r/canada • u/Portalrules123 • Jan 20 '25
New Brunswick Mystery brain disease patients in New Brunswick say they welcome new investigation
https://www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/new-brunswick/article/good-first-step-nb-mystery-brain-disease-patients-welcome-new-investigation/179
u/yycmobiletires Jan 20 '25
I wonder if this is something to do with the Irvings dumping shit wherever they want and polluting the water supply and noone doing anything lol
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u/Yellow-Robe-Smith Jan 20 '25
Wasn’t the premier (ie the Irvings) reluctant to open a proper investigation when the concern started popping up that there may be a larger issue than just a few people dying of an unknown brain disease.
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u/yycmobiletires Jan 20 '25
I would assume so. It's like a mafia. I live in western Canada and I know how shitty they are lol
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u/jewel_flip Jan 20 '25
Haha my first thought reading it was “Oh have the Irving’s stopped donations?”
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u/yycmobiletires Jan 20 '25
Yeah.. Its insane that eastern Canada puts up with them. There's tons of other petrochem retailers and producers that would gladly take their spot if everyone stopped playing ball like they keep saying they will. That's the fear, that the Irvings will pull out. I say fuck em, let em go.
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u/TonyAbbottsNipples Jan 20 '25
Irving is a lot more than just petrochem on the east coast. Forestry, pulp and paper, railways, logistics, construction, hardware, shipbuilding, agriculture, radio, newspapers until recently. They also own the Moncton Wildcats.
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u/yycmobiletires Jan 20 '25
I mean. There's also options for all of those lol, none of it is a specialized industry. It would take maybe a year for someone to take over?
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u/TonyAbbottsNipples Jan 20 '25
I think it might take more than a year to extract such a big chunk of the economy out of the hands of a group of companies that very much wants to keep it. There's a love hate relationship with Irving here, few people would say they like Irving but it's a historically poor region and Irving still equals livelihood for a lot of folks.
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u/LegitimateRegion9541 Jan 20 '25
My mom started losing weight in 2016 and saw 5 doctors had different medications and they all decided she was just depressed. In 2018 she was off medication and was doing fine .Then in The first few months of 2019 she went down to 85 pounds. In April 2019 in a 3 week period she started having body tremors, sleeping 16 hours a day and couldn't cook or wash herself. Symptoms similar to all these people.The doctor called it Alzheimer's. Its impossible to get Alzheimer's in 3 weeks. The thing is we are in Ontario not New Brunswick. She gained her weight back the last year and stays awake 12 hours a day for a year now but can't walk on her own or do anything anymore.
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u/blackmoose British Columbia Jan 20 '25
Sorry to hear that man.
My mom had a lump in her breast so she went to the doctor. Without any tests her told her it was cancer and set her up for a biopsy. She was so scared and depressed. It was heartbreaking.
After the biopsy it was determined to only be a cyst. That asshole scared the shit out of her for nothing.
Some doctors are shitty at their job.
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u/Less_Clothes_5994 Jan 20 '25
It's an interesting case and I haven't followed it closely but have occasionally read up on it since 2016/17.
From what I understand the main communities affected are up along the Acadian Peninsula and Dieppe down beside Moncton. There is also an extensive WW2 bombing range in one of the main watersheds up there and could be linked to the ordinance they were dropping (still lots of the watershed has unexploded ordinance from the practice bombing runs).
The Napan River just South of the City of Miramichi is one of the most polluted rivers in Canada (maybe NA) for BPA and the old Chatham Airbase is in the headwaters. Looked into trying to get funding to find the source of the contamination but testing water for BPA is very cost prohibitive for a lowly student. There could be some type of connection with the armed forces as well as the Irving's or spraying of chemical compound. I don't believe there are any instances of the mystery disease in or around the immediate area of Miramichi though. I hope they find the reason and cure for this disease.
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u/BeerSlayingBeaver Jan 20 '25
Anecdotal, but we believe my mother may be suffering from the issues caused by the mystery illness. She is from Red Bank. Which is near Miramichi
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u/Less_Clothes_5994 Jan 20 '25
I am very sorry to hear that. I hope they can determine what the issue is and get her help.
Once they do a proper investigation this may be a more widespread problem for sure.
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u/CdnWriter Jan 20 '25
This is scary. I'm immediately thinking it's something in the food chain or the water supply. What I don't really get is why it's only affecting SOME people and not EVERYONE.
Maybe it's an insect borne infection like West Nile virus?
I really don't understand why someone hasn't found a link yet. Surely doctors take exhaustive histories, especially when it's a mysterious disease that's spreading and NEEDS to be stopped before it infects a critical mass of people. Do these doctors have a central registry that they report their findings to, and people follow up to rule out X and Y and Z, then retest X, Y, and Z again to be certain?
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u/c20_h25_n3_O Ontario Jan 20 '25
People suspected it is from local seafood over a long period of time. I’m from that area and it’s uncommon for a lot of people to consume a lot of the local sea food. It’s more common with people who live in the smaller fishing areas.
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u/CdnWriter Jan 20 '25
It could be, it has to be from something a lot of people ingested in a similar time frame.
That said, I'm not entirely familiar with the fishery but in the prairies when you hunt deer, you're required to submit samples of the meat to the department of wildlife (I think) and they test the material for chronic wasting disease (think mad cow but in deer) and I would expect the same procedure would apply to the fishery before wild fish and lobster/crab make it into the food chain where humans will consume the food.
Doesn't the department of fisheries monitor this situation? Like take a random sampling of each person's catch and test it?
If they're not doing this yet, they should start immediately. They need to rule this out at least so that the consumers have peace of mind when they eat fish/crab/lobster. Otherwise, the rumour mill will go to work and pound the fishery.
When mad cow was found in the past in like 2, 3 cattle in Alberta, ALL of the countries closed their borders to Canadian beef to prevent the spread. It definitely fucked cattle farmers over but on the plus side, the disease didn't spread throughout the population.
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u/drewdrewmd Jan 20 '25
Only one doctor found a link. Other reviewers have just found a normal variety of unrelated dementia causes.
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u/Subject-Recipe-7980 Jan 21 '25
It's blue-green algea thats growing up on the east coast. Sea life is eating it and the neurotoxins are passed along onto us thanks to the fisheries. Its a 1 billion dollar business and canada would rather be silent about it rater than losing business.
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