# Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents

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NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL :
| 1 March 2023 | ICA 2023-02286-B |
| Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents |||
This Intelligence Community Assessment was prepared under the auspices of the National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Counterintelligence. It was drafted by the National Intelligence Council with contributions from the Intelligence Community.
| Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents | Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents |
| 1 March 2023 | ICA 2023-02286-B |
Scope Note: This IC-coordinated Intelligence Community Assessment addresses the question of whether one or more foreign actors bears responsibility, either deliberately or unintentionally, for causing anomalous health incidents (AHIs) reported by US Government officials across multiple agencies since 2016. The ICA was written in response to senior US policymaker interest and updates the IC’s previous assessment on AHIs published in January 2022.
Since US officials first reported AHIs in Havana, Cuba in late 2016, the IC has sought to understand whether these events can be attributed to a foreign actor and a deliberate external mechanism. The IC pursued three separate lines of inquiry: the first encompassed work determining whether available data points to the involvement of a foreign adversary in the incidents; the second focused on the feasibility and existence of deliberate mechanisms that an adversary might use against US personnel to cause AHIs; and the third evaluated whether medical analysis can help determine if an outside actor is involved in the broad range of phenomena and symptoms associated with AHIs. Based on the results of these three lines of inquiry, most IC agencies have concluded that it is “very unlikely” a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs. IC agencies have varying confidence levels, with two agencies at moderate-to-high confidence while three are at moderate confidence. Two agencies judge it is “unlikely” an adversary was responsible for AHIs and they do so with low confidence based on collection gaps and their review of the same evidence.
As part of its review, the IC identified critical assumptions surrounding the initial AHIs reported in Cuba from 2016 to 2018, which framed the IC’s understanding of this phenomenon, but were not borne out by subsequent medical and technical analysis. In light of this and the evidence that points away from a foreign adversary, causal mechanism, or unique syndrome linked to AHIs, IC agencies assess that symptoms reported by US personnel were probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary, such as preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors. IC confidence in this explanation is bolstered by the fact that we identified medical, environmental, and social factors that plausibly can explain many AHIs reported by US officials. Three agencies have high confidence in this portion of the assessment while three other agencies have moderate confidence. One agency has low confidence because it judges that it is unclear how many reported incidents were influenced by dynamics not directly related to adversary activity such as hypervigilance. All IC agencies agree that US personnel sincerely and honestly reported their experiences, including those that were painful or traumatic, particularly given the framing of AHIs as possible attacks by an unknown mechanism that could cause permanent harm such as brain damage.
The IC considered a range of other possibilities we deemed less likely, and identified types of information that, if found, would prompt us to revisit our assessment, such as new medical analysis that identified a syndrome linked to affected personnel or the identification of a specific device that both caused the harmful effects described in AHI reports and was fielded by an adversary during the timeframe of the incidents.
​(U) Estimative Language
(U) Estimative language consists of two elements: judgment about the likelihood of developments or events occurring and levels of confidence in the sources and analytic reasoning supporting the judgments. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.
(U) Judgments of Likelihood
(U) The chart below approximates how judgments of likelihood correlate with percentages. Unless otherwise stated, the Intelligence Community’s judgments are not derived via statistical analysis. Phrases such as “we judge” and “we assess” —and terms such as “probable” and “likely”—convey analytical assessments.
Percent
(U) Confidence in our Judgments
(U) Confidence levels provide assessments of timeliness, consistency, and extent of intelligence and open source reporting that supports judgments. They also take into account the analytic argumentation, the depth of relevant expertise; the degree to which assumptions underlie analysis; and the scope of information gaps.
(U) We ascribe high, moderate, or low confidence to assessments:
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
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