maaxx.ca

A long-awaited report from Canadian health authorities on a possible new brain disease has revealed that no such disorder exists.

This comes almost a year after the New Brunswick government raised the alarm over mysterious symptoms that appear to have struck 48 people in the province.

Sufferers suffer everything from anxiety and depression to muscle atrophy and hallucinations.

But authorities said the symptoms were not evidence of a new illness.

Family members of those affected said they were disappointed by the results and accused health officials of choosing to “abandon scientific rigor in exchange for political expediency” when they undertook the study.

But the committee that oversaw the report “unanimously agreed that these 48 people should never have been identified as suffering from a neurological syndrome of unknown cause,” said Jennifer Russell, New Brunswick’s chief medical officer .

“That doesn’t mean these people aren’t sick, it means they have a known neurological disease,” she said.

The committee – made up primarily of New Brunswick neurologists – found “potential alternative diagnoses” for 41 of the 48 patients, including Alzheimer’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, post-concussion syndrome and cancer.

Concerns about transparency have plagued the investigation, with patients’ family members criticizing what they described as a lack of communication. Canadian media reported that the country’s top experts had been excluded from the process, including Alier Marrero, a Moncton-based neurologist who first identified the potential new disorder in 2015.

Of the 48 patients identified, Dr. Marrero identified all but two.

On Thursday, the families of those affected called for a thorough scientific investigation. “Our lives and those of our loved ones will not be upended by a botched investigation that provides no answers to our pain and suffering,” they said.