The BBC has really degraded in the last 5 years with stories full of mistakes and innaccuracies.

"At the heart of the working group was Marrero, along with Dr Michael Coulthart, the head of the CJD Surveillance System; Dr Neil Cashman, a leading Canadian neurologist; Dr Michael Strong, the head of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR); and Dr Samuel Weiss, one of the CIHR’s senior neurologists. "

Sam Weiss neither works for the CIHR nor is a neurologist.

There are many patients diagnosed with neurological diseases of no known origin, it’s not unusual and there are no treatments. Marrero simply told people what they wanted to hear, that they had some special disease. Tony Lang heads the Toronto Western neurology department, directs a Parkinson’s clinic and is a research scientist and Professor at U of T. His group sees 1000x the cases of all of New Brunswick. He’s authored hundreds of peer reviewed manuscripts.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2833783

"“14 patients (aged 20-55 years; 8 female, 6 male) received clinical evaluations, and 11 patients (aged 56-82 years; 5 female, 6 male) had neuropathological diagnoses. Well-known conditions were identified in all 25 cases, including common neurodegenerative diseases, functional neurological disorder, traumatic brain injury, and metastatic cancer.”

So traumatic brain injury and cancer are now mystery diseases?

When Lang published in JAMA, with peer review, that the NB disease was just bad neurology, not what the advocates wanted to hear, so Kate Lanteigne called the research “unethical”. They never called it unscientific, that was a BBC fabrication. They are challenging the analysis on a technicality of data access, not the expert conclusions because they are not qualified to give opinion. As for the claim of ethical transgressions:

“Research ethics boards of both hospitals approved the study with verbal or written consent obtained from all patients and/or families or waived by the respective research ethics boards. The study is reported according to the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) reporting guideline.” Authors are at UHN, they know about REB approval.

Kate Lanteigne’s qualifications? None medical. Runs a coffee shop. She’s got a side hustle in “advocacy”.

Stacie Quigley Cormier: “Stacie is currently working toward her certification in Somatic Experiencing (SE): a body-oriented therapeutic model that helps resolve traumatic shock and stress stored within the body”. “it was developed as a result of a multidisciplinary study of the effects of stress through disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, physiology and biology, etiology, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics.”

Well, that’s pseudo science woo bullshit. She has no idea what medical biophysics even is.

“Settled in his office chair, he recalled with obvious pleasure that not so long ago, some of Canada’s top scientists had sat with him around that very desk, ready to take on a scientific mystery. But now, Marrero seemed increasingly isolated.”

Because he’s incompetant and no one wants to be associated with a quack.

Instead, last year, a bombshell research paper authored by several Canadian neurologists and neuroscientists concluded that there was in fact no mystery disease, and that the patients had all likely suffered from previously known neurological, medical, or psychiatric conditions. The New Brunswick cluster was, one of the paper’s authors told the BBC, a “house of cards”.

500+ patients, all in one highly geographically-constrained area, makes this conclusion as suspicious as a fleet of black Ford Excursions, all filled with men in black suits, saying “nothing is going on here, carry on.”

TL;DR: BULLSHIT.

I wish Canada had a politically-independent research arm that could look into any possible subject, free of interference and with the authority of a national police force, only staffed with highly-accredited experts from every field. They would have a mandate to follow political and economic corruption and harms to the environment and peoples of Canada without censure or blowback, with the only requirement being full transparency and accountability. And with payroll bonuses being drawn from fines and other financial judgements such that they are as incentivized as possible to go after the biggest fish, first.

Now granted, the existence of this agency could very well mean the end of many political careers, as well as that of most any conservative political party. But that would be one of the small but important ways we reinforce democracy for the people, instead of letting the Parasite Class call all the shots.

Edit: just realized that most conservatives would violently push back against any open and fully transparent fact-finding organization that was a crown-funded research arm. Because it’s fact-finding, so therefore it’s intolerable.