Herbicides, metals ruled out as cause of undiagnosed neurological illnesses in N.B.: report

The New Brunswick government says there’s still no hard evidence of a mysterious neurological disease in the province.

FREDERICTON — New Brunswick’s Office of Chief Medical Officer of Health has all but ruled out certain herbicides and metals as reasons why a large group of mostly New Brunswickers are suffering from undiagnosed neurological illnesses.

The findings were outlined in a new report released Friday by Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Yves Léger.

Often coined as New Brunswick’s ‘mystery neurological illness,’ an initial group of 48 patients were discovered in late 2020 when neurologist Dr. Alier Marrero alerted the province to concerning unexplained symptoms in these patients, such as:

• muscle spasms
• significant cognitive decline
• memory loss
• hallucinations
• difficulties with balance and walking
• behaviour changes

In March 2021, then Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell told a news conference it was “most likely a new disease” and that health officials hadn’t seen it anywhere else in the country.

But since then, the New Brunswick government has wheeled back those comments, pointing to an investigation into the patients’ environmental, dietary and behavioural factors, showing “no commonalities” between patients, and that known neurological illnesses were the reason behind the symptoms.

In 2023, Dr. Marrero alerted the province to even more patients with the symptoms, several hundreds, stating he had found elevated levels of certain herbicides and metals in some patients.

Friday’s report summarizes the findings after analyzing Dr. Marerro’s test results of 222 patients. About 75 per cent of the patients were from health zone one — the Moncton region.

The laboratories used were all Canadian and accredited.

For herbicides, which focused on the herbicide glyphosate, the “vast majority of patients’ results were within the normal or expected values when compared to the laboratory’s reference ranges.”

For metals, including aluminum, lead, arsenic, copper, mercury and others, some patients did show “levels that were higher than expected, but most test results were not elevated.”

Dr. Léger says few of those patients were ‘repeat tested’ and he says that adds uncertainty to those results.

“When we compared measured levels from this patient group to levels of other Canadians obtained through surveys, most were the same or lower, with some elevations noted for a few metals,” the report reads.

The investigation reviewed nine autopsy results, and all concluded with known illnesses, like Alzheimer’s Disease, Lewy Body Disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

“Importantly, no unknown or new brain diseases were found,” the report reads. “We also found that close to 60 per cent of patients in this group had been seen by another neurologist, although no other neurologists have raised concerns to OCMOH regarding these patients’ conditions.”

The results were reviewed by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Moving forward

Three main recommendations have been made following this latest investigation.

The first, that all patients get follow-up testing and care. The second, that there be a formal reassessment process for the patients, so that they can get the answers they need.

“Our findings suggest that it is possible that many patients do have illnesses that can be diagnosed. We recommend that a process should be put in place to support patients in receiving a diagnosis for their illness, which will help them get the care and follow up they need,” the recommendation reads.

Dr. Léger says this should be an independent process.

Finally, it’s recommended that two specialists review and agree on each and every patient’s diagnosis.

“Requiring two specialists to review and agree on the patient’s specific condition will increase confidence in the report as well as support the identification of a diagnosis where possible,” said the report.

In answering a question about whether he believes this will satisfy patients involved, Dr. Léger acknowledged there’s still work to do to help these people.

“We knew that this wouldn’t provide all the answers or provide all the needs,” Dr. Léger said. “I think there are recommendations that provide a path forward for this particular issue.”

He said he has offered to meet with Dr. Marrero and go over the findings, and that the report will be shared with the neurologist.

CTV News Atlantic has reached out to Dr. Marrero for comment but has yet to hear back.

Dr. Léger also confirmed the Public Health Agency of Canada is going to conduct a review of the “raw data” of these patients, including individual patient files.

“They’ll be looking at the data to validate it, to look if there are trends or issues that they can identify, with that data. So that is a completely separate exercise to what we’ve done here,” he said.

‘Some good, some not so good’

One of the 222 patients involved in this investigation, Sarah Nesbitt, says many of the patients were invited to a virtual meeting with Premier Susan Holt and Health Minister Dr. John Dornan prior to the release of the report.

She felt heard during the meeting and says there are good parts about the report, such as the promise of following up with patients.

“The good part is they’re not abandoning us today. The first time around, they said, ‘Hey, no such thing. It’s all in your head,’” she said. “They dropped it…They just stopped dealing with it. So the great part is today they’re not stopping.”

Nesbitt is disappointed they’re ruling out herbicides and metals entirely. She says when she was initially tested, her results showed elevated levels of some metals and herbicides.

But then she moved to a different part of the province and says those levels dropped.

Her symptoms, which included memory loss and tremors, improved, too.

Nesbitt also said she gets tested every six months and doesn’t understand Dr. Léger why said so few patients did have repeat testing done.

“The point of this exercise or this report was to find out what’s making New Brunswickers sick, help them and stop it from happening to anyone else,” she said. “So that wasn’t answered today.”