Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has retracted intelligence community reports on mysterious health problems known as Havana Syndrome, according to a memorandum released on June 11.
Gabbard found that the intelligence community assessments of the anomalous health incidents, released in 2023 and 2025, failed to meet the community’s analytic standards.
That included selectively excluding intelligence and evidence that did not support the conclusions and relying on an “ethically flawed medical study without noting methodological critiques,” Gabbard’s office said in the memo, sent to members of Congress.
The 2023 assessment concluded it was very unlikely that a foreign adversary was behind the incidents, which have impacted staffers in countries such as Cuba and China.
The updated assessment released in 2025 said most intelligence agencies still held it was very unlikely an enemy was responsible for the syndrome, but two components judged there was a “roughly even chance” that a foreign actor had used a novel weapon to target Americans, or had developed such a weapon.
Gabbard’s team said future assessments on the matter would adhere to “rigorous ethical standards incorporating all available intelligence sources and engaging a broad range of experts from agencies including the CIA.”
Hellbound and Down 