[HN Gopher] Mystery brain disease patients in New Brunswick say ...
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Mystery brain disease patients in New Brunswick say they welcome
investigation
Author : luu
Score : 126 points
Date : 2025-02-06 02:19 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ctvnews.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ctvnews.ca)
| neom wrote:
| Been following this on and off and it's pretty strange generally:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Brunswick_neurological_syn...
| && https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/14/magazine/canada-brain-
| dis...
| inverted_flag wrote:
| > The CJDSS ruled out any prion disorder, including
| Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)
|
| Thank god.
| devmor wrote:
| That was my knee-jerk scenario to think of too - especially
| given the rising prevalence of Chronic Wasting Disease in the
| US states near that part of Canada.
|
| It's notable that the CJDSS director said they ruled out
| "known forms of prion disease" specifically, and the
| neuropathologist Jansen stated "no evidence for a prion
| disease was found" - I think the sentence you're quoting is
| actually misleading because it seems to suggest that there is
| negative evidence for a prion disorder, which there is not.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Seems like it would be exceedingly difficult, bordering on
| impossible, to make a categorical negative finding that
| there's no possibility of prions because you'd have to have
| a test to detect any misfolded protein at all.
| devmor wrote:
| I am not a medical professional, so take this opinion
| with a grain of salt, but it seems like it should
| theoretically be possible to test for a concentration of
| misfolded proteins that propagate themselves.
|
| How complex or expensive this could be is not something I
| have any insight into at all, it could be something that
| takes millions of dollars and 20 years per test.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Only for ones that bind to the proteins in your testing
| apparatus though. If this hypothetical new prion doesn't
| bind to the slate of proteins in the test it wouldn't
| show anything. Unless there's an easy way to detect the
| fibrils they form more easily and generally.
| userbinator wrote:
| From your first link:
|
| _symptoms such as "rapidly progressing dementia", unusual
| weight loss, "tightening of the muscles", uncoordinated gait,
| and muscle atrophy_
|
| Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organophosphate-
| induced_delaye...
| tpoacher wrote:
| Given other comments on this thread regarding large densities
| of mosquitoes, this might actually make sense if large
| amounts of insecticides are used in the region.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| > Jansen presented his findings to 20 to 30 colleagues in which
| he suggested that the eight patients previously diagnosed with
| the novel neurological syndrome, "represent a group of
| misclassified clinical diagnoses", and that they "died from a
| variety of causes, including cancer, Lewy body dementia and
| Alzheimer's disease"
|
| It seems this isn't that complex of a case really though? Upon
| autopsy they just had normal issues.
| zug_zug wrote:
| I won't presume to suggest a cause, but it's worth acknowledging
| how terrifying it is that any of a number of compounds in a
| relatively small dose could cause wild effects on the human mind
| or body.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| There have been sufferers ranging from age 18-85, and it
| affects both men and women in approximately equal numbers. Both
| of those things are highly suggestive of some kind of
| environmental cause. If this were an episode of _House,_ a lot
| of peoples ' homes would be getting broken into right about
| now.
| ackbar03 wrote:
| They break into people's houses in that show?
| EricBetts wrote:
| Yup; it isn't a realistic show, but entertaining.
| taurknaut wrote:
| It's a medical take on Sherlock Holmes. Everything makes
| more sense when viewed through that lens.
| agarttha wrote:
| House and Wilson Holmes and Watson
| blululu wrote:
| Which is a criminological take on a medical doctor:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bell
| rzzzt wrote:
| House sends off one of his minions who find the brake
| cleaner in the sink cupboard, from which he immediately
| figures out that the patient's erratic behavior stems from
| a disease of the liver so the previous brain surgery was
| largely unneccesary.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| It's never lupus.
| canadiantim wrote:
| Doctors in New Brunswick have generally been pointing to the
| use of certain pesticides/herbicides as likely culprit so far
| stevenwoo wrote:
| ICYMI there has been a ongoing 20+ year epidemic of kidney
| disease in Central American manual laborers, no one has pinned
| down an exact cause yet but it definitely seems to be heat
| exposure related. Not quite as scary as something that
| resembles CJD but lots of researchers looking into for a long
| time without finding definitive cause.
|
| https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2019/central-american-k...
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/26/7538343...
| Anotheroneagain wrote:
| The opposite should be investigated as well. The deficiencies
| in nutrients like copper, selenium or molybdenum are generally
| only known in animals, and rarely investigated among people.
| Copper deficiency can cause various symptoms like weight loss,
| loss of pigment, indigestion, or neurological problems. It
| seems that molybdenum deficiency shifts the symptoms towards
| neurological, while the rest happens from copper deficiency
| alone.
| pjc50 wrote:
| I think some people have been talking about selenium
| deficiency since the 1970s. The trace metals are something of
| a problem since it's also possible to have harmful effects
| from too much.
| stef25 wrote:
| Why would these deficiencies occur in one specific
| geographical area ?
| nucleardog wrote:
| All of the milk in Canada is fortified with vitamin D
| because the population is more at risk of vitamin D
| deficiency due to geography. (Less sunlight for more of the
| year.)
|
| So it's not entirely _impossible_, but I agree it doesn't
| seem very likely.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Well, yes. This has always been the case, I'm not sure it's
| worth being especially terrified over it.
|
| Botulinum toxin has an LD50 of a couple of _nanograms_ per kg
| of body weight, which makes it especially mad that people use
| it in a fairly loose fashion for cosmetic skin tightening.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Or it shows how fragile space and time really are.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| This has got to be either a prion (from animal and/or soil) or a
| natural chemical neurotoxin (from seafood or other food).
|
| This has been going on for a long while, so I associate it with
| an ongoing coverup of the facts that are too dangerous to
| disclose.
| trod1234 wrote:
| > That are too dangerous to disclose
|
| "All beings in the universe are different. Humans are so dumb
| that they think heart disease is the leading cause of death,
| when in fact it's the almond milk... not even the gray's touch
| the stuff."
|
| - Resident Alien (TV Show), "Homesick".
|
| Jokes meant to impart some brief levity aside, Until there is a
| serious amount of independent resources put towards a study of
| this, I don't think anyone is going to find out what's causing
| this.
| awakeasleep wrote:
| What sort of industrial chemical manufacturing plants are in the
| area?
| neom wrote:
| The chem hypothesis is down these lines:
| https://www.conservationcouncil.ca/investigate-glyphosate-co...
| and https://nbmediacoop.org/2024/10/10/could-a-neurotoxin-
| resear... - Some people think it's related to seafood, they eat
| a lot of lobster in NB, way more than the rest of Canada, but
| it doesn't seem to be an issue with the other areas out there
| and they eat a lot of lobster also.
| chefandy wrote:
| Maybe post-catch or something-- like a cleaning chemical used
| in fish markets or something-- but one branch of my family
| are lobstermen in nearby waters south of the border and I
| haven't heard of any such thing happening in their
| communities.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I have connections to lobster fishermen and woodsmen working
| Irving woods here in Maine and neither have any experience
| like this. Does Irving spray defoliant in the US?
|
| What we DO have is:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_Frenchmen_of_Maine
|
| Interestingly, that article massively downplays how much this
| affects my family, and how clearly genetic it is. I literally
| and _physically_ struggle to not do something my girlfriend
| asks me to do, a la the plot of Bioshock. She will explicitly
| tell me "WHEN YOU HAVE TIME or WHEN YOU NEXT COME OUT, bring
| me some water" and I _cannot_ wait to do it. This behavior
| _generalizes across siblings and generations_ , including to
| my somewhat deadbeat father who did not raise me, and thus it
| cannot be a learned response.
|
| This might seem quaint or just "nice", but both sides of my
| family have _extreme_ ADHD in the form of complete executive
| dysfunction. I find it nearly impossible to force myself to
| do things that I WANT to do, but as soon as someone makes a
| suggestion I have absolutely no blocker to doing that thing
| (that I have no interest in doing). Unfortunately this effect
| doesn 't counter my executive dysfunction. If I NEED to do
| something, the suggestion effect doesn't help nearly as much.
|
| I believe this syndrome may be related to some weird form of
| ADHD that my family carries but that's entirely unfounded
| speculation based on this observation and how much overlap
| there is between many of our symptoms and symptoms found in
| standard Neurodivergences like ADHD and Autism.
|
| The much funnier aspect of this syndrome is that my entire
| family, without coordination, has taught our significant
| others to warn us when they do something like pop a champagne
| cork, or open one of those Pillsbury crescent roll
| containers, and we have extreme aversions and startle
| responses when those two specific sound events are concerned.
| It's funny every time.
| TriangleEdge wrote:
| Irving is a local logging company that uses chemicals to kill a
| specific type of wood (hard wood if I remember correctly). The
| Irvings basically own NB afaik. There were also some protests
| about fracking maybe 10 years back because of the chemicals
| used.
| conradev wrote:
| Fascinating: https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6184083
| bradjohnson wrote:
| Commons did a great episode on the Irvings' dynasty a few
| years back:
| https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/dynasties-2-the-irvings/
| engineer_22 wrote:
| there is an open landfill near-by. communities in the finger
| lakes new york region have histories of "mystery illness" that
| correlate to landfill ground plume
| bbarnett wrote:
| Some areas have a strong familial tree. Even with new blood over
| 100+ years, some genes may be dominant.
|
| I wonder if it's that, plus the environmental factor. A mutated
| gene, dominant, always passed on, making the population
| susceptible.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| That is not how a dominant trait in genetics works- it means
| you only need one copy to express the phenotype, but it is no
| more likely to be passed on than any other genetic trait.
|
| It is possible to have a trait that occurs with high frequency
| in a population- so that almost everyone has 2 copies of it.
| TriangleEdge wrote:
| Context: Moncton is built on a swamp. It has _a lot_ of
| mosquitoes during summer and 3 to 5 ft of snow during winter. It
| had (has?) the lowest home prices in all of Canada because of
| this. NB also has the lowest income per family (or next to
| lowest, Nunavut might be lower).
|
| MS is more common in northern climates as well, but afaik it's
| not higher than average in NB.
|
| Source: I have spent quite a bit of time in Moncton.
| omnibrain wrote:
| > It has _a lot_ of mosquitoes
|
| Can mosquitoes transmit prions?
| trod1234 wrote:
| In 2019, the conclusion for this question by medical
| professionals was maybe for mosquitoes, but definitely for
| arthropods like ticks.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Anything that pokes into one mammal and then into another
| _might_ be able to transmit basically anything. This is why
| doctors dont reuse needles no matter the percieved risk.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _It had (has?) the lowest home prices in all of Canada
| because of this._
|
| When was this? Moncton is the biggest and fastest growing city
| in New Brunswick.
| teeray wrote:
| I really wish we could bioengineer mosquitoes and ticks to not
| bite humans.
| morkalork wrote:
| Behold, man made horrors beyond comprehension! Must be like
| "I have no mouth and must scream" for the poor mosquito.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1grpkok/.
| ..
| xer0x wrote:
| I am still stunned how eager they were to ignore this problem.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Seems like an unidentified virus could be the cause?
| trod1234 wrote:
| It is unlikely. The samples collected would be checked for
| fragments.
|
| Most likely its something novel that's been thawing out from
| climate change.
|
| That or a unique modified form of an existing chemical, or
| something else that hasn't been considered. There's some real
| fringe stuff out there in chemistry that open a whole can of
| what-ifs, that mainstream science might scoff at and not study
| seriously.
|
| Something like this might be the cause, albeit very unlikely,
| still there are things stranger than fiction.
|
| Spitballing here, Water has Memory, where an EM, or NQR signal
| of extremely dilute substance or dissolved chemical can cause
| certain unnatural forms of molecules to stabilize in aqueous
| solutions, or alternatively impart its effects because water
| mimics the nature of the dissolved substance for a time at
| higher concentrations than may be detectable.
|
| There were a number of scientists looking into these anomalies,
| including a Nobel laureate, but they were all largely
| discredited without rational basis or support by those doing
| the discrediting.
| nick__m wrote:
| Water has no memory, this is pseudoscience that leads to
| directly homeopathy. Homeopathy is not a medecine it's a
| religion!
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| A lot of those claims about water physics used to market
| homeopathy are based on real experimental observations- see
| the link in my other reply, water really does do some
| strange and complex stuff.
|
| But the problem is that these observations do not actually
| support the claims of homeopathy at all- the attempt at
| connecting the two is entirely nonsense. I like to try to
| be open minded about fringe science and medical ideas...
| but homeopathy really takes the cake, and is the type of
| total nonsense that gives the rest of that type of stuff a
| bad name.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| > It is unlikely. The samples collected would be checked for
| fragments.
|
| It is not straightforward to identify a new virus that is not
| closely related to known human viruses. You cannot just
| "check for it." It is largely an unsolved problem, and there
| are likely a huge number of common viruses that frequently
| infect humans that still remain undiscovered. When we
| sequence real world DNA and RNA there is a whole bunch of
| mysterious stuff that is unexplained, and may include many
| undiscovered viruses, and bacteria.
|
| I don't agree about the rest of the stuff you mentioned. In
| fact, there are academics actively studying things like what
| you mentioned- including Gerald Pollack at UW, but the
| reality of these phenomenon are more complex than the popular
| conspiracy theory level explanations imply, and there is no
| reason to think they lead to things like what you are
| claiming. Look here: https://www.pollacklab.org/
|
| I used to feel the same about science unfairly rejecting
| fringe ideas, and that was part of my motivation to become a
| scientist... but after becoming one I found it is mostly not
| true. Plenty of scientists openly study and consider stuff
| like this and are not "discredited" - the reality is a bit
| more mundane, that the conspiracy theory versions of these
| stories are just lacking so much nuance that they have little
| to no relation to the actual research.
|
| You can see from Pollacks' website above that he has a big
| problem with fraudulent products using his name and likeness
| to claim some medical benefit, which neither he or his
| research actually support.
| trod1234 wrote:
| > You cannot just "check for it"...
|
| I had read and heard that many places had started using
| preliminary tools like Lucaprot that scan viral dark matter
| retrieved using nano-pore sequencers to identify the
| sequences and common secondary structures of proteins which
| all viruses need to replicate, to automate detection of new
| viruses. Is this not widespread?
|
| I'm aware of Pollack's research, but as you said he's
| suffered reputational harm which started when he began that
| research. The stories surrounding Luc Montagnier and
| Benviste, were pretty poorly handled, and they both were
| somewhat discredited for merely pointing out undiscovered
| anomalies that merited further investigation.
|
| Nature sent their hatchet man James Randi, who has been
| known for discrediting people, sometimes without sound
| basis especially in cases where the underlying mechanism is
| not understood.
|
| There is something to be said that When you suddenly can't
| get any funding because you published something which no
| one else had found in a methodological scientific way, that
| could be duplicated; that tends to gives teeth to those
| calling something conspiracy theory, where it seems more
| like a conspiracy practice.
|
| Every little quirk we find, can potentially be used in an
| engineered solution to get to some amazing outcome not
| previously considered. Quantum dot based technologies are
| an example of this, from what I've read with regards to
| their history.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Yes, that is the process basically for new virus
| discovery- sequencing and then looking for similarity to
| known viral sequences. That is still an expensive and
| time consuming research project, and it fails if the
| virus is too different to identify any sequence homology.
| We still find a lot of DNA and RNA we can't make any
| sense of in almost every sequencing experiment- there's a
| ton of stuff out there undiscovered and unexplained. I
| suspect a lot of currently mysterious diseases and health
| problems may have viral origins.
|
| That's why I'm saying we can't rule out a virus here
| easily- not until some other cause is proven.
|
| You can also have more complex mechanisms that also
| involve a virus plus generic or environmental factors-
| for example the recent finding that implicates HSV in
| Alzheimers, despite the fact that most people with the
| virus still never get Alzheimers.
| thih9 wrote:
| Moving out seems to help - wild.
|
| > The couple moved to a new town -- Canaan Station, N.B. -- and
| Nesbitt made lifestyle and dietary changes. Nesbitt has also
| started playing video games to improve hand-eye coordination.
| "There are some things that are still regressing or still
| degenerating, but many of the symptoms have started to relieve
| themselves," she said.
|
| > She still has seizures and tremors, but they're not as bad or
| frequent. She's also able to stand for longer than a "couple of
| minutes," and the nerve tingling on one side of her body is not
| as frequent.
| nobodywillobsrv wrote:
| The government should provide data on this.
|
| There is very little information in the story.
| mb7733 wrote:
| The govt has provided a lot of info/data, but is just a random
| news story. See here:
|
| https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/health/neuro-...
| miniwark wrote:
| What i do not understand in this case, is why politics are
| involved in this ?
|
| Why do the fact than a local government changed from Conservative
| to Liberal, did have an impact on the story ?
|
| Either a case must be opened or closed, must be decided by
| doctors & researchers alone, not because of politics.
| trod1234 wrote:
| > What I do not understand in this case is why politics are
| involved?
|
| This is a rural area with a lot of forest. The forestry service
| uses high concentrations of glyphosate dumped from helicopters
| to thin the forest.
|
| The forestry service, and its use of glyphosphate is
| government, and with any government sponsored issue politics
| will make or break some politician's day.
|
| The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter that tests sampled
| at points show glyphosphate levels are well under the point
| where adverse risks occurred in the labs.
|
| It is possible the chemicals are inducing toxins in microflora
| that are novel which then cause these issues. Regenesis had
| such an episodal plotline with fungal spores.
|
| It is also equally possible that the safety testing didn't
| properly conform to standards, where adverse effects are found
| at much lower levels than advertised.
|
| The cluster areas according to some news outlets seem
| correlated to the aerial spraying which is why there's such a
| push to find out what's going on, while the politicians at
| higher levels don't want to touch it with a ten foot pole.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _This is a rural area with a lot of forest. The forestry
| service uses high concentrations of glyphosate dumped from
| helicopters to thin the forest._
|
| Moncton is not a "rural area with a lot of forest".
| xattt wrote:
| The forest is essentially "a cow's fart and two shakes of a
| lamb's tale" away from Moncton in a 20 km radius from
| downtown.
| newsclues wrote:
| The province is largely dominated by one family (Irving's), and
| its possible that the government is unwilling to look into the
| issue.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Anything public ends up as political. Whether effort is spent
| on this or not is a question of money, and as always people
| have to advocate for their own health. Being alive is a
| political issue.
|
| If it turns out to be some sort of public health issue such as
| use of toxins in industry, that's extremely political as well.
| rfwhyte wrote:
| This just baseless conjecture, and even somewhat conspiracy-
| theory adjacent, but my best guess is one of the Irving
| families' companies is somehow involved here.
|
| The Irving's, if you don't know, are one of the richest
| families in Canada, and effectively own the province of New
| Brunswick and run it like their own personal fiefdom. They are
| also heavily connected to both the Federal and Provincial
| conservative parties (And the Liberals too honestly), so I
| would assuage a guess that they had something to do with
| squashing the former investigation as they knew they were
| somehow culpable and used their cronies in the government to
| protect them from any potential liability.
|
| Again, this is all just baseless conjecture, but it feels like
| at least a potentially reasonable explanation here, as it would
| be far from the first time billionaires used their wealth and
| political connections to kill an investigation into their own
| malfeasance.
| pentel-0_5 wrote:
| Vaguely-similar symptoms: Hollinwell Incident
| https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-61551003
|
| The key, I think, would be to gather blood, tissue, air, soil,
| water, and food samples to rule out simpler environmental causes.
| byyoung3 wrote:
| sounds like a contaminant
| byyoung3 wrote:
| need to test for heavy metals as well as water contaminants
| engineer_22 wrote:
| chronic gingivitis cited as a symptom. oral should not be
| ruled out
| ryanwinchester wrote:
| my current favourite theory is glyphosate promotes blue-green
| algae growth, which creates a neurotoxin
| sheepscreek wrote:
| It's both frustrating and disheartening that the investigation
| into this disease has been ongoing since 2000. Sometimes, I can't
| help but feel that we, Canadians, lack a sense of urgency. These
| individuals have endured years of suffering. I hope we get some
| breakthroughs now, for their sake.
| neom wrote:
| For their sake certainly, but frankly for all our sakes also.
| I've never felt comfortable knowing this is going on both
| because obviously it's awful for the people involved but
| selfishly... we can't just have stuff like this happening in
| the country, doesn't matter if it's rural or city, shit like
| this is a sign of a dysfunctional society at large and it's how
| things like COVID-19 happen, the feds not taking it very
| seriously and superseding the Provence and municipality is not
| good in instances like this, they should have boots on the
| ground years ago with an answer, this is insane to me. (sorry
| for the rant, just dives me nuts what the country is coming to,
| and it's not politics imo, it's us as Canadians who are the
| problem right now)
| sheepscreek wrote:
| > since 2000
|
| Edit: I meant 2020.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| prions
| codr7 wrote:
| Me thinks it sounds possible from the described symptoms, but
| there are plenty of toxic substances in use with similar
| effects.
| cpncrunch wrote:
| Is there any actual evidence that this is a novel brain disease?
| Or is it an assortment of FND, dementia, Alzheimers and
| Parkinson's at the same levels seen elsewhere? From my
| understanding, it seems to be the latter, and has been blown up
| out of all proportion because people are worried that it might be
| something else. However, they have done a lot of research on
| these cases and not found anything abnormal.
|
| We can certainly see the worry, even in all the comments here
| speculating about various causes.
| atombender wrote:
| Many of the patients are young (the youngest ones are teens),
| and in some cases it's happening to several members of the same
| family around the same time. The doctor who raised the alarm
| here does not come across as alarmist, and it's being taken
| seriously. It also seems too homogenous (hits women and men,
| young and old equally) to be chance.
| rapjr9 wrote:
| The US Army tested Agent Orange in an area near Gagetown, about
| 80 miles from Moncton, in 1967. Maybe some drums of Agent Orange
| got left in the woods somewhere in the area and are leaking into
| the water table today?
|
| https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corpora...
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