March 14, 2025
FREDERICTON, NB – Green Party Leader David Coon and Deputy Leader Megan Mitton are supporting patients of Dr. Alier Marrero, urging the provincial government to ask the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to investigate the potential causes of unusual clusters of neurodegenerative disease in New Brunswick. Experts have recommended that environmental factors be investigated to see if they have played a role in the clusters of disease, first identified in the Moncton area and Acadian Peninsula.
“PHAC has a responsibility to protect public health in Canada, and that includes investigating potential environmental triggers behind the unusual clusters of neurodegenerative disease,” said David Coon.
Recent research in New Brunswick has already identified potential environmental triggers for the increased incidence of ALS and multiple sclerosis in the province. A study on ALS in northern New Brunswick between 2003 and 2021 indicates a potential connection to air pollutants, particularly sulfur dioxide (SO2). Another study from the University of New Brunswick links multiple sclerosis prevalence to small particulate air pollutants (PM2.5).
At a meeting with Green Party Leader David Coon on May 5, 2021, Assistant Deputy Minister of Health at the time, Heidi Liston, said there were 39 confirmed cases of the unusual rapidly progressing dementia, and that 48 other cases were under investigation.
On May 6th, 2021, the provincial government suspended the participation of federal officials and the nationally recognized scientists they had enlisted from the initial investigation. Experts like Dr. Neil Cashman, a neurologist at the University of British Columbia, who had planned to investigate possible links to cyanobacteria and domoic acid were forced to step away.
That same morning on May 6th, 2021, Dr. Cashman was interviewed by CBC on its Information Morning show in Moncton and said he and other researchers planned to look at cyanobacteria – also known as blue-green algae – and domoic acid to see if there was a link between either of them and the clusters of neurological disease.
“Suspending the investigation into environmental factors in 2021 removed key experts like Dr. Cashman, ending the research into the possible causes of the surprising increase in neurodegenerative disease in the Moncton area and northeastern New Brunswick,” said Coon. “That has left patients and their families in the dark for the past four years. It’s time for the Premier to make good on her promise and enable scientists like Dr. Cashman to carry out their research to find the underlying cause or causes of the rising cases of neurodegenerative diseases in the province.”
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