State Terrorism Masquerading as Psychogenic Illness

Abstract

Since the 1980s, reports of mass psychogenic illness have increasingly featured themes centering around state-sponsored terrorism. In each instance, longstanding political tensions led to the creation of a folk theory that a hostile foreign power was targeting minorities with poisonous substances as a form of ethnic cleansing. The symptoms of ‘Havana Syndrome’ closely parallel illness clusters that have been identified as mass psychogenic illness, after initially being diagnosed as an attack with chemical weapons by a hostile government. Despite initial confusion surrounding these diagnoses, a consensus has emerged within the medical community that they were psychogenic in origin. The involvement of specific ethnic groups is conspicuous as chemical agents cannot discriminate along ethnic lines. This social patterning of symptoms parallels the events in Cuba as only diplomatic staff and their families were affected.