Diaz-Canel: False Havana syndrome reinforced blockade of Cuba

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Sunday criticized the international press's neglect of the damage caused to his country by the alleged "Havana syndrome," a media construction discredited even in the United States.

The head of state cited in X a news item recently released by CNN about the cancellation by the National Institutes of Health in the northern nation (NIH, for its acronym in English), of an investigation into the "Havana syndrome," due to unethical coercion of the participants, said the television station.

“The false Havana syndrome can no longer be supported by studies, but the media forget to mention that it was the vile pretext to include Cuba on the list of sponsors of terrorism and reinforce the genocidal blockade with more than 240 measures,” the president wrote on the social network.

Díaz-Canel also recalled that the United States' economic, financial and commercial siege policy against the Caribbean island was the work of the Donald Trump administration (2017-2021) and maintained by the current Joe Biden administration.

The excuse of alleged damage to the health of diplomatic personnel accredited in the Antillean capital was widely used by elements of the American extreme right and the Cuban-American mafia to justify the tightening of sanctions against Cuba.

With this misleading story, several times dismissed by investigations by prestigious international and island scientists, they also intended to reinforce the idea that Russia and China constitute a threat to world security, the Granma newspaper reported the day before.

The NIH announced on Friday that it was ending its studies on the topic out of an “abundance of caution” after an internal investigation found that people had been coerced into taking part in the research, several media outlets reported.