PhACT Lecture: "Is 'Havana Syndrome' Real?"

Event Title: "Havana Syndrome - Tilting at Windmills?"
Speakers: Robert Bartholomew & Rob Palmer
Time: 2:00 PM
Location: Online Event

NOTE: IT IS NECESSARY TO REGISTER FOR THIS LECTURE, IN ORDER TO RECEIVE THE ZOOM LINK FOR ATTENDANCE. PLEASE REGISTER USING THE LINK BELOW - https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/2116454590562/WN_LLBO8SRKSP6ZalqzsMsBCw

Keep in mind there is a limit of 500 attendees and this event may fill up before the day of the event.

If the Zoom event fills up, you can also watch it on PhACT's YouTube Live Link:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUankii4qI_qUbS9sOWHeLQ/live

Event Description:
Beginning in late 2016, the US government claimed there were ongoing attacks against US embassy personnel and their families in Havana, Cuba, by unknown forces using unknown weapons. Over the next five years, the scope of these attacks, initially called “unexplained health incidents,” broadened to include US embassy staff, intelligence agents, and military personnel and families stationed in a large number of countries, and even in the US itself.

Reported symptoms of these attacks – which have come to be called Havana Syndrome – include hearing loud noises, ear pain, feeling pressure or vibrations in the head, tinnitus, visual problems, vertigo, nausea, cognitive difficulties, insomnia, fatigue, dizziness, and even brain trauma. The weaponry blamed has been diverse and includes ultrasound, infrasound, pulsed electromagnetic energy, microwaves, pesticides, and bio-weapons.

Recently, a bill was signed into law called the "Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks Act" (HAVANA Act). This authorizes the US government to provide financial support for victims of Havana Syndrome attacks.

But are any such attacks actually happening? Or is this a case of political blunders, sloppy science, and bad journalism? These questions and more will be explored during a live-streamed interview of medical sociologist and mass psychogenic illness expert Robert Bartholomew, author of the book *Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria* (2020).

About the Speakers:

• Robert Bartholomew is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland. A medical sociologist, he has written extensively on mass psychogenic illness, hoaxes, popular delusions, and pseudoscience. He began his career as a journalist for several New York State radio stations and has lived with the Malay people in Malaysia and Aborigines in the Tanami Desert of Central Australia. He completed his Ph.D. in Sociology from James Cook University in Australia and his Master’s in Sociology from the State University of New York at Albany. Robert is a Fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He has published 17 books, including The Martians Have Landed!: A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes (2012) with Benjamin Radford, Mass Hysteria in Schools: A Worldwide History Since 1566 (2014) with Bob Rickard, A Colorful History of Popular Delusions (2015) with Peter Hassall, American Hauntings: The True Stories behind Hollywood's Scariest Movies―from The Exorcist to The Conjuring (2015) with Joe Nickell, American Intolerance: Our Dark History of Demonizing Immigrants (2019) with Anja E. Reumschüssel, and Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria (2020) with Robert W. Baloh.
• Rob Palmer has had a diverse career in engineering, having worked as a spacecraft designer, an aerospace project engineer, a computer programmer, and a software systems engineer. He became a skeptical activist when he joined the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia team in 2016, and began writing for Skeptical Inquirer in 2018 as The Well-Known Skeptic. Rob takes a special interest in combating the belief in psychics and mediums, and has been a speaker twice at CSICon in Las Vegas, as well as virtually for Dragon Con and for many humanist and skeptic clubs including PhACT. He will interview Bartholomew.

About the Event Host:
PhACT (the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking) is a registered 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of scientific skepticism. If you would like to support speakers like this, consider becoming a member and/or making an online donation at www.phact.org

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