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The U.S. Government is continuing its efforts to get to the bottom of Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) and to care for those affected. We will continue to release information to our workforce and the public as our initiatives begin to bear fruit on key outstanding questions. This update provides information about the Intelligence Community Experts Panel on Anomalous Health Incidents, a group jointly convened by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to help elucidate potential causal mechanisms of AHIs affecting U.S Government personnel.
IC Experts Panel
The IC Experts Panel is composed of experts from inside and outside the U.S. Government with expertise in relevant areas of science, medicine, and engineering. They received dozens of briefings and more than 1,000 classified documents on a range of scientific, medical, and intelligence topics, including sensitive intelligence reporting, AHI incident reports, and trend analysis. They also engaged with affected individuals who shared their personal experiences and medical records. Examples of panel member expertise:
- Acoustic
- Biologic
- Environmental
- Ionizing Radiation
- Medical
- Psychiatric/Psychological
- Radiofrequency
Key Lines of Inquiry Thus Far:
The Experts Panel was asked to examine potential causal mechanisms for AHIs. The panel was not asked to consider attribution. Earlier this month, the CIA shared intelligence Community-coordinated analysis with interim findings on the specific questions of whether a foreign actor is responsible for anomalous health incidents, assessing that U.S. adversaries are not engaged in a sustained global campaign involving hundreds of incidents to harm or collect intelligence on U.S. personnel - but continuing to investigate whether a foreign actor was involved in a subset of cases.
Based on a defined methodology, the Experts Panel issued six findings:
- The signs and symptoms of AHIs are genuine and compelling.
- A subset of AHIs cannot be easily explained by known environmental or medical conditions and could be due to external stimuli.
- Pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radiofrequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics of reported AHIs, although information gaps exist.
- Ultrasound also plausibly explains the core characteristics, but only in close-access scenarios and with information gaps.
- Psychosocial factors alone cannot account for the core characteristics, although they may cause some other incidents or contribute to long-term symptoms.
- Ionizing radiation, chemical and biological agents, infrasound, audible sound, ultrasound propagated over large distances, and bulk heating from electromagnetic energy are all implausible explanations for the core characteristics in the absence of other synergistic stimuli.
For more, read the Executive Summary of the Experts Panel report here.
What's Next?
The Experts Panel offered seven main recommendations to help the IC better understand, prevent, and manage AHIs, which the IC will incorporate into its work going forward. These recommendations covered the following areas:
- Data
- Biomarkers
- Detectors
- Communications
- Clinical Measurements
- Biological Effects
- Devices to Aid Research
The U.S. Government will continue to provide access to care for those who need it.
The U.S. Government will continue to be transparent with our workforce and the American public.