Page:Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents.pdf/3

 there continues to be a scientific debate on whether this could result in a weapon that could produce the symptoms seen in some of the reported AHI cases.

IC agencies assess that medical analysis of AHIs has evolved since the first reported incidents in ways that point away from adversary involvement. While initial medical studies concluded AHIs represented a novel medical syndrome or consistent pattern of injuries similar to traumatic brain injury (TBI), a combination of medical and academic critiques pointed to methodological limitations in that work. Furthermore, the JASON panel’s review of preliminary data from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) longitudinal study on AHIs in 2021 does not convey a consistent set of physical injuries, including neurologic injuries such as TBI. This shift is notable because the initial medical opinions formed a central part of the IC hypothesis that US personnel had sustained injuries that were unlikely to be explained by natural or environmental factors and shaped the IC’s approach to AHIs. Medical research is ongoing but currently appears consistent with the conclusions emerging from the IC’s analysis of foreign involvement and potential causal mechanisms. Five agencies have moderate confidence in this judgment while one agency abstains. One agency has low confidence because the NIH findings have yet to be published.

As part of its review, the IC identified critical assumptions surrounding the initial AHIs reported in Cuba from 2016 to 2018, which framed the IC’s understanding of this phenomenon, but were not borne out by subsequent medical and technical analysis. In light of this and the evidence that points away from a foreign adversary, causal mechanism, or unique syndrome linked to AHIs, IC agencies assess that symptoms reported by US personnel were probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary, such as preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors. IC confidence in this explanation is bolstered by the fact that we identified medical, environmental, and social factors that plausibly can explain many AHIs reported by US officials. Three agencies have high confidence in this portion of the assessment while three other agencies have moderate confidence. One agency has low confidence because it judges that it is unclear how many reported incidents were influenced by dynamics not directly related to adversary activity such as hypervigilance. All IC agencies agree that US personnel sincerely and honestly reported their experiences, including those that were painful or traumatic, particularly given the framing of AHIs as possible attacks by an unknown mechanism that could cause permanent harm such as brain damage.

The IC considered a range of other possibilities we deemed less likely, and identified types of information that, if found, would prompt us to revisit our assessment, such as new medical analysis that identified a syndrome linked to affected personnel or the identification of a specific device that both caused the harmful effects described in AHI reports and was fielded by an adversary during the timeframe of the incidents.