Technology

The team’s initial thought was that the differences in mortality rates across the country might be explained by deaths of despair—suicide, alcohol poisoning and drug overdoses such as from opioids. However, this was not the case. Deaths of despair only accounted for one-sixth of all midlife deaths.

They then looked at whether geographic differences in mortality rates could be explained by differences in education, such as if a person had a college degree, and whether states with more college graduates had better mortality than states with fewer college graduates. Education was not the root of the problem, as health inequality was still present after education at the state-level was accounted for, the researchers found.

The researchers also investigated how state-level income impacted the increased divergence in mortality rates. “Our findings show that over the past three decades, mortality rates have improved in states with initially high incomes in 1990 while the rates in low-income states have lagged behind,” says co-author Ellen Meara, an adjunct professor at The Dartmouth Institute and a professor of health economics and policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “In 2019, high-income states experienced the biggest drop in mortality rates relative to 1968 or 1990, whereas, the low-income states barely budged at all.”

It wasn’t income that drove the great geographic divergence in mortality, the researchers say. Instead, it appears to be the long-term benefits of public health and social policies that were enacted by higher-income states in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly relating to children and adolescents, as they started paying off at midlife in the 2000s and 2010s.

“Investments in public health—higher taxes on cigarettes, expansion of the earned income tax credit for families, and expansion of Medicaid to pregnant mothers in high-income states—are the most likely candidates for why some states gained and others didn’t,” says Skinner.

Meara says, “our results demonstrate how regional investments in health capital over the lifecycle, including policies aimed at adopting good health behaviors, can provide long-term benefits for residents, significantly increasing life expectancy.”

The 60 Minutes segment also failed to mention that social contagion may have played a role in the initial spread of “Havana Syndrome.” CIA analyst Fulton Armstrong would later reveal that the undercover intelligence agent in Havana who first reported the mysterious sounds and believed they were responsible for his health issues, had engaged in a vigorous campaign to persuade colleagues that the sounds were significant. “He was lobbying, if not coercing, people to report symptoms and connect the dots,” Armstrong said.22 The man, who has since been dubbed “patient zero,” later attended a gathering of embassy personnel and played the recording of his “attack,” encouraging them to report their symptoms as he was convinced that they too had been targeted. His recording was analyzed by government scientists and identified as crickets.23 In fact, eight of the first group of victims in Cuba who reported feeling unwell and hearing sounds, recorded their “attacks.” They were later identified as the mating call of the Indies short-tailed cricket.24

Soon American and Canadian diplomats stationed in Havana were on the lookout for strange sounds and health complaints. Eventually the U.S. government alerted all of its active military personnel and embassy staff around the world to be vigilant for mysterious sounds and “anomalous health incidents.” In response, there were over 1,500 reports of possible attacks. The problem with these alerts is that “Havana Syndrome” symptoms are common in the general population and include headaches, nausea, dizziness, forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, tinnitus, fatigue, facial pressure, hearing loss, ear pain, trouble walking, depression, irritability, and even nose bleeds.

One study found that the average person experiences five different symptoms in any given week. Thirty-six percent noted fatigue; 35 percent reported headaches. Nearly 30 percent said they had insomnia, while 15 percent had difficulty concentrating, 13 percent reported memory problems; roughly 8 percent noted nausea and dizziness.25 These symptoms overlap with those attributed to “Havana Syndrome.” When one eliminates claims of brain damage and hearing loss (which were never demonstrated), one is left with an array of exceedingly common symptoms.