Whistleblower warns baffling illness affects growing number of young adults in Canadian province Several new cases in New Brunswick involve caretakers of those afflicted, suggesting a possible environmental trigger
Leyland Cecco
Sun 2 Jan 2022 11.00 GMT
A whistleblower in the Canadian province of New Brunswick has warned that a progressive neurological illness that has baffled experts for more than two years appears to be affecting a growing number of young people and causing swift cognitive decline among some of the afflicted.
Speaking to the Guardian, an employee with Vitalité Health Network, one of the province’s two health authorities, said that suspected cases are growing in number and that young adults with no prior health triggers are developing a catalog of troubling symptoms, including rapid weight loss, insomnia, hallucinations, difficulty thinking and limited mobility.
The official number of cases under investigation, 48, remains unchanged since it was first announced in early spring 2021. But multiple sources say the cluster could now be as many as 150 people, with a backlog of cases involving young people still requiring further assessment.
“I’m truly concerned about these cases because they seem to evolve so fast,” said the source. “I’m worried for them and we owe them some kind of explanation.”
At the same time, at least nine cases have been recorded in which two people in close contact – but without genetic links – have developed symptoms, suggesting that environmental factors may be involved.
One suspected case involved a man who was developing symptoms of dementia and ataxia. His wife, who was his caregiver, suddenly began losing sleep and experiencing muscle wasting, dementia and hallucinations. Now her condition is worse than his.
A woman in her 30s was described as non-verbal, is feeding with a tube and drools excessively. Her caregiver, a nursing student in her 20s, also recently started showing symptoms of neurological decline.
In another case, a young mother quickly lost nearly 60 pounds, developed insomnia and began hallucinating. Brain imaging showed advanced signs of atrophy.
From May last year. The above made me think of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Alier Marrero is stumped.
For years, the neurologist in Moncton, New Brunswick, has seen patients with symptoms common to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain disorder that affects 1 in 1 million people each year.
But diagnostic testing for the rare neurodegenerative syndrome keeps coming back negative, more patients with similar symptoms have turned up each year, and Marrero hasn’t found another cause. Federal public health officials last year identified the cases as a cluster meriting further investigation
Edit: The article mentions a case that goes back to 2015.
Re: Canada
Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2022 11:13 am
by RTH10260
‘Mind-blowing tragedy’: deaths of Indian family at US-Canada border put visa sales under scrutiny Many Indians embark on often treacherous journeys to North America through agents who are now the focus of anti-human trafficking officers
Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Dingucha, Gujarat
Sun 6 Feb 2022 07.00 GMT
The signs are painted on every wall and hang from every lamp-post of this small Gujarat village. “Easy Canada visa, student and immigration,” states one. “Study in Canada, free application, spouse can apply,” claims another.
Indeed, in Dingucha, a village in rural west India, almost every house now has a family member either in Canada or the USA. It was a fact they used to proudly shout from the rooftops; but now, the village has fallen silent. Ask people about their relatives in north America – particularly the journey they took to get there – and they shrug their shoulders and walk off nervously.
It was a family of four – Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife Vaishali, 37, 11-year-old daughter Vihangi and three-year-old son Dharmik – who set off from Dingucha on 10 January, with Canada visitor visas stamped in their passports. They landed in Toronto on 12 January. Patel called his father and cousin back in India to let them know that it was cold, but they were all fine and in a hotel.
Six days later, the young family arrived in Emerson, a tiny town on the Canada-US border where night-time temperatures regularly drop below -35 degrees centigrade in the winter. It appears they were dropped off at a nearby point in brand new coats and gloves, and then began making the treacherous journey to America on foot, in the pitch dark, through what one local described as a freezing, “lunar-like landscape”. The next night, the Patel family were discovered frozen to death in the snow, 12 metres away from the US border.
The “mind-blowing tragedy” – as it was described by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau – has thrown a spotlight on the many Indians who continue to embark on often treacherous journeys to North America.
Though India is developing fast, it is also plagued by sluggish economic growth, low wages and a lack of employment opportunities that have led to an ongoing jobs crisis. In January riots broke out in the Indian state of Bihar when around 10 million people applied for 40,000 jobs on the railways.
Over 75% of the population is still employed in the informal sector, where people earn only a few hundred rupees a day and there is no job security or benefits. In the formal sector, the unemployment rate has recently hit 8% as increasing numbers are going into higher education but failing to find non-blue collar jobs once they leave. Though Gujarat, the state where Patel lived, has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, 95% of the jobless are educated.
Canada is an oasis of reasonability in the desert of chaos.
Re: Canada
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2022 2:34 pm
by Foggy
jemcanada2 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:18 am
With all the bad news going on in the world, I’m happy to announce the end of the “flag war” that has raged for decades between Canada and Denmark!
jemcanada2 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:18 am
With all the bad news going on in the world, I’m happy to announce the end of the “flag war” that has raged for decades between Canada and Denmark!
jemcanada2 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:18 am
With all the bad news going on in the world, I’m happy to announce the end of the “flag war” that has raged for decades between Canada and Denmark!
In 1984, Denmark’s minister of Greenland affairs raised a Danish flag on the island, buried a bottle of Danish schnapps at the base of the flagpole and left a note saying, “Welcome to the Danish island.” Canadians then planted their own flag and left a bottle of Canadian brandy. Since then, the countries have in turns hoisted their flags and left bottles of various spirits in a sort of tot-for-tot dispute.
Re: Canada
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2022 4:57 pm
by Volkonski
jemcanada2 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:18 am
With all the bad news going on in the world, I’m happy to announce the end of the “flag war” that has raged for decades between Canada and Denmark!
jemcanada2 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:18 am
With all the bad news going on in the world, I’m happy to announce the end of the “flag war” that has raged for decades between Canada and Denmark!
So they each end up with 1/4 square miles of island.
I think that there might be larger sandbars in the Great Peconic Bay.
Yeah, but now Canada can maybe participate in Eurovision!
Re: Canada
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2022 5:02 pm
by Volkonski
So will they now set up customs and immigration stations on Hans Island?
Re: Canada
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2022 5:05 pm
by johnpcapitalist
jemcanada2 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 4:58 pm
Yeah, but now Canada can maybe participate in Eurovision!
It would be a great opportunity to share traditional Canadian culture with those jaded and blasé Europeans:
Re: Canada
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2022 5:20 pm
by Tiredretiredlawyer
Re: Canada
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2022 6:11 pm
by bob
Literally the end of the article to find out the real-world applications:
The agreement means the United States will no longer be the only country with which Canada shares a land border.
“We now have a border with the E.U,” Joly said.
It also settles maritime boundaries around the island which could have grown in importance as global warming in the Northwest Passage could open the channels of Canada’s Arctic islands and shorten the voyage from Europe to the Far East. The United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway have been staking claims in the Arctic.
The settlement also gives indigenous access and rights of use to Hans island.
jemcanada2 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:18 am
With all the bad news going on in the world, I’m happy to announce the end of the “flag war” that has raged for decades between Canada and Denmark!
Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 1:17 pm
Canada is an oasis of reasonability in the desert of chaos.
Not entirely. Ford won.
I tried to prevent that. I guess I didn’t vote early or often enough this election.
Re: Canada
Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2022 9:21 am
by Tiredretiredlawyer
"Life moves fast." -Ferris Bueller
Re: Canada
Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2022 1:59 pm
by Ben-Prime
Volkonski wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 5:02 pm
So will they now set up customs and immigration stations on Hans Island?
They'd probably make coin off of a souvenir shop next to that station. I could see weird trekking types taking that trip just to get the stamps in the passport.
Volkonski wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 5:02 pm
So will they now set up customs and immigration stations on Hans Island?
They'd probably make coin off of a souvenir shop next to that station. I could see weird trekking types taking that trip just to get the stamps in the passport.
They could open a duty-free shop with all the bottles of whiskey and liquor that were left there during the active (flag) war.
Volkonski wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 5:02 pm
So will they now set up customs and immigration stations on Hans Island?
They'd probably make coin off of a souvenir shop next to that station. I could see weird trekking types taking that trip just to get the stamps in the passport.
And a shot at the pub
Re: Canada
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2022 9:15 pm
by RTH10260
Canada stabbings: police say 10 killed and 15 hurt in Saskatchewan Police extend search for two suspects over three provinces after attacks at 13 different locations
Leyland Cecco in Toronto and agencies
Mon 5 Sep 2022 01.30 BST
Ten people have been killed after a spate of stabbings in 13 locations in two communities in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Police were searching for two suspects.
Fifteen people had been taken to hospital after stabbings in multiple locations on Sunday in the Indigenous community of James Smith Cree Nation as well as in the village of Weldon, north-east of Saskatoon, police said.
Rhonda Blackmore, the assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted police in Saskatchewan, said some of the victims appear to have been targeted by the suspects but others appear to have been attacked at random. She did not provide a motive.
“It is horrific what has occurred in our province today,” Blackmore said.
She said there were 13 crime scenes where either dead or injured people were found.
“The attacks in Saskatchewan today are horrific and heartbreaking. I’m thinking of those who have lost a loved one and of those who were injured,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted.
That's worrying. Close the border! 
