Exclusive: Prof Samuel Weiss said in leaked email that government halted efforts to tackle mystery illness
A senior Canadian federal scientist has alleged that the government shut down an investigation into a mystery brain illness in New Brunswick that he believes may have affected 350 people.
He is the second federal scientist to accuse the government of deliberately halting the investigation and to say that the caseload is higher than the government has acknowledged.
Health officials in the eastern province first said in 2021 that 40 people were suffering from an unexplained neurological condition. A year later, a committee assembled by the province determined that the patients probably had been misdiagnosed and were suffering from other diseases.
In a leaked email seen by the Guardian, Prof Samuel Weiss, a neuroscientist working for the Canadian federal agency responsible for funding medical research, wrote that the government had deliberately curtailed the search for an explanation.
Irving owns NB, and if they want to kill a story or stop the government from looking into something, they'll do it. I don't think people outside of the Maritimes understand how bought-and-paid-for the media, the government and most businesses are by Irving.
They are one of the wealthiest Canadian families who own dozens of businesses in Canada and the US.
Some of the biggest issues with them are their vertical integration (ie: owning the refinery, gas stations, transportaion companies that deliver fuel and construction/engineering firms that maintain their infrastructure), provincial media ownership monopoly and political patronage.
My first thought was misfolded prions. Sounds like one possible avenue of the potential harmful "environmental exposure" the microbiologist (and CJD researcher) in the article was talking about.