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Mystery brain disease affecting hundreds in Canada: memory loss, seizures, and behavioral changes [1]
['Mark Frauenfelder']
Date: 2025-02-06
In 2021, I wrote a short item titled "Canada investigating a cluster of 42 cases of a mad cow-like brain disease." CBC reported at the time that the first case had been diagnosed in 2015. The mystery disease had killed 5 people by 2021. All of the people afflicted lived in the New Brunswick area.
Today, the number of people in New Brunswick has risen to more than 400, with 48 deaths, and researchers are still baffled as to the cause. According to CTV News, symptoms include "memory problems, balance issues, behavioural changes, muscle spasms and bursts of intense pain."
From CTV News:
"We have not yet been able to easily identify a common denominator for a treatment, and that's a real big challenge," said [Health Minister John] Dornan, whose mandate letter from Premier Susan Holt asks him to conduct "a scientific review into the mystery brain disease." [Dr. Alier] Marrero, who first began investigating the cases in early 2020, has given access to his files to provincial and federal health-care teams, including experts at the Public Health Agency of Canada, Dornan said. Marrero did not return a request for an interview. "It's a new phenomena," Dornan said. "Whether we characterize it as a disease or a syndrome or some other common denominator, our first step is to understand what is happening."
Melissa Hawkes (27) became ill from the unknown disease in 2021. Her first symptom was fainting in a friend's bathroom. Hawkes "had a second seizure in 2023, and has developed nerve damage in her wrist and necrotizing gingivitis — a painful gum infection," reports CTV News. Her fiancée also has the disease.
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