Next steps are being taken in the investigation into undiagnosed neurological illnesses in New Brunswick.

The investigation started in 2021 when Public Health studied a group of 48 patients with a range of neurological symptoms. The investigation found no evidence of a common illness, and a report was issued on Feb. 24, 2022.

In early 2023, the referring neurologist raised new concerns to Public Health, including more patients reporting unusual symptoms. Since then, the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health and the Vitalité Health Network have been working together, with support from the Public Health Agency of Canada, to assist the neurologist in collecting and verifying the patient information needed to allow for further investigation.

New Brunswick’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Yves Léger says they’ve received completed and verified packages for 222 individual patients, which was enough to do data analysis. “It is now underway with the support of the Public Health Agency of Canada and is expected to be completed by the end of April.

“The next step after the data analysis will be the interpretation and scientific review phase. Two things will be done at the same time. Findings will be sent from the data analysis to the Public Health Agency of Canada, so they can do their own scientific review of the findings. Internally, we will also start to interpret the findings from the analysis and start to think about recommendations and next steps. We plan for the interpretation and scientific review phase to be completed by May of this year.”

From there a report of the findings will be compiled.

“We know New Brunswickers are concerned about this file, and we are, too,” said Léger, the chief medical officer of health. “We want to get answers for these patients. The results of this analysis and scientific investigation will help us to determine what next steps are needed.”

The main purpose of this investigation is to further understand concerns brought forward by the physician regarding certain environmental factors.

Heavy metals and pesticides are two factors that are being looked at.

“Specifically glyphosate and metabolites and glufosinate as well. Those are the main ones that were flagged to our attention. Now, obviously, as we’ve collected the information, we’ve looked at any other additional tests that were done as well to to explore those, but those would be the two main categories that were brought to our attention,” Léger says.

But he adds that further research needs to be done before determining anything.

“Certain heavy metals are best, best tested through blood, for example, and others through urine. There are some samples that are a better indication or measure of exposure than others, so we need to make sure that the tests that were done are adherent or follow the best practice. We need to see if the values that were measured are actually accurate. We need to explore those further, certainly, if the findings of that review indicate that there are elevated levels of certain environmental substances among these patients that do potentially pose a risk to their health and may be higher than what we would expect to see in the general population,” Léger stressed.

Questions have also been raised as to why the province is still leading this investigation instead of the Public Health Agency of Canada.

“We still firmly believe that this falls within the jurisdiction of the province of New Brunswick to continue to investigate. Almost all of the patients reported to us are patients from New Brunswick or have a link to the province,” Léger says.

A website has also been created and Léger says it will be updated regularly.