Unknown disease: The doctor at the center of the story says he didn’t invent anything

It ain’t no theory I invented Dr. Elior Marrero said in an interview on Wednesday afternoon.

Often, unfortunately, in complex diseases [où il y a de la] Difficulty in diagnosing, especially when these diseases are new, leads to a lot of misunderstanding and education, he explained.

Anyone who is behind the majority of diagnoses of this neurological disease still believes there is a new syndrome affecting New Brunswickers.

why there [aurait] so many cases and so many cases that look like this, increase over the years and then more and more cases, he said. There is also a clinical context, we see many other patients, often very young, who quickly develop symptoms suggestive of a prion disease or a neurotoxic one.

A man is sitting in his office.

Dr. Elior Marrero persists and gives hints. He maintains his theory about the existence of an unknown neurological disease.

Photo: Radio-Canada / Horizon Health Network

Dr. Elior Marrero also specifies that, although he has his office as a starting point in most cases, experts from elsewhere in the country have Data analyzed and resulting case definitions shared by Public Health with all New Brunswick physicians.

He also specifies that he is working In close collaboration with Canada’s Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance System and Public Health Canada.

Doubts about the disease … and about Dr. Marrero

Dr Elior Marrero made the statement moments after he ended a media briefing on the unknown disease, with New Brunswick Health Minister Dorothy Shepherd saying he doubted its existence.

I believe that the public health has good reason to suspect the existence of an unknown neurological disease (…) I will not speculate on the findings of the investigation [clinique] Progress in progress but I believe we are near the end, she said on Wednesday.

Health Minister Dorothy Shepherd at a press briefing on an unknown neurological disease on October 27, 2021.

Health Minister Dorothy Shepherd at a press briefing on an unknown neurological disease Wednesday afternoon.

Photo: Radio-Canada

Public Health also shared the results of the first epidemiological examination – a questionnaire carried out over the telephone, to which only 34 of the 48 known cases responded – which concluded that there was no evidence to suggest that An environmental cause or that a toxin ingested one made people sick.

The minister and other public health officials have insisted that almost all known cases of the disease have been reported by a single neurologist. They didn’t name him, but it is Dr. Elior Marrero. It was he who reported 46 of the 48 known cases. The remaining cases were reported by two other doctors.

The minister also said that we had discovered Lag in case reporting procedures, whatever happens Allowed certain situations to escalate, often without supervision.

Faced with these questions, a group of six neurologists were tasked with reviewing the files of patients suffering from an unknown disease. His role is to present an impartial view on the matter. The report of this independent clinical examination is to be made public at the beginning of the new year.

The province has also tightened the norms that allow a patient to be considered part of a cluster of cases. From now on, the approval of two medical experts will have to be taken for the identification of new cases. Minister Dorothy Shepherd also sent a letter to the new federal health minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, informing her challenges Changes in surveys and in some procedures.

The public health of New Brunswick is not the only one to doubt the existence of the disease. The day before, a neuropathologist reviewing the autopsies of some patients believed they had an unknown disease, suggested that these patients had been misdiagnosed, that they had known diseases (such as Alzheimer’s or cancer), And that nothing pointed to the existence of one. New unknown disease.

These autopsy reports – like public health epidemiological investigation reports – emphasize that it is impossible to draw conclusions about a new disease.

So it is impossible to conclude that it exists, but it is also impossible to say that it does not exist.

Dr. Marrero wants to continue working

Dr. Alier Marrero questions the conclusions drawn from the autopsies performed by neuropathologist Dr. Gerard Jansson.

he told himself Concerned And to wonder to see that the conclusions were made with Some reports of selected autopsies on some patients.

He alleges that his autopsy results were exposed to the media without his consent, when it comes to his patients.

I think there should not be a question of fighting over autopsy in the media, she added.

Neurologists believe it is important to continue to investigate this mysterious disease, responding to their patients and their families.

As a physician, I think we should be advocates for our patients and bring hope to us. We should also, at the level of our health systems, sound off the alarm a bit and cooperate to the contrary, he believes.

What is Dr. Marrero’s role in the rest of the investigation?

Everything suggests that the neurologist will not participate as a result of the investigation.

Documents obtained by Radio-Canada/CBC under the Access to Information Act, along with comments made by Health Minister Dorothy Shepherd, show that Dr Elior Marrero played a key role in the early stages of the investigation. Then his role changed in the last few months.

In April, Minister Dorothy Shepherd said that the Committee for Unknown Neurological Diseases was chaired by Dr. Elior Marrero.

Then, in May, when the province created an expert committee to review the work of neurologists, the minister indicated that Dr Elior Marrero would continue to play an important role.

However, this week the minister’s confidence in Dr. Elior Marrero seemed to be waning. Dr. Marrero is not conducting this investigation, Public Health is investigating, she told reporters.

When asked about the possibility that Dr. Elior Marrero made errors in his diagnosis, the vice president of medical affairs at the Vitalite health network, where the neurologist works, refrained from answering the question directly.

With the information that has been released today, we will have to sit down with the doctor to review his record and discuss it with him., Dr. Natalie Banville said. We cannot comment before discussing it with them.

NB. a mysterious evil in

Last March, following a Radio-Canada report, the Public Health of New Brunswick informed the population that it was closely monitoring a group of patients who were suffering from an unknown disease.

NS neurologic disease of unknown source Affects about fifty people in the Acadian Peninsula and the Moncton region. Patients with similar symptoms (dementia, unexplained muscle wasting, visual hallucinations and behavioral changes).

Their patient charts were sent to the Canadian Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease Surveillance System, as the symptoms were similar. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a rare and fatal form of neurocognitive disorder. This is due to the presence of abnormal prion proteins that are toxic to the brain.

However, test results confirm that these patients do not suffer from a known form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or prion disease.

Nine people with an unknown neurological disease have died since 2019.

Nicholas Steinbach and Karissa Donkin, CBC. with information

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