January 10, 2026
Mystery brains, messy politics
'The answer cannot be nothing': The battle over Canada's mystery brain disease
500 patients, zero answers — commenters cry cover‑up vs mass hysteria
TLDR: A New Brunswick doctor reported 500 puzzling brain cases, but a paper says it’s misdiagnoses; one patient chose assisted dying. Commenters clash over environmental cover‑up versus mass misdiagnosis, dropping archive links and demanding transparency—because real lives, not conspiracy threads, hang in the balance.
A rare brain scare in New Brunswick spiraled from two suspected Creutzfeldt‑Jakob Disease (a deadly brain illness) cases to a five‑year, 500‑patient mystery. Then came the twist: a paper said there’s no new disease, just a mix of known conditions — a “house of cards,” according to one author. Meanwhile, one patient chose assisted dying (legal in Canada), and another is considering it. That’s when the internet lit up. The strongest opinions? Cover‑up vs mass misdiagnosis. User alephnerd points at JD Irving and alleged glyphosate spraying, claiming researchers were blocked and the company is “untouchable.” The vibe: corporate power, political coziness, and environmental guilt. Mitchbob drops an archive link like a mic, while ggm mourns a “structural opposition to clarity” and broken public trust. On the flip side, anonnon invokes Morgellons — the debated skin condition often called delusional — suggesting the symptoms sounded more bizarre the longer patients talked, pushing the mass psych/misdiagnosis angle. The thread swings between “show us the JAMA paper” energy and dark humor about alphabet soup acronyms (CJD, CJDSS) and “receipts or it didn’t happen.” It’s messy, emotional, and very online: locals fear toxins, skeptics fear hysteria, and everyone fears a system that shrugs at 500 people saying something is wrong.
Key Points
- •A New Brunswick hospital identified two CJD cases in 2019, prompting expert review.
- •Neurologist Alier Marrero reported more than 20 patients with CJD-like symptoms, all testing negative with CJDSS.
- •The suspected cluster expanded to about 500 patients over five years without a confirmed new disease.
- •A research paper by Canadian specialists concluded there was no novel disease; cases likely reflected known conditions.
- •At least one patient in the cluster chose assisted dying, with an unknown degenerative neurological condition listed on the death certificate.