A top scientist who advises the Canadian government said he was prevented from studying a rare outbreak of a mysterious and deadly brain disease in young adults and teenagers.
More than 200 New Brunswick residents have strangely developed a dementia-like disorder that causes vivid hallucinations, inability to speak and write, memory lapses and even physical paralysis.
While the disease has baffled doctors, local health officials attributed the outbreak to misdiagnosis and concluded that most patients were actually suffering from common illnesses such as dementia and cancer.
Now, damning evidence has come to light suggesting health chiefs may have intentionally blocked investigations into other potential causes, namely exposure to toxic pesticides.
In leaked emails sent between Dr. Michael Coulthart, a microbiologist, and members of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), Dr Coulthart said he was “basically excluded” from taking part in the research.
A top Canadian scientist said he was prevented from studying a mysterious outbreak of brain disease that affects more people than young people.
In the correspondence, seen by The Guardiangovernment scientist Dr. Coulthart wrote that he believed he had been sidelined because of “politics,” that is, his desire to investigate links to environmental exposures.
The curious problem arose in 2021, when New Brunswick health officials said more than 40 people in the area were suffering from an unknown neurological syndrome, which had symptoms close to the degenerative brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a type of prion disease that occurs when prions, a type of protein, cause normal proteins in the brain to fold abnormally, which can cause brain disease and damage.
Dr. Coulthart is currently the director of the Canadian Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance System.
The patients’ symptoms were diverse but severe: some residents salivated uncontrollably while others believed they had insects crawling on their skin.
Experts said the cases date back to 2015 and affect people aged between 18 and 84, dozens of whom were healthy before being struck by the mystery illness.
They noted that they were seeing “more and more younger patients.”
And the patients continue to suffer. One young woman told The Guardian that “politicians don’t want to acknowledge that something serious is happening, because then they will have to address it.”
She is forced to deal with muscle tremors and worsening coordination, and was told by a doctor that her faulty memory is similar to that of patients decades older.
The woman can no longer cook because her hands shake and now she only has to eat frozen food. She should also be reminded via a smart speaker to take medication, eat and shower.
Gabrielle Cormier had to end her love of figure skating and leave university at age 20 when she fell ill in 2019, leaving her so weakened that she now requires a wheelchair.
Mrs Cormier, now 24, experienced memory loss, vision problems and an inability to stand for long periods, forcing her to walk with a cane or use a wheelchair after falling ill.
DREAM THAT WAS RIPPED FROM HER: Cormier says she had a passion for figure skating since she was eight years old, adding that “it was my life.” But her mysterious dementia-like neurological illness left her unable to walk independently and she had to give up skating and stay in college.
The investigative committee, along with the New Brunswick government, also questioned the work of neurologist Alier Marrero.
Dr. Marrero, along with Dr. Coulthart, were the first to identify the cluster in 2019, and originally led the New Brunswick investigation.
Dr. Coulthart said in an email to a colleague, seen by the guardian: ‘All I will say is that my scientific opinion is that there is something real happening in (New Brunswick) that absolutely cannot be explained by the bias or personal agenda of an individual neurologist.
“Some cases could be better explained by the latter, but there are too many (now more than 200).”
The emails indicate that PHAC’s senior research scientists are still concerned about the cause and symptoms of the disease, which appears to mainly affect younger people.
An email chain from October 2023, between Dr. Coulthart and a PHAC member, Dr. Coulthart wrote that “an environmental exposure – or a combination of exposures – is triggering and/or accelerating a variety of neurodegenerative syndromes.”
Dr Coulthart added that because the disease is so complex, politicians have used this as a “loophole” to say “nothing coherent is happening”.
“I think the truth will emerge over time, but for now all we can do… is continue to collect information on cases that come to us as suspected prion diseases,” Dr. Coulthart said.
He had previously supported the theory that a neurotoxin called BMAA produced by blue-green algae could have been responsible.
In March 2023, Dr. Marrero pleaded with the Canadian government to conduct environmental testing that he believed would show that the herbicide glyphosate has a role to play.
Forestry companies in New Brunswick routinely use glyphosate to restrict plant growth.
