The only logical conclusion is that it is related to some secret anti spy device installed at US embassies around the world and not some outside disturbance covering Vienne to Havana?

Another logical conclusion could be that we only hear of abnormal medical issues if they happen to diplomats. I mean, if this happened to a random Joe, would we hear about it?

I was just thinking that. If we all read headlines for each time someone at the local Starbucks got sick, we'd avoid the coffee like the plague! There's a huge bias I think a lot of people don't account for, as well as the fact that quite a few diplomats are moving around all the time, they're ALL bound to get sick eventually. Rubbing shoulders with 100+ countries every week, it's basically inevitable.

It sounds similar to the occasional "cell phone radiation" and "electromagnetic hypersensitivity" news article. What's interesting is that those stories always include a suspected cause. With the embassy story, it seems we hear a lot about the symptoms.

Or that it's a secret weapon used on US diplomats by [insert foreign power].

Or that it's a result of radiation given off by some cryptogear that's classified.

Or that it's a result of a global phenomenon and is only being detected in Vienna because they were alert to it after noticing it in Havana.

Or that it's a contagious but slow acting disease spreading through the US diplomatic corps from some Typhoid Mary as they get redeployed.

Or sunspots. Always one of my favorited from the tech-problem excuse handbook.

That, and directing annoying questions about Lotus Notes to the cafeteria staff so they could resolve issues with their lettuce nodes.

Or that it's related an an anti spy device surreptitiously left by foreign agents at each embassy. Anyone can make an appointment to visit one and leave a disguised device behind. Or perhaps more likely, use a directed weapon aimed towards the embassy from the outside.

Or perhaps there was only an issue in Havana, and what we see now is psychosomatic. Or even that a few coincidental illnesses in Havana led to psychosomatic incidents as well.

Really all there is to go by is different levels of speculation informed by very few facts known for certain. However it would be odd for the US to allow its own devices to make its own staff sick, sparking many conspiracy theories and accusations at other countries.

Theories abound, but we ought to exhaust all available avenues of examination before landing on the "psychosomatic" label. Few things are worse than having a physiological problem and being told that it's all in your head. You can feel it, you are somehow debilitated by it, and yet others do not believe you. American diplomats are not particularly superstitious nor ignorant people, and they are indeed exposed to risks; some have been killed in the line of duty. I am inclined to treat this like a workplace-related injury until proven otherwise.

The fundamental problem is that it used to invoke a cost to publish anything. Now any idiot can post things for free and the viral aspect of the systems ensures it will explode. Us humans are hardwired for new and outrageous gossip and hench the ads industry is related to this. Nothing can fix this as long as publishing is cost free. Human nature can not be fixed. Get over it and design systems which mitigate the worst part of it.