IC Experts Panel on Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) to help elucidate potential causal mechanisms of the AHIs affecting US Government personnel

 The panel reached six main findings. Some are limited by knowledge gaps or assessments that could be resolved or tested through implementing the recommendations in the next section.

The signs and symptoms of AHIs are genuine and compelling. The panel bases this assessment on incident reports, medical data from affected individuals and interviews with their physicians, and interviews with affected individuals themselves. Some incidents have affected multiple persons in the same space, and clinical samples from a few affected individuals have shown early, transient elevations in biomarkers suggestive of cellular injury to the nervous system. The reported signs and symptoms of AHIs are diverse and may be caused by multiple mechanisms, but no case should be discounted. Prompt medical evaluation and care is particularly important; many individuals who have been treated immediately after an event have improved.

A subset of AHIs cannot be easily explained by known environmental or medical conditions and could be due to external stimuli. Although some signs and symptoms of AHIs are common in known medical conditions, the combination of the four core characteristics is distinctly unusual and unreported elsewhere in the medical literature, and so far have not been associated with a specific neurological abnormality. Several aspects of this unique neurosensory syndrome make it unlikely to be caused by a functional neurological disorder. The location dependence and sudden onset and offset, for example, argue for a stimulus that is spatially and temporally discrete. The perception of sound and pain within only one ear suggests the stimulation of its mechanoreceptors, a specific cranial nerve, or nuclei in the brainstem, all of which mediate hearing and balance. The lack of other symptoms also helped rule-out known medical conditions.

Pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radiofrequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics, although information gaps exist. There are several plausible pathways involving various forms of pulsed electromagnetic energy, each with its own requirements, limitations, and unknowns. For all the pathways, sources exist that could generate the required stimulus, are concealable, and have moderate power requirements. Using nonstandard
antennas and techniques, the signals could be propagated with low loss through air for tens to hundreds of meters, and with some loss, through most building materials.

Stimulation and disruption of these biological systems has been credibly demonstrated in cells and tissues, and persons accidentally

      

exposed to radiofrequency signals described sensations similar to the core characteristics. However, there is a dearth of systematic research on the effects of the relevant electromagnetic signals on humans.