It’s been a long road for siblings Tim and Jill Beatty, whose father died in 2019 after developing symptoms of an unknown neurological illness.
The family was part of New Brunswick’s first investigation into a potential mystery illness that has affected hundreds of people in the last several years.
Under the previous Progressive Conservative government, the province began investigating 48 patients with neurological symptoms — such as pain, seizures, confusion and muscle spasms — in 2021.
But the Blaine Higgs government said in 2022 that it found no evidence of a common illness and ended the investigation.
“First time around this brought us absolutely nothing,” Jill Beatty said.
Since then, more than 400 people have reported symptoms.
The Liberals promised during last year’s election campaign to reopen the investigation. The province’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Yves Léger, told reporters Thursday that his office will now review 222 files with the Public Health Agency of Canada.
But the Beatty siblings aren’t optimistic — especially since Léger is heading part of the review.
“Because he was part of the initial investigation in 2021, [he] should not be a part of investigation 2023 and beyond,” Jill Beatty said.
She and her brother said they want a scientific investigation, not a “review.”
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“We long for a true scientific investigation wherein we can recuse the people who were part of the initial group,” Tim Beatty said.
Léger told reporters that the review is necessary as a first step in better understanding what has been happening.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to really understand the findings and the concerns that have been brought forward,” he said.
“Before we even go to the next step of saying, ‘OK, we need to look at potential sources of exposure.’ So we need to look at the types of tests that were done and whether those are aligned with best practices.”
Léger said that, for example, certain heavy metals are best tested through blood and other elements through urine. Another example would be checking to make sure that the values measures are accurate and whether those levels pose a risk.
“We know that in our environments — through the air we breathe, the water we drink, the foods we eat — we’re exposed to a variety of different environmental substances on a day-to-day basis. So finding something in a person does not necessarily mean that there is a problem or an issue there, or that it’s causing a health concern,” he said.
“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, then at that point, one of the next steps may be, ‘OK, so why is that? How are they being exposed? Where?’ And then we then proceed with that work.”
Léger said the analysis of the patient files is expected to be completed by the summer, after which the government will publish its findings.
— with a file from The Canadian Press
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