A mysterious wave of brain diseases is sweeping across Canada, causing locals to suddenly suffer from memory loss, paralysis and seizures.
Since DailyMail.com last reported on the outbreak, hundreds of people have claimed to have suffered an unusual range of symptoms linked to the as-yet unknown condition.
According to Dr. Alier Marrero, a neurologist who was one of the first doctors to draw attention to this problem, the number of cases now stands at around 430 with 39 deaths. About a quarter of them are people under the age of 45.
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 patients’ blood.
His main theory is that the mysterious decline is caused by something in the environment.
The number of cases is disputed. Dr. Marrero said he has seen about 430 patients who fall within the guidelines for the disease. In 2022, a government study concluded that there was no connection between the 48 cases they included in their study
“I don’t conclude that this is the cause of what’s happening,” Dr. Marrero said The New York Times magazine.
“But it does tell me that there is something wrong with the environment they live in.”
One theory is that local use of pesticides, which are used to keep the forests in the area healthy, could be a factor.
The other reason is that New Brunswick, a coastal city whose economy depends in part on fishing and aquatourism, may be consuming large amounts of marine life contaminated with toxic algae.
Whatever the cause, locals are worried.
Around Christmas 2018, Lauire Beatty, 81, a retired contractor from New Brunswick, became paranoid and lost track of time.
He then began having seizures, shaking and convulsions. Doctors initially thought he was suffering from a rare condition similar to mad cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
But they were wrong, what Mr. Beatty had was nothing a doctor would recognize, within six months he was dead.
Mr. Beatty was among a growing number of Canadians from the province with similar symptoms, whom doctors could not diagnose with a known neurological condition.
Other patients, such as Gabrielle Cormier, 24, who was diagnosed at age 20, struggle with memory loss, vision problems and difficulty walking.
Cormier says she had a passion for figure skating since she was 8, adding, “It was my life.” But the mysterious neurological disease left her unable to walk on her own and she had to give up skating, as well as her time at university.
Others suddenly experienced nightmarish hallucinations, limb pain, spasms, cognitive decline and teeth chattering.
The wide variety of symptoms is one of the reasons why this disease is so difficult to study and categorize.
In February 2022, a study by the province of New Brunswick concluded that no clear link could be found between the cases, saying that “no common exposure within the group could be found.”
This has led local residents, 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 want to cultivate a group of people to believe 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 named the disease “New Brunswick neurological syndrome of unknown cause.”
In April 2021, the government launched an investigation into the disease and its cause.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research pledged to donate $5 million to the study, which would be led by the province of New Brunswick.
Concerns about the investigation arose when the provincial task force decided not to use the federal funding, the NYT reported.
Shortly afterwards, a number of meetings in which the research was discussed with experts and the public were cancelled.
“There was a stop, sudden, abrupt, with no clear explanation,” Dr. Marrero said.
It was less surprising when the provincial group made their announcement in February 2022, effectively dismissing the idea that the condition exists.
Their decision was probably based in part on a report by neuropathologist Dr. Gerard Jansen, who performed autopsies on the eight patients who had died at the time and concluded that they had all died of a different illness.
According to Dr. Jansen, his findings ‘in fact directly indicate that this cluster does not exist.’
Dr. Marrero disagreed with these findings, telling the NYT that people can be exposed to the same problem and still 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 it will be difficult to draw conclusions about what this means until he compares this to other local patients.
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 that this could be contributing to the problem in New Brunswick
Dr. Michael Coulthart, head of a surveillance system for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that doctors initially thought might explain the cluster, told colleagues that something was going on with these patients in New Brunswick.
My scientific opinion is that there is something real going on in NB [New Brunswick] “That absolutely cannot be explained by the bias or agenda of any individual neurologist,” Dr. Coulthart said in a leaked email.
“It appears that the interests of those affected were not paramount in the measures taken,” neuroscientist Dr. Samuel Weiss of The Canadian Institutes of Health Research said in another leak.
Dr. Marrero expanded his own research into the topic after the government released 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 just be an everyday occurrence in the region and that it is not possible to draw conclusions based on these blood tests alone.
Glyphosate is an herbicide and the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup that has been the subject of public scrutiny for decades.
Some studies link it to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, while others associate it with an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.
It is prohibited or restricted in parts of CanadaIn Quebec, the herbicide is banned in forest management. In Vancouver, there is a ban on the use of the products in public parks and outdoor gardens.
But not all health organizations agree that the product is toxic.
The U.S. EPA has repeatedly reaffirmed its approval of glyphosate. The most recent review of the product listed in 2020: ‘there are no risks to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with the current label.’
It is still used throughout North America. In New Brunswick it is used to maintain the forests.
Dr. Coulthart has previously presented another theory that could explain the syndrome.
Certain types of algae produce a toxin called beta-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA). It is produced in large quantities in algal blooms and can accumulate through the food chain from aquatic insects to fish to humans.
BMAA has been linked to a host of unique dementia-like symptoms. Scientists suspect the neurotoxin causes proteins to misfold and damage the brain.
He’s not sure what’s causing the situation in the area, but he’s pretty sure it has to do with the environment.
“I don’t pretend to have the answer,” he said. “I think science has to be the answer.”