CIA doctor investigating mysterious injuries suddenly gets injured Transcript

John: (00:00) So a new CNN special report will be taking a closer look at one of the most controversial health mysteries in recent years. CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, investigates a cluster of unexplained concussion-like symptoms first reported among American officials in covert personnel in Cuba back in 2016. Sanjay spoke to the CIA's first investigator into the situation, Dr. Paul Andrews, who himself became a victim when he traveled to Havana to investigate. This is a preview. Sanjay Gupta: (00:31) When Andrews and his two colleagues landed in Havana in April 2017, the incidents were still classified. Patients were told to not even discuss this with their own families. Paul Andrews: (00:43) We had a van from the embassy pick us up and take us to the hotel. I get into the room and I looked around. I hadn't seen this before. Between every set of rooms was a small door and it was a service chase. It was unusual. Sanjay Gupta: (01:03) Did you think there was somebody in that space? Paul Andrews: (01:06) I don't know. Sanjay Gupta: (01:08) This is that service chase, potentially large enough for a person to stand inside. Paul Andrews: (01:14) I looked out the window, I was on a high floor, and I saw nothing out there that concerned me. There was no other building at a height that would have a direct ability to shine something in my room, say. I think I went to bed probably around 11:30. I slept in my jeans and a T-shirt in case I had to evacuate quickly. And about 4:56, 4:57, I was awakened with severe pain in my right ear. I had a lot of nausea and a terrible headache and I never suffered from headaches before. The amount of ringing in my ears was just astounding and things were getting worse and worse and worse, and I started to hear the noise and I'm really in disbelief. Sanjay Gupta: (02:07) And you believe that that night there was some injury or damage to either your inner ear, the nerves around your inner ear or your brain. Paul Andrews: (02:18) Correct. Absolutely. John: (02:20) All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us. Now, Sanjay, in that two minute clip, already more information and explanation than I've heard since this began in 2016. Sanjay Gupta: (02:29) Yeah. Yeah. I mean just to hear someone actually describe these unexplained health incidents, what transpires, somebody who never had these symptoms before suddenly comes on, no advanced warning and no indication. I mean concussion-like symptoms without a blow to the head, that's why we're calling it the immaculate concussion. It's hard to explain. But you hear from somebody who's a physician himself goes to investigate and develops that. John: (02:55) Okay. So why? I mean do you get to the why, or how, or what's really going on? Sanjay Gupta: (03:01) John, it's interesting. As a medical reporter, I really wanted to explain from a brain standpoint what happened to these folks' brains and a possible mechanism. The prevailing theory, as you probably know right now, is that this was some directed energy attack, and that is a word that they use, an attack, so deliberate. And it's a pattern of energy on the electromagnetic spectrum, they believe microwave energy that is pulsed to very high levels and directed at somebody's brain causing these types of symptoms. What I was surprised by was that these weapons have existed for a long time. This is not new. They've probably even been used for a long time. But over the years, over the decades, they've become increasingly sophisticated and now we have a better idea of what they can do and what exactly happens to somebody who suffers one of these attacks? John: (03:49) Who are you able to get on the record about all of this besides the doctor there? Sanjay Gupta: (03:53) So he was very interesting because he's a doctor and he was the first person to investigate. But many of the initial patients that came out of Havana, there's about two dozen or so, they did see doctors in Miami. They saw doctors in Pennsylvania. We have those doctors talking now, really some of them for the first time describing exactly what they saw. And keep in mind, they saw these patients at a time when the patients themselves didn't even know, "Are there other people like me out there?" Because people said this could be mass psychogenesis for example. Well they didn't even know if there was other patients. They thought maybe they were the only ones at that point. So they didn't even tell their families at the point they were initially being examined. John: (04:29) Do the people who've gone through this still have a Cassandra complex where they feel like they're telling the world this is happening and no one's believing them? Sanjay Gupta: (04:36) I think there's been a lot of back and forth because you've seen the news reports that maybe this isn't even a real phenomenon. And for them, it's been really painful for some of these patients to say, "Hey, look, I'm suffering still." Dr. Paul Andrews, by the way, it's not his real name. That's a pseudonym. He is an agent. He's worked for the CIA. He's still worried about his own security. They worry that they're not being believed still. So that's I think in part really painful for them. Six years later for him and he is still very debilitated. Some of these patients recovered immediately, some still have these lingering symptoms. John: (05:10) The attacks still happening as far as we know? Sanjay Gupta: (05:12) Well there's been concerns that in China and Austria and Russia that these attacks have happened. You may remember the Vice President's delegation, there was concern at that point outside of Hanoi. It's unclear about these other attacks outside of Havana, but the ones in Havana, because they were so quickly evaluated, I think that has the most evidence behind them. John: (05:33) Sanjay, and I'm not making this up, in this one conversation with this one clip, already more information about something we've been talking about and around for years now. Sanjay Gupta: (05:41) Several years, yeah. John: (05:41) This sounds fascinating. Thanks so much. Sanjay Gupta: (05:43) We've got a job. Thank you. John: (05:44) Immaculate Concussion: The Truth Behind Havana Syndrome begins Sunday night at 8:00 PM Eastern on CNN.