Medical mystery deepens as US diplomats fall ill in China

A crisis over a mysterious ailment sickening US diplomats and their families – which began in Cuba and recently appeared in China – has widened as the state department evacuated at least two more Americans from China on Wednesday.

The Americans who were evacuated worked at the US consulate in the southern city of Guangzhou, and their colleagues and family members are being tested by a state department medical team, officials said. It is unclear how many of them are exhibiting symptoms, but officials expect more US personnel to be evacuated.

For months, US officials have been worried that their diplomats have been subjected to targeted attacks involving odd sounds, leading to symptoms similar to those “following concussion or minor traumatic brain injury”, the state department said.

The cases in China have broadened a medical mystery that started in 2016, when US embassy employees and their family members began falling ill in Havana. In all, 24 of them were stricken with headaches, nausea, hearing loss, cognitive issues and other symptoms after saying they heard odd sounds. The issue has roiled relations with Cuba, which immediately fell under suspicion, and led the United States to expel Cuban diplomats.

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But with Americans now exhibiting similar symptoms in Guangzhou, US officials have raised suspicions about whether other countries, perhaps China or Russia, might be to blame. That is sure to complicate already strained relations with both countries over a variety of economic, political and security issues.

Russia has been accused of meddling in the 2016 American presidential election, trade disputes have erupted with China and US officials fear that the Chinese are undermining relations with North Korea before a summit meeting with President Donald Trump planned for next week.

Apartment complexes

The new illnesses in China come just weeks after US officials reported finding their first case in Guangzhou, where a consulate employee got sick. Some American officials in this city live in apartment complexes filled with other foreigners and wealthy Chinese; that is where the ailing employees were subjected to unusual noises.

But it remains unclear whether the illnesses are the result of attacks at all. Other theories have included toxins, listening devices that accidentally emitted harmful sounds or even mass hysteria.

The mystery spread to China this spring, when the first employee fell ill, and fears escalated last month when the government warned other employees to seek medical attention if they experienced unusual ailments. So far this week, another employee, his wife and their two children were evacuated after the parents exhibited neurological symptoms. Officials said they expected that at least some others would be flown out of the country as well.

The illnesses appear more widespread than the state department initially reported last month, when it said that one person had “reported subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure”.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said last month at a hearing of the House foreign affairs committee that the symptoms of the first US employee in Guangzhou to report being ill "are very similar and entirely consistent with the medical indications that have taken place to Americans working in Cuba".

There are roughly 170 American diplomats or employees in Guangzhou, as well as their family members, and a senior US official said a sizable number had undergone or would soon undergo testing by the state department doctors who arrived on May 31st.

The officials cautioned that no final determination had been made about what caused the illnesses.

Unusual sounds

The latest American employee evacuated from Guangzhou is Mark A Lenzi, a security engineering officer at the consulate. He left on Wednesday evening with his wife and two children after having suffered in recent months from what he described in an interview as neurological symptoms. He said that his wife had similar symptoms and that they had heard unusual sounds in their apartment.

On Tuesday, Mr Pompeo said in a statement that the symptoms in the first case discovered in Guangzhou were similar to the ones experienced by the 24 Americans who became ill in Havana.

The injuries in Cuba, like those in China, followed disturbing sensations of sounds and vibrations that have been described variously as the sounds made by cicadas, static, metal sheets waving or, in Lenzi’s case, marbles rolling around a metal funnel.

After the injuries were diagnosed in Cuba, the Trump administration expelled 15 Cuban diplomats, saying Cuban officials had failed to adequately to protect American diplomats. The Cuban government denied any involvement and questioned whether any “attacks” had taken place. US officials suggested it was too soon to consider such a response in China, though they have raised it with the Chinese government.

Even if people are evacuated for further tests, that does not necessarily mean that they have suffered injuries or illnesses, the officials emphasized. Only 25 per cent of those evacuated from Cuba, for example, were later found to have health problems. – New York Times