New Brunswick's Mysterious Brain Disease

Investigation of a Cluster of a Potential Neurological Syndrome of Unknown Cause in New Brunswick

"Unfounded concerns that a potentially fatal mystery disease, possibly induced by an environmental toxin, is causing the patients' neurological symptoms have been amplified in traditional and social media."

"Misinformation regarding this cluster [of patients] has proliferated in both traditional and social media, from not only the predictable and easily identifiable groups co-opting the crisis to suit their agenda, such as anti-vaccine advocates, but also those who are unknowingly amplifying an incorrect diagnosis from their physicians."

JAMA-published Study

A new study published in JAMA Neurology debunks “an alleged ‘mystery’ neurological illness” that emerged in New Brunswick six years ago. Photo by ALAIN JOCARD /AFP via Getty Images

 

A new study evaluating patients at two hospitals in New Brunswick and Ontario that identifies symptoms possibly traced back to known neurodegenerative and non-neurodegenerative conditions, published in the journal JAMA Neurology, posits no evidence in claims of a mystery brain disease that centres itself in New Brunswick. Close to 400 residents of New Brunswick in the Acadian Peninsula and Moncton areas reported symptoms of a "neurological syndrome of unknown cause".

 

Symptoms are inclusive of memory problems, balance issues, behavioural changes, muscle spasms and bursts of intense pain. In 2022, a team of six neurologists and other experts in medical health, formed under the former government found no evidence after their investigation of 48 patients, that a cluster of cases existed. In fact, 46 of the cases studied for their report had been referred by one specific neurologist. 

 

Once the list of patients reporting symptoms increased close to 400, the successive government committed to reopening the investigation. Authors affiliated with the University of Toronto, New Brunswick Horizon Health Network and other Canadian health institutions who had joined the updated study published in JAMA, support the initial research. Initial health records and follow-ups were studied between November 2023 and March of 2025, along with demographic data and autopsy reports when applicable.

 

According to the study's conclusions, conditions such as traumatic brain injury and metastatic cancer were identified in all 25 patients evaluated at New Brunswick's Horizon Health Network and Ontario's University Health Network. "Strong evidence" exists against an exposure to an environmental toxin which had been formerly posited as a source of the mysterious illness. The study pointed out that some of the patients' conditions were 'complex' warranting a second opinion: "However, it appears few patients sought this".

 

 The reputation of the illness as a "mystery brain disease", the study suggested related to a combination of the public's decreased trust in public health institutions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with a widespread general misinformation aura. Data indicated that patients could be suffering from other diagnosable neurological conditions, which a multidisciplinary treatment might benefit them with. "Some patients", noted the study, rejected the diagnosis of a second opinion, preferring to believe they were suffering from an unknown neurological disease.

 

In the 2022 report, the New Brunswick Health Department attributed some symptoms to conditions such as Alzheimer's, dementia, Parkinson's, paranoid schizophrenia, chronic fatigue, severe anxiety disorder, and cancer. Chief medical officer of New Brunswick committed  his office to review 222 files with the Public Health Agency of Canada, to clarify issues surrounding the illness. 

"[Despite the small sample size], when we did the statistics … the chances of any of those other individuals having a mystery disease was less than one in a million. So the numbers are pretty staggering and, I think very, very convincing."

"The neurological problems varied a great deal. Some had neurodegenerative diseases, but others had other neurological problems and therefore a single environmental toxin … could never have explained this broad variety of neurological abnormalities."

"I think that if there really had been a mystery disease with those numbers, we would have been hearing from more than a single physician. … We would be seeing physicians raising red flags, raising awareness and concern that there was an epidemic of neurological diseases that could not be explained."

Dr. Anthony Lang, senior neurologist, neuroscientist, Toronto, among the 13 study co-authors

Of the 25 patients reassessed for the study, 14 are still living. (Shutterstock)

 

"Clear and transparent communication strategies to report the much-needed re-evaluations are required."

"Education, reassurance, and mental health support should also be prioritized for patients and families who have been profoundly impacted by claims that a potentially fatal mystery disease continues to affect them." 

JAMA-published Study

When the Passion of Hate Overcomes the Rational Mind

"To uphold her commitment to neutrality and non-partisanship, the lieutenant-governor will not be marching in this year's Fierte Fredericton Pride Parade."

"While Her Honour firmly opposes the oppression of all marginalized groups, including Palestinian and Jewish people, she values inclusion and supports the guiding principle that Pride is for everyone."

"All walks of life [are invited to Government House at noon on July 21, the day of the parade, for an event organized by Queer Heritage Initiative of New Brunswick and ElderPride]."

Office of New Brunswick Lt.-Gov. Brenda Murphy 

"Having been a community that has been historically disenfranchised ourselves, we tend to be a the front lines when another community is experiencing that kind of hatred."

"That's how it was with the Black Lives Matter movement and that is how we want it to be with Palestine."

Jenna Lyn Albert, chairperson, Fredericton Pride

New Brunswick Lt.-Gov. Brenda Murphy, centre, walks with her partner Linda Boyle in the Fredericton Pride parade in 2023. Canada's first openly gay lieutenant governor won't be marching this year after organizers chose to share the parade with the pro-Palestinian cause. Pride has since cancelled the entire festival over what it says are safety concerns. Photo by Stephen MacGillivray/The Canadian Press

There are none so blind as those who will not see. It is widely known and acknowledged and condemned that the gay and extended community of LGBTQ-2 are persona non grata in Muslim countries. In countries of the Middle East they are condemned as unnatural and an insult to God. Their very lives are in peril through threats, violence and death. Not to mention the agony of being cut off from family, clan, society and religion, the very foundation of Arab/Muslim core identity. 

 

Gays whose identities have been revealed stand the very real risk of being tortured, then put to death.

Yet the gay communities in the West unfailingly link themselves to the Palestinian 'plight' of self-identified victimhood, as being oppressed by a Jewish state whose presence they reject. 

 

A presence they claim has usurped their own rights to disputed land that just happens to be Judaean ancestral land to which Jews dispersed in their historical Roman Empire-era exile and diaspora have returned to re-establish a homeland of haven and security for Jews anywhere in the world. Palestinian terror operatives of one kind or another have embarked on terrorism, on intifadas, on campaigns of slander in their determination to destroy Israel and with it the Jews that inhabit the Jewish state. 

Those individuals and groups who 'identify' with the Palestinian 'cause' in effect commit themselves to support and uphold terrorism against Jews in the guise of antisemitic anti-Zionism. Fredericton Pride publicly stated its support with the 'pro-Palestinian' movement. As proof of its sincerity no longer will businesses with ties of any kind to Israel be able to donate to the Fredericton Pride group. They have decided to disallow groups' participation in their parade if they have any business dealings with Israel.

Among those now excluded from participating in their Pride parade are the Canadian Armed Forces and the University of New Brunswick. It is a move that celebrates inclusion for Palestinian/Arab/Muslim groups and direct exclusion for Jews and Jewish groups. Jewish LGBTQ+ members of Fredericton Pride risk their safety by attending this public event. Jews have become disposable nuisances in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attack in southern Israel.

The-then government of Gaza that had long persecuted their own citizens while mounting ongoing attacks on Jews and Israel, have the support of Fredericton Pride, any one of whom would not last a day among those they claim to be obliged through empathy with their victimhood status, to honour and support, damning Jews and Israel in the process. Hamas terrorists wouldn't hesitate to draw and quarter any gays that came their way.

"Some 90 Palestinians who identify as LGBT currently live as asylum seekers in Israel after suffering discrimination in their home communities."

"Palestinian police have arrested a suspect in the killing of a 25-year-old man after his body was found decapitated in the occupied West Bank."

"LGBTQ groups in Israel, where Ahmad Abu Marhia was seeking asylum, say he had received threats because he was gay."

Ahmad Abu Marhia  Facebook

"The City of Fredericton is committed to being an inclusive city where everyone feels valued, respected, safe, included, and where all members have equitable access to opportunities, resources, and services."

"[City government plays only a legal, bureaucratic role in the organization of the parade] related to road closures, traffic measures, permits, and any other operational impacts."

Fredericton, New Brunswick, city government

Justin Trudeau's Woke Canada Setting the Agenda

 

"Far-right political actors are trying to outdo themselves with the types of cruelty and isolation they can inflict on these already vulnerable people."

"Right now, trans kids in New Brunswick are being told they don't have the right to be their true selves, that they need to ask permission."

"Well, trans kids need to feel safe, not targeted by politicians."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

 

"[Trudeau was] playing to the audience that he was with [speaking at the Rainbow Railroad Freedom Party]."

To take a hard line approach on either side without really focusing on the balance will only continue to create a divide, and it's unfortunate the prime minister wouldn't look at the big picture and understand that parents play a role in children's upbringing."

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs 

 

"We listened to and consulted with hundreds of New Brunswickers and made amendments based on those exact conversations."

"We hold teachers in a position of public trust. Parents are our chief partners when it comes to supporting students and it is not appropriate to be using a different name than the parents."

"If a teacher does not have the permission of a student's parents to use the chosen pronoun or name in a classroom, they won't be able to use that name or pronoun."

"Asking teachers to hide this from parents puts them in an extremely challenging position which I don't feel is fair to parents."

"Parents are in the best position to support their child through the majority of life changes, like a change in gender identity."

"If it is not possible to obtain this consent to talk to the parent then the student will be encouraged to work with the appropriate professionals that we have in our school system, such as school social workers, school psychologists [and] guidance counsellors."

"We believe that is fundamentally wrong to not share this information with the parents if we are using [a student's preferred name] on a daily basis. If we are using it on a daily basis, it puts teachers in a really challenging position."

"There's a lot of bullying that occurs in our washrooms, any place where students are out of the sight of our professionals. Then there's things that happen that we'd prefer not to happen." 

New Brunswick Minister of Education Bill Hogan

 

Hundreds of people demonstrated against the review of Policy 713 before the changes were announced by the government. (Radio-Canada)

This is precisely typical Justin Trudeau; delighting in driving a wedge of controversy/separation between Canadians, whether it's damning Canada's natural resources in energy through the extraction of fossil fuels, in the process alienating the Western provinces and Newfoundland by imposing roadblocks to investment and the funding of critical infrastructure to achieve his government's goal of reducing the country's carbon footprint which represents about 1 percent of the world's total, or by forcing his progressive 'woke' agenda on every sphere of Canadian life.

He has pledged to "stand against" changes to gender-identity policy in New Brunswick schools, casting the government of Blaine Higgs as "far-right political actors" intent on inflicting "cruelty and isolation" on vulnerable children. As it happens, education and all the details of how education is delivered from curricula to school policy is a provincial responsibility for which this kind of federal intervention is totally unnecessary and blatantly divisive.

The New Brunswick Policy 713 represents provincial guidelines on gender identity in schools, meant to establish minimum standards in an effort to ensure a safe and inclusive environment for LGBTQ students and federal interference has made it a divisive an issue between the federal and provincial governments. The policy redraft has a requirement for parental consent should transgender or nonbinary students under age 16 wish to change to a preferred pronoun or name.

The changes proposed by the redrafting of Policy 713 now requires parental consent for issues that seriously impact on their children's lives, and this is a reasonable alteration of the original, that parents, primary caretakers of their children's welfare, be kept aware of their children's decision-making at school. Premier Higgs states that the prime minister's attack on his government and its decision-making will not deter him from formally placing the matter into provincial law viewing the changes as promoting a balance that includes parents.

Typically, Trudeau grandstands whenever he has the opportunity, and if none present themselves, he makes his own opportunities, and his remarks made at the Rainbow Railroad Freedom Party in Toronto -- an organization designed to give aid to LGBTQI+ individuals to help them escape the persecution they face in their countries of origin -- were received with predictably great acclaim.

 

 

Firmly Conservative

"It would be lovely to think that we are traditional thinkers here. But unfortunately we often feel like we're outcast and that we are out of touch, and it's not necessarily true."
Elizabeth Crouchman, president, New Brunswick Right to Life

National Post: Elizabeth Crouchman, president of New Brunswick Right to Life

"You hear the stories of why people come to the clinic and oftentimes we get the sense that there's a feeling of shame. It's really strong and they almost feel like they're bad people for having to come to us. You don't get the same sense of shame in other provinces."
"This anti-choice mentality has been in our government for as long as we can remember. We're almost in a bubble. Any time you try to work with governments, particularly over something that's maybe more gendered or feminist, it's very difficult. In order to get funding, you have to really watch the party line."
Kathleen Pye, chair, Reproductive Justice New Brunswick

"Fundamental religion resonates more in rural areas than it does in urban areas traditionally. Church still matters a great deal in the Maritime provinces. They're closing churches in Ontario and Quebec at quite a clip. We are closing churches here but not nearly at the same speed as the rest of the country."
"On social values, I think Alberta is moving quicker, faster than the Maritime region on such issues as same-sex marriage, abortion and so on. The mayor of Calgary is a lot more open than say the mayor of Doaktown in New Brunswick. You see a lot more new Canadians moving to Alberta. You're seeing urbanization -- Calgary has become a big city. It's a younger population and not aging nearly as quickly. Taboos break down a lot quicker."
"It's not dead [social conservatism] in New Brunswick. Perhaps it's dying, but it's dying a lot slower than the other regions. It's much more pronounced here and it's part and parcel of who we are."
"Politicians that want to win seats around here have to be careful on [criticizing] social conservatism because it still resonates. You see it on the whole public policy agenda that deals with social conservatism. You tread very carefully if you're a politician."
Donald Savoie, professor of Canadian public policy and administration, Universite de Moncton

David Smith, the Canadian Press, A pro-choice rally in New Brunswick, April 2014

New Brunswick, with a population of 800,000, clings to strong family values, with a small-town conservative attitude, so tradition is important in New Brunswick, as it is in Prince Edward Island, two provinces where abortion services are not readily accessed, despite the prevailing attitude in the rest of Canada that this is a woman's right; to choose whether or not she is prepared to carry a foetus to full term, and raise a child.

In 1989, former premier Frank McKenna and his Liberal government passed Regulation 84-20 of the Medical Services Payment Act, requiring two doctors to agree that the abortion procedure is deemed to be "medically necessary"; that it must be performed in a hospital by a gynecologist in order to quality for government funding."There hasn't been a premier since, of whatever colour who has dared to even touch it", stated Eldon Hay, a retired United Church minister in Sackville, N.B. who considers abortion availability the "litmus test" of social conservatism in his province.

Reproductive Justice New Brunswick has raised over $100,000 to try to save the Morgentaler Clinic from closing. In operation for over two decades in defiance of the province's "anti-choice mentality", according to the chair of the group, Kathleen Pye. The government of New Brunswic simply will not recognize the right of women to seek abortions in a free-standing clinic, and refuses to fund such clinics. All abortions, if women can succeed in persuading the adjudicating health professionals that such is warranted, must take place in a hospital setting to be government funded.

In May, Premier David Alward, advancing his government's conservative agenda, informed students at Leo Hayes High School in Fredericton they would not be permitted to fly the pride flag during Pride Week; to do so did not fit the province's rules for flags 'outside public buildings.'

Reverend Karl Csaszr, senior pastor of Fredericton's Skyline Acres Baptist Church stated his opinion that the Maritimes "have the reputation of holding onto the values of our parents and grandparents longer", and he's certainly right there. While Reverend Hay, a longtime gay rights activist, feels that unlike with the issue of abortion there's a feeling that attitudes toward same-sex marriage are changing.

"Twenty years ago it was very brave of me to say I was in favour of gays. My fellow clergy scorned me. But now, astonishingly, it has turned the other way. It's far more OK to be gay and lesbian, far more appropriate or appreciated or affirmed, than to say ' I'm in favour of abortion'."

Creaking progress on one front of social mores, resistant to the other.