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'The answer cannot be nothing': The battle over Canada's mystery brain disease
BBC ^ | 2026.01.10 | Joel Gunter, Nadine Yousif

Posted on 01/11/2026 2:51:08 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum

Five hundred people in a small Canadian province were diagnosed with a mystery brain disease. What would it mean for the patients if the disease was never real?

In early 2019, officials at a hospital in the small Canadian province of New Brunswick noticed that two patients had contracted an extremely rare brain condition known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD.

CJD is both fatal and potentially contagious, so a group of experts was quickly assembled to investigate. Fortunately for New Brunswick, the disease didn't spread. But the story didn't end there. In fact, it was just beginning.

Among the experts was Alier Marrero, a soft-spoken, Cuban-born neurologist who had been working in the province for about six years. Marrero would share some worrying information with the other members of the group. He had been seeing patients with unexplained CJD-like symptoms for several years, he said, including young people who showed signs of a rapidly progressing dementia. The number of cases was already more than 20, Marrero said, and several patients had already died.

Because of the apparent similarity to CJD, Marrero had been reporting these cases to Canada's Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance System, or CJDSS. But the results had been coming back negative. Marrero was stumped.

More worrying still, he was seeing a dizzying array of symptoms among the patients, according to his notes. There were cases of dementia, weight loss, unsteadiness, jerking movements and facial twitches. There were patients with spasms, visions, limb pain, muscle atrophy, dry skin and hair loss. Many said they were suffering with both insomnia and waking hallucinations. Patients reported excessive sweating and excessive drooling. Several exhibited Capgras Delusion, which causes someone to believe that a person close to them has been replaced by an identical-looking imposter. Others appeared to lose the ability to speak. One...

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS:
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1 posted on 01/11/2026 2:51:08 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Canadians have brains? Who knew?


2 posted on 01/11/2026 2:51:40 PM PST by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Parasites are the cause. Dr. Clark expounded on this some years ago and was curing folks until the establishment up there shut her down.


3 posted on 01/11/2026 2:54:43 PM PST by LastDayz (A Blunt and Brazen Texan. I Will Not Be Assimilated.)
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To: dfwgator

Canadians are cool. Naive, maybe, but cool...


4 posted on 01/11/2026 2:55:30 PM PST by fhayek
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Something in the maple syrup?


5 posted on 01/11/2026 2:58:16 PM PST by wally_bert (I cannot be sure for certain, but in my personal opinion I am certain that I am not sure..)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Isn’t that Jacob CrutzWhatever associated with cannibalism? Someone may have been introducing human tissue into a food supply somewhere…?


6 posted on 01/11/2026 3:19:55 PM PST by TalBlack (Their god is government. Prepare for a religious war.https://freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=4322961%2)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Manitou.


7 posted on 01/11/2026 3:24:39 PM PST by greenbrier
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I thought they’d fingered it as mad ostrich disease. No?


8 posted on 01/11/2026 3:27:16 PM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Fishing for money from private sector.


9 posted on 01/11/2026 3:37:31 PM PST by Codeflier (Don't worry....be happy)
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To: wally_bert

Or the vax?


10 posted on 01/11/2026 3:39:04 PM PST by lizma2
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To: TalBlack

the real question is if this is from eating deer with a similar virus.


11 posted on 01/11/2026 3:44:36 PM PST by LadyDoc (liberals only love politically correct poor people)
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To: LastDayz

How was she treating for it?


12 posted on 01/11/2026 3:46:43 PM PST by Disambiguator
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_wasting_disease

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), sometimes called zombie deer disease, is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) naturally affecting members of the deer family. TSEs are a family of diseases caused by misfolded proteins called prions and include similar diseases such as mad cow disease in cattle, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans, and scrapie in sheep.[2] In the United States, CWD affects mule deer, white-tailed deer, red deer, sika deer, elk, antelope, caribou, and moose.[3] The transmission of CWD to other species such as squirrel monkeys and humanized mice has been observed in experimental settings.[4]

There have been a few cases in the US thought to be from this. And it would be similar to the mad cow disease epidemic in the UK...

13 posted on 01/11/2026 3:50:17 PM PST by LadyDoc (liberals only love politically correct poor people)
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To: LastDayz

The authorities have a nasty habit of wanting diseases to prevail.


14 posted on 01/11/2026 3:52:23 PM PST by reasonisfaith (What are the personal implications if the Resurrection of Christ is a true event in history?)
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To: TalBlack
Isn’t that Jacob CrutzWhatever associated with cannibalism?

No, that is Kuru.

15 posted on 01/11/2026 4:04:20 PM PST by TangoLimaSierra (⭐⭐To the Left, the Truth is Right Wing Violence⭐⭐)
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To: LadyDoc
the BBC and jama articles say prion disease has been ruled out. But like other diseases such as long covid, or even the outbreak of mad cow disease in the UK, I suspect they are missing something.

and note: It started before Covid and vaccinations for covid.

The pesticide or chemical pollution could be the cause but then why in rural NB and not in other areas

16 posted on 01/11/2026 4:22:47 PM PST by LadyDoc (liberals only love politically correct poor people)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Prion diseases are very dangerous and survive the extreme heat of cooking.

A friend of mine works in a hospital research lab and uses Electron Microscopy to photograph viruses. He explained to me that prion diseases are the only ones that ever scared him.

I stayed on a dairy farm in Cheddar Gorge in England years ago when Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or “Mad Cow Disease,” peaked in the 1990’s due to contaminated feed. It spread through cattle being fed meat and bone meal from infected animals, a practice banned in 1996.


17 posted on 01/11/2026 4:22:51 PM PST by tired&retired (Blessings )
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Aliens?


18 posted on 01/11/2026 4:24:17 PM PST by tired&retired (Blessings )
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To: TalBlack
Someone may have been introducing human tissue into a food supply somewhere…?

Soylent Green is people!

19 posted on 01/11/2026 4:30:45 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum ( )
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To: tired&retired

I hope it is not transmissible through pet food to cats and dogs. They have “meat meal” listed in the ingredients.


20 posted on 01/11/2026 4:41:45 PM PST by EinNYC
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