A mysterious wave of brain diseases has swept across Canada, leaving locals with sudden memory loss, paralysis and seizures.
Since DailyMail.com last reported on the outbreak, hundreds more people have claimed to have suffered an unusual range of symptoms linked to the still-unknown illness.
The number of cases now stands at around 430 with 39 deaths and about a quarter of them are people under 45, according to Dr. Alier Marrero, a neurologist who was one of the first doctors to draw attention to the issue.
The Canadian government has rejected the idea that the cases are linked, but Dr Marrero disagrees and has conducted his own tests, finding high levels of pesticides in the patients’ blood.
Their leading theory is that the mysterious decline is caused by something in the environment.
The case count is controversial. Dr. Marrero said he has seen about 430 patients who fall within the parameters of the disease. In 2022, a government-led investigation concluded there was no link between the 48 cases they included in their study.
“I’m not concluding that this is the cause of what’s happening,” Dr. Marrero said. The New York Times Magazine.
“But it’s something that tells me that something is wrong with the environment in which they live.”
One theory is that local use of pesticides, which are used to keep the area’s forests healthy, could be a factor.
The other is that New Brunswick, a coastal city whose economy depends in part on the fishing and water tourism industries, may be consuming large amounts of marine life contaminated with a toxic algae.
Whatever the cause, locals are alarmed.
Around Christmas 2018, Lauire Beatty, 81, a retired contractor from New Brunswick, became paranoid and lost track of time.
She then began to suffer from seizures, twitching and tics. Doctors initially thought she was suffering from a rare disease similar to mad cow disease, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
But they were wrong. What Mr. Beatty had was nothing any doctor could recognize. Within six months he was dead.
Mr Beatty was one of a growing number of Canadians in the province with similar symptoms that doctors could not diagnose as resulting from any known neurological condition.
Other patients, like Gabrielle Cormier, 24, who was diagnosed at age 20, have experienced memory loss, vision problems and difficulty walking.
Cormier says he had been passionate about figure skating since he was eight years old, adding that “it was my life.” But the mysterious neurological disease left him unable to walk independently and he had to abandon skating and his university studies.
Others have had to deal with a sudden onslaught of “nightmare”-like hallucinations, pain in the extremities, spasms, cognitive impairment and teeth chattering.
The wide range of symptoms experienced is just one of the reasons that has made this disease difficult to study and categorize.
In fact, in February 2022, a New Brunswick provincial investigation concluded that it could not find a clear link between the cases, stating that they “could not find any common exposure in the cluster.”
This has led locals such as the late Mr Beatty’s son, Tim, to question the group’s motivation.
“We don’t have tinfoil hats,” Tim Beatty said. “But if you’re trying to instill a group of people with a belief in a conspiracy theory, they’ve done a fantastic job.”
A year earlier, an emergency task force of federal scientists declared the cases linked and gave the disease the name “New Brunswick neurological syndrome of unknown etiology.”
Government investigations into the disease and its causes began in April 2021.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research pledged $5 million to fund the research, which was planned to be led by the province of New Brunswick.
Concerns about the investigation arose when the provincial task force opted not to use federal funds, the NYT reported.
Shortly afterward, a series of meetings to discuss the investigation with experts and the public were cancelled.
“There was a sudden, abrupt stop, with no apparent explanation,” said Dr. Marrero.
It was not so surprising then when the provincial group made its announcement in February 2022, essentially ruling out the idea that the condition exists.
His decision was probably prompted in part by a report by neuropathologist Dr. Gerard Jansen, who performed autopsies on the eight patients who had died by that time and concluded that each of them died of a different disease.
Dr. Jansen said his findings “actually directly suggest that this group does not exist.”
Dr. Marrero disagreed with these findings, telling the NYT that people can be exposed to the same problem and develop different symptoms.
Leaked emails from Canadian health officials revealed he was not alone.
Dr. Marrero found elevated levels of glyphosate in about 90 percent of the patients he tested. He cautioned that until he compares this to other local data, it will be difficult to draw conclusions about what this means.
Certain types of blue-green algae blooms produce BMAA, a neurotoxin that can cause dementia-like changes in the brain. At one point, Dr. Coulthart suggested this could be contributing to the problem in New Brunswick.
Dr. Michael Coulthart, director of a surveillance system for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that doctors initially thought might explain the outbreak, told colleagues that something was going on in New Brunswick with these patients.
“My scientific opinion is that there is something real going on in NB (New Brunswick) that cannot be explained at all by the bias or agenda of an individual neurologist,” Dr. Coulthart said in a leaked email.
“It appears that the best interests of those affected have not been at the forefront of the actions taken,” said neuroscientist Dr. Samuel Weiss of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in another leak.
Dr. Marrero expanded his own research on the topic after the government announced its findings. In December 2022, he found that 90 percent of the patients he tested had elevated levels of an agricultural chemical called glyphosate in their blood.
He warned that this could be a common occurrence in the area and that it is not possible to conclude anything from these blood tests alone.
Glyphosate is a herbicide and the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, which has been the subject of public scrutiny for decades.
Some studies link it to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and others to an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s.
It is prohibited or restricted in Parts of CanadaIn Quebec, the herbicide is banned in forest management. In Vancouver, the product is prohibited from being used in public parks and outdoor gardens.
But not all health organizations agree that the product is toxic.
The US EPA has repeatedly upheld its approval of glyphosate. The most recent review of the product in 2020 declared‘There are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used according to its current label.’
It is still used in North America. In New Brunswick, it is used for… maintain the forests.
Dr. Coulthart had previously put forward other theories that could explain the syndrome.
Certain types of algae produce a toxin known as beta-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA). It is produced in large quantities in algal blooms and can accumulate throughout the food chain, from aquatic insects to fish and humans.
BMAA has been linked to a number of unique dementia-like symptoms, and scientists suggest the neurotoxin causes proteins to misfold and damage the brain.
He is not sure what has caused the situation in the area, but he is fairly certain it has to do with the environment.
“I don’t pretend to have the answer,” he said. “I think science should be the answer.”
