Politicians on both sides of the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are calling for a federal inquiry into a mysterious surge of a brain illness that has gained international attention.
N.S. Independent MLA Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin and N.B. Green Party MLA Megan Mitton, want the Public Health Agency of Canada to step in and lead the investigation into what they’re calling atypical neurodegenerative illness, a disease that was previously thought to be only in New Brunswick.
“There are patients on both sides of the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border, which makes it clear that the Public Health Agency of Canada should step in and lead the investigation into what is making people in our provinces sick,” Mitton, who is the incumbent candidate for her riding now that a provincial election has been called for Oct. 21, said in a news release.
“This cuts across jurisdictions, and I’m calling for the federal-level resources that were offered in 2021 to be mobilised once again. The data must be collected, environmental testing must be done, and answers must be found for these patients, their families, and our communities.”
In an interview Thursday, she said she’s been asking questions about the “scary” condition since 2021.
At first, it appeared as if New Brunswick was going to share information with PHAC and cooperate on an investigation into the mystery illness, Mitton said.
“It sounds like they started to do that, and then something happened, and they stopped,” Mitton said. The federal government had earmarked $5 million to help with the study, she said.
“They were supposed to come to New Brunswick and investigate. And the New Brunswick government — we don’t know exactly what happened — but they changed course, they cancelled all their meetings, and indefinitely suspended that federal offer of help,” Mitton said.
“What that has meant is we still don’t have answers. People have died, more people have gotten sick, and we aren’t really any closer to getting to the bottom of it.”
Her party has been calling for environmental testing to determine the cause of the problem.
“More recently I called for a public inquiry to dig into what is happening and what has gone wrong,” Mitton said. “Because this appears to be a public health failure. We don’t know what’s wrong. But we know something’s wrong.”
One theory was that glyphosate, a widely used broad-spectrum herbicide applied to kill weeds and other vegetation, was causing the problem, she said.
“I adamantly don’t know what it is,” Mitton said. “There are theories that even the public health folks were throwing around. They were looking at glyphosate spraying, they were looking at drinking water, they were looking at seafood and deer populations.”
In New Brunswick, people in the Moncton area and the Acadian Peninsula have reported having the illness, she said.
“We need science to help us get to the bottom of this,” Mitton said.
“We need data, we need environmental testing, and we need to act with urgency.”
If the cause is environmental, “we don’t know how to prevent other people from getting sick because we don’t know what it is yet,” Mitton said. “We really need to throw everything at the wall to get to the bottom of this.”
She and Smith-McCrossin wrote to PHAC Tuesday with their request for the agency to lead an investigation. By late Thursday afternoon, they had not received a response.
The agency did not respond to a request for comment on their demand.
“If it’s in multiple provinces, then PHAC needs to lead,” Mitton said. “So, hopefully this can be the opening.”
The New York Times reported last month that New Brunswick neurologist Dr. Alier Marrero has seen hundreds of patients in recent years who are experiencing inexplicable symptoms of neurological decline. Those included anxieties and difficulty sleeping, as well as more acute symptoms including limb pain and trouble balancing, teeth chattering, violent muscle spasms, vision problems and hallucinations. Many of them were under the age of 45.
Marrero has said he’s cared for more than 430 people with the undiagnosable illness and that 39 have died.
An oversight committee appointed by the New Brunswick government has rejected the idea that the cases are linked. It indicated that most of the patients in the cluster were misdiagnosed.
Marrero — who could not be reached for comment — has said he’s finding high levels of pesticides in the blood of his patients, leading him to suspect their illness is being caused by something in the environment.
Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health, waded in on the matter Thursday.
“Our public health teams have a long-standing surveillance system to detect communicable and emerging diseases,” Strang said in a written statement.
“Both clinicians and laboratories report into the system. I have been in touch with my counterpart in New Brunswick, and New Brunswick is looking into this reported situation. Our teams will continue to stay connected.”
Smith-McCrossin, who is a registered nurse, said Friday she doesn’t know how many cases are in Nova Scotia. “But that is why I have asked the medical officer of health in N.S. to look into this,” she said in a text. “Most of our Cumberland County neurology referrals go to Moncton N.B. so our medical officer of health may not be aware of the incidence. Also in N.S. there is up to a (five-year) wait for neurology specialist appointments so there may be people not getting properly assessed and missed.”
Nova Scotia Health Minister Michelle Thompson faced questions about whether any cases had been identified in her province.
“There has not been, to my knowledge, anything significant reported,” Thompson told reporters at the Legislature.
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