenic illness. but that's just not true. if you look at the 2018 journal of the american medical association study,

even before that study was published, information was being leaked to the press that many of the victims had these mysterious white matter track changes in their brains. about a year later, when the study finally came out, they found only 3 patients with white matter track change. it's if you go on the streets of moscow today, and you randomly pick 21 people, you have a similar breakdown because white matter track changes are common and everything from depression to migraine headaches, to normal aging star professor sell me. i think it's easy to understand the relatively easy to understand how something like this could have happened in the late 17th century in rural massachusetts and in the 21st century in havana. as well as frankly all over the place because american diplomats in russia, china, yes not india, astronomy at the united kingdom and host of other countries have filed several 100

similar complaints. one could possibly explain both and global scale of the problem and it's very young. there select 50, it's a distinct bias for the americans. sure. look, are we to believe that the russians have developed some kind of secret microwave or sonic device and are going down to columbia and targeting a home of one of the diplomats to make their family members sick? i mean, it's really absurd when you think about this. and what's happened here is people are getting confused because you've got 2 different phenomenon going on. you've got the initial case of what happened in cuba, which is a classic textbook case of mass psychogenic illness. and then you've got what's going on around the world, which is slightly different. what is mass psychogenic illness?

and the other is more mass suggestion, because what happened is after the initial report of what happened in cuba, the state department issued an alert to diplomats and intelligence officers around the world to be on the lookout for anomalous health incidence. and then the department of defense recently contacted all of its $2900000.00 service personnel and contractors to also be on the alert for anomalous health incidence in those incidents of havana syndrome. as you mentioned before, things like difficulty concentrating, insomnia memory problems. they're so big as to be experienced by just about everyone who was ever lived in any given week. right. and so now people all over the world who are military personnel, or intelligence officers or diplomats working for the american government,

are now on the lookout for these anomalous health incidents. and literally, people are getting up in the morning and sneezing and attributing it to van a syndrome a mean because it's so vague. now, even if it's, even if it's a case of mass hysteria, i think it definitely deserves to be dealt with. and people may me professional how, but i would guess that it's efficiency would depend on what you stipulate or hypothesize to be the main cause and how close it is to reality. you have worked on this case for quite some time on. i confident that the american officials at this point can afford you persist science with an open mind and the best interests of the victims at har. absolutely. notch, because what you've got here is a case of science mixing with politics. let me give you an example. recently,

senator mark or rubio came out and said anybody who advocates the mass psychogenic illness, explanation it's quackery. and what's really disingenuous, they're in really upsetting for someone like myself who has advocated that is there are 2 sick work reports, classified reports that came out. one was in 2018, the secret jason group, which is a group of a lead us scientists who looked at microwave radiation. and the most likely explanation in that report was only released recently under the freedom of information act. and they concluded that mass psychogenic illness played a major role, and it was virtually impossible to the microwaves. the other classified report was that done by the f b i. it's never been released, but it was recently leaked, and their conclusion was, it wasn't microwaves. it was mast psychogenic illness,

and people like marco rubio would have known full well. but these 2 classified reports were there. they would have been familiar with the contents. and at the same time that they knew those reports were there. many officials in the u. s. government have been peddling the microwave free effect fine, and that it's not math psychogenic illness which is just very disingenuous on their part. now while the 2nd janica origin hypothesis is being discouraged, as you say, the media is right for speculation that it was indeed an act of aggression by the russians. so i saw that the washington post reported recently that they had of the cia william burns. mentioned that this issue raised this issue during the talks with his russian colleagues here in moscow and reported me even threatened some state to state action if the americans,

for one reason or another conclude that it was indeed the work of the russians. she's even more frightening than the n s. i could genic on my nasty syria hypothesis given the military potential on both sides. absolutely. and it's very, very concerning. i mean, if you look at the national academy of sciences report, which came out and december of 2020, you would expect that to be a dispassionate scientific analysis. if you look at the people on that panel, they had no experts on mass cycle genic illness and they had no experts on pulse microwave radiation, which were the 2 main explanations that they were looking at. a friend of mine, simon wesley, at him's college, london, was initially on that panel. he is a world authority, a mass like genic illness. he gave an interview and when you stated that, he thought it was possible that math cycle genic illness could explain what was

going on based on what he had seen. after that, they kicked him off the panel. so what you're seeing here is a mixture of science and politics. the other thing that's interesting is pamela. spry, one, the former ambassador to a couple of different countries was name by joe biden. as the head of the panel investigating of an a syndrome for the u. s government. and recently she was on a zone call with several havana syndrome patients. and one of them asked her, they said, what about the f b i report which was leaked and they said it was mass hysteria. you don't believe that, do you? and she said, well, i'm holding open the possibility of mass psychogenic illness. right. after that, there was an outcry in she was forced to step down and people were saying things like, we're not crazy. you know, we're not mentally ill, but that's not what mass psycho genic illnesses, mass, psycho genic illness doesn't mean that you're crazy. it is

a collective stress response based on a belief. and everyone has beliefs and everyone is potentially susceptible. but professor sell me. that's what your book is. so how to because you mentioned several in fact several doesn't examples of their psychogenic illnesses and some of them rise sporadically. but in most cases, there are some preceding conditions that will benefit that certain he's and band based case is usually used by a certain political motivations. if that's indeed the case with has on ascension, that is being handled both scientifically and administratively with a certain political agenda in mind. my question is, what could possibly be gained from handling it this way? because i simply don't see how the biden administration could benefit from,

you know, hundreds, if not thousands of that diplomatic personnel coming out with some strange symptoms . asking for compensation, let alone raising tensions with another nuclear power. you mentioned important work, their compensation because lawyers have now become involved and you're going to see tens of thousands of cases all over the world now. and american service personnel wanting to be potentially compensated. you know, that's a very important aspect to a van, a syndrome now, because the symptoms are so vague and they are found all over the place. you know, there's an interesting case that happened in 1954 in the united states in the pacific northwest, where the u. s. was doing testing of the atomic bomb in the pacific ocean. and a rumor started that fallout was coming down on the pacific northwest,

particularly in the region of seattle, washington, and people started to see these pit marks on their windscreen. and it became so concerning that the governor of washington state owned president, i's our and asked for assistance in an investigation was conducted. and the researchers concluded that people started looking at their wind screens instead of through their wind screens as they normally do. and there's a similar parallel here with her than a syndrome, because people have anomalous health issues all the time. but now, anytime a diplomat or an american service personnel has some type of help incident, it's automatically looked at in a new frame. that this may be a bad syndrome and you know, the other reason why i think this is so much

a political issue is the word and the word here isn't barris. meant to think that the u. s. government, under trunk, and now buying have miss identified the meeting calls of crickets and cicadas, because that's what actually happened when they looked at these recordings that people were, that's another huge potential cost to impact. let's take a very short break right now, but we will begin right on that after short breaks in the me. i a mr. larry over here. your

camps are always a little nicer than this. this is evidence of absolute poverty, despair. people in our city and other cities, all across america are living like this, where the original need and village opened up in 2018 right now. there's 31 homes on the property. it's a little over 4 acres with 31 homes and a community center. unfortunately, a lot of people don't make it out of edition more homelessness. i'm really happy with . mm

hm. welcome back to wells of course with very 1st film. you also have on a syndrome math psychogenic, illness and the real story behind on the semester and hysteria. professor, sell me, you mentioned the making holes because they have that potential hypothesis i think was initially suggested by the cubans. and while it sounds a bit funny, you know, the, the issue i have with it is that if you go back to those initial cases, they whole case. i originated the low level of c i a officials and have on them. but they were supposedly affected not to be embassy compound, but rather too large hotels. and i think it residential building or something where people of other nationalities are also present. that was indeed the evil doing of

cekada or the natural behavior when the other foreigners be effective as well. you know, in cases of vast psychogenic illness, it's important to understand the historical. busy context in november of 2016, the c i. a officers walking near their homes and havana in hearing the strange sounds and they weren't sure what to make of them. and they said that it was almost like a beam of sound being pointed at their homes. in late december of 20161 of them had your pain and headache and he went to the embassy clinic, which is very common symptoms. and afterwards he made it unusual comment. he said, you know, it's almost like someone is pointing a beam of sound at my home at night. and they didn't think too much of that. but then a couple of other officers mentioned the same thing. and then the spoke theory developed

that the russians, or maybe the chinese, or pointing some new acoustical device at the americans as a form of harassment. and what's really interesting here is when more recently you've had claims of microwave radiation and the fray effect. it's not the fray effect. we know that now, because in 2018, a top secret classified report of all the sciences called jason group, looked at the possibility of the fray effect. and these scientists eliminated the fray effect because what, what happened was of the 1st 21 victims, 8 of them reported their attack. now, if it's microwaves, you can't record the microwave because they're not a sound the microwaves. bombard your head and stimulate

a nerve in your ear or brain. there's a debate as to which one it is. and you get the perception of a barely discernable clicking cell. but e a, that's right. and when they looked at the recordings of those 8 recordings, they concluded that there were the maiden calls of the, in these short tail cricket. and some other recordings that were done turned out to appear to be assessed as cicadas. so it's just not possible. i mentioned the salem witch trials before, and many historians noted that salem village was known for its world of fascists population. there were many arguments of our property and raising right as well as over values. it was a highly puritan and dandy, a righteous society. now, given the level of political polarization in the united states,

especially pulling the election of donald trump when some of those 1st reports of be honest. and john occurs, do you think it may have been a factor in the emergence of base here? well, this is a case of bad journalism, bad government and bad science. there really should be an investigation of the journal of the american medical association and how they ever published the 2 studies they did. my 1st career was as a journalist about 40 years ago in the united states. and, you know, one journalist look into stories like this. you can't be an expert on everything, acoustical weapons, or microwaves or all this other stuff. so you have to rely on experts. but in this case, the experts at the journal of the american medical association have really let us down. i don't know how those studies were ever published in the 1st books. well,

you would be blame on wonder as journal but you know, as a, as a journalist who has been covering american politics over the last 5 years. and, you know, look at the case of this whole russian gate and the narrative that it was essentially the crime linda has install. donald trump in the white house and you know, whatever was the level of russian interference in the american elections, it definitely wouldn't have raised to the level of, you know, electing a president for a country of more than 300000000 in the it's pretty much every american major, mainstream american outlet, ron, with this story is saw, and by the way, it was also a big democrat. the democrats were made the conscious decision to portray from as a russian agent. they knew it wasn't the case. we know that from the weaklings, but they made the conscious public relations decision as a way of, you know,

destroying his image. i wonder if the biden administration is dealing, what essentially it saw it's on, and it's a fairly light case at this point. a big issue that's going on right now, it's very frustrating to me as so many news organizations in so many leaks of officials and in american government. he pushing this idea that the diplomats in cuba had brain damage. if you can show me that they had brain damage, i'll resign my position in the department of psychological benson often. university . this absolutely unequivocally, not the case. what happened was in 2019, the journal of the american medical association publish the study, which looked at the small cohort of patients in cuba. and they found brain anomalies. brain anomalies are not the same as brain damage. it's very common in small groups. when you look at brain scans to find vine or anomalies,

and these anomalies were very minor and they have conflated anomalies with brain damage. it is not been found whatsoever that there was brain damage in the action. cuba but it keeps getting reported over and over again . you so diplomatically avoided my direct question about the manipulation of the narrative. i'm the, that's your ride, but i want you to, i can rephrase my question a little bit because i think the level of psychological flores ation in the united states is very high. and this, this is what allows for psychogenic infections to originate and brad very rapidly. would you foresee another case, this slide about, chart cur, for example q and on some various do think it's, it's sad by the similar psychic energy. do you think they made the other cases when

people will be easily led to believe that somebody is out there trying to break them or cost them damage? yet? look, it's very concerning what's going on with the american government in with the american media and how they have handled this case. and the situation is right for an incubation of further cases like this. you know, at some point you have to listen to science and the scientists, and that's not the case here. the national academy of sciences, the senate foreign relations committee, they interviewed mostly believers. where are the skeptics? the national academy of sciences didn't interview many of the skeptics. the prominent skeptics who had been speaking on this case and the same with the senate foreign relations committee. and there's this,

this understanding out here that mass psycho genic illness is somehow some kind of mental disorder or calling people crazy. it is absolutely not the case. and people, i would assume i need somehow dealing with that because after all are being posted somewhere, overseas is indeed a stressful job. and maybe if people are so susceptible to those theories, maybe they need help. now i have time for just one question and i want to ask you about the media because i know that before your single out the media as a, as a main driver, an amplifier of the psycho genic illnesses. and it's very interesting that the point of view made that people are now wanting in line. now using social media media to relieve that psychic stress the way they used to go, for example, to the church, but instead of being discharged, the stress is being collectively accumulated. it's sort of, you know,

continues that it's infectious power. can you talk more about that? what would possibly be done to prevent this isolated case of psychogenic illness from spreading all around the globe among let's say, one countries, diplomatic personnel or even bigger groups. yeah, well, there's a danger here for the future. and we have to get our house in order in the united states. i'm a u. s. citizen, i'm a new zealand citizen. and it's really embarrassing to me when you have such partisanship out there. and now on both sides coming together on this. and they have not looked at the science and they haven't listened to the mainstream scientist. i'm not a rogue scientist on a straight down the line, mainstream scientists. and those studies in the journal, the american medical association, any neurologist or medical doctor worth their salt,

who takes the time to examine those studies. those studies are very flawed, and we need to listen to mainstream science. but unfortunately, the waters have been muddy bipartisan politics and it's destroying the united states of america. we've saw the last few years, and it's very concerning. it's very alarming. and it's, it's disturbing. well, let's hope that somebody will take a lesson or 2 from a very interesting and yes, funny. although, as we discussed before, it would be pretty dangerous given that this issue is now being discussed within the military intelligences of rush in the united states. but all the nuclear capabilities that they have anyway, professor told me we have to live in there. thank you very much for being with us. thank you. and thank you for watching hope to see you again next week and will

depart. ah ah, is the earth still large enough to satisfy the ambitions of jeff bezos? you know, it's got its tentacles in so many aspects of the economy. there's nothing that amazon is i'm trying to get in to to step by step. the amazon empire has extended its grip on the world that walks like a dog and quacks like a dog gets a dog. so amazon looks like monopoly trades like a monopoly makes money like the monopoly behaves like monopoly. amazon essentially

it controls the market place. it's not really a market as a private arena, a world where a single company controls the distribution of all our daily products and the infrastructure of our economy. is this the world according to amazon? oh, is your media a reflection of reality? in the world transformed? what will make you feel safer? isolation for community. are you going the right way? or are you being led? direct? what is true? what is great? in the world corrupted, you need to descend. ah. so join us in the depths

or remain in the shallows. ah, in his doretha shaped the weak you crane dominates both the headlines on the lines of nato, staves with legal arms are munitions, military equipment handed over to tears or the us. and you, a prepared to send troops to eastern europe, a full nato members agree to weapon eyes. ukraine. germany is slammed by allies for going against the blocks line while some spanish opposition parties. they, it's not that countries war to wait. spain has no place in this conflict. we are not interested in any worse. all this is a pro cation of the united states and nato in an attempt to reshape the world order in which they are losing influence.