Ep. 74 | Sudden Insanity

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One August morning in 2019, a widow in her 70s drove in silence with her two adult children to a hospital in New Brunswick, Canada.

Although it was a beautiful summer morning, the mood in the car was somber.

The previous winter, the woman's husband and the father of her children had suddenly lost his mind and died.

It had been almost like he was in the grips of an extremely fast-moving case of Alzheimer's.

His mind and body had declined so quickly, ravaged by this frightening and mysterious disease.

By the end of May that year, the woman's husband was dead, leaving her and her children both shattered and confused by what they had just witnessed.

But the worst part of it was they didn't even know what disease had killed him.

His doctor had a pretty good guess, but he wouldn't be sure until an autopsy was performed.

And so now, two months later and after an autopsy was done, the family was going to meet with that doctor about what he discovered.

Once the woman and her children were settled in the doctor's office, he got straight to the point.

Unfortunately, the autopsy had been inconclusive.

Her husband had died from an unknown illness.

But before the widow could say a word, the doctor told her that wasn't all.

In digging through the hospital's records, the doctor had discovered 20 other patients in just the past few years who were diagnosed with symptoms that were very similar to her husband's.

So, whatever this disease was, it was not isolated.

But the strange thing was, beyond their geographic proximity, there was nothing connecting these patients.

Not age, not lifestyle, nothing.

Which left the doctor with a chilling but inescapable conclusion.

Something where these people lived was responsible for making them sick.

But the doctor had no idea what it could be.

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From Ballin Studios and Wondry, I'm Mr.

Ballin, and this is Mr.

Ballin's Medical Mysteries, where every week we will explore a new, baffling mystery originating from the one place we all can't escape, our own bodies.

So, if you like today's story, whenever the follow button texts you, only reply with, who diss?

This episode is called Sudden Insanity.

A few days before New Year's Eve in 2018, a woman in her 70s named Jane Benchley stepped through the front door of her New Brunswick, Canada home after walking her terrier around the block.

She called out for her 81-year-old husband, Lewis, but the house was quiet.

Jane checked their bedroom, then the bathrooms, and even looked in the backyard.

And just as she started to worry, she heard Lewis' voice from down the hall.

She opened the door to what used to be his office.

Inside, her husband was hunched over his desk, looking at dusty old accounting logs and muttering to himself.

Jane was surprised to find him there.

Lewis had retired years ago and hardly ever used the office anymore.

When Jane asked him what he was doing, Lewis slammed his fist down.

Then he shoved the folders to the floor, leapt to his feet, and began shouting about how he'd been cheated.

A supplier overcharged him for lumber on a contracting job, and he was furious about it.

Jane tried to calm him down by reminding Lewis that he'd sold his construction business years ago.

Any money conflicts from old projects were water under the bridge now.

But Lewis was not having it.

He just stood there angrily shaking his head and fell silent.

Jane left the office to give her husband some space to sort through his anger on his own.

But at dinner later that night, Lewis was still fuming.

He barely spoke.

Jane couldn't understand why he was so fixated on financial matters from ages ago, but she just hoped a good night's sleep would clear his head.

But the next day, Jane returned to the house after running some morning errands to find her husband acting totally frantic again.

This time, it was about his appearance.

He pointed to his head in a panic and asked why his hair was white.

Jane didn't know what to say.

She told Lewis that nothing had changed and that his hair had been white for a long time.

But he brushed her off and stormed out of the room.

Jane had a bad feeling.

Momentary confusion was one thing, but her husband's strange behavior the last couple of days seemed like something much more serious.

So she went to the office where Lewis was and she asked him a simple question: What year was it?

And his answer floored her.

He said it was 1992, but it was not.

That was 26 years earlier.

And so now Jane was frightened.

Despite his age, Lewis hadn't shown any signs of dementia before yesterday.

But today, his grasp on reality seemed to be slipping by the hour.

Jane found herself wondering if this might be some extremely aggressive form of Alzheimer's.

And so she grabbed her phone to book Lewis the next available appointment with his doctor.

That night, Jane did her best to try to relax.

She sat down in front of the TV with a cup of tea, but no matter what she did, she just couldn't stop worrying about her husband.

As she got up to pour a new cup, she heard a loud crash from down the hall.

Jane rushed towards the noise and swung open the office door.

Inside, the floor was covered in shattered pieces of Lewis' desk lamp.

Behind the desk sat Lewis, thrashing in his chair with his eyes rolled back in his head.

Jane rushed to his side and tried to calm him down, but his body was spasming out of control.

All she could do was hold his limbs and try to keep Lewis from smashing anything else.

Gradually, the seizure did subside, and once Lewis was breathing normally, Jane grabbed her phone, purse, and keys and guided her husband to the car.

Her mind raced as she drove him to the hospital.

What in the world was going on with her husband?

Six months later, in May of 2019, Dr.

Alan Marlowe, a neurologist, looked across his office desk at Jane and her two adult children, Ted and Ellen.

The mood in the room was tense and very emotional.

Jane dabbed at her eyes with the tissue.

Only days ago, Jane's husband, Lewis, had died.

Dr.

Marlow first met Jane and Lewis back in January of 2019 when she had brought her husband to the hospital following that seizure.

Initially, Dr.

Marlowe thought Lewis must have a brain disorder, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, or ALS.

Any of these could have explained his abrupt mental decline and loss of motor control.

And so Dr.

Marlow had conducted various tests to confirm that Lewis had one of these conditions, but all of the tests were inconclusive.

Yet, week by week, Lewis's symptoms only worsened.

He began having daydreams that were like nightmares.

They were pure hallucinations, but very real to Lewis.

Also, Lewis began to lose control of his limbs.

He would have these muscle spasms that were super intense to the point where basic movements would cause him severe pain.

Eventually, Dr.

Marlow suspected the worst.

Creutschfeldt-Jakob disease.

A rare and always fatal condition that is caused by abnormal proteins in the brain.

The symptoms of CJD, as it's also called, can seem like an unusually fast-moving case of Alzheimer's.

but there are no treatments to slow its progress.

Victims typically die within six months to a year.

Now, unfortunately, CJD can only be diagnosed by doing an autopsy of the patient's brain after death.

And so even though Dr.

Marlowe felt confident what Lewis had was CJD, he couldn't be sure so long as Lewis was alive.

And so the doctor did everything in his power to ease Lewis's symptoms.

However, his condition never improved and Lewis died within five months of his first meeting with the doctor.

Dr.

Marlowe knew that being back in his office was hard for Jane, but he needed her to sign documents consenting to an autopsy of her husband's body.

Learning the details of the condition that killed Lewis might help future CJD patients avoid a similar fate.

Jane dried her eyes, took the pen, and signed the documents.

Three months later, in the late summer of 2019, Dr.

Marlow returned to his office to find an email informing him that Lewis Benchley's post-mortem report was complete.

Dr.

Marlowe clicked it open and he was surprised at what he saw.

Lewis did not have Creutschfeld-Jakob disease.

Lewis's symptoms had been very consistent with CJD.

Nothing else had made sense to the doctor.

But if CJD didn't kill Lewis, what did?

Dr.

Marlowe opened Lewis' old medical file to re-familiarize himself with the details.

And as he did, something about Lewis' combination of symptoms rang a bell in Dr.

Marlowe's memory.

Dr.

Marlowe dug up the case files of some other patients he treated over the past few years.

Now, they were much younger than Lewis, in their 20s or 30s, so at first they did not seem connected to him, especially since CJD typically afflicted older or elderly people, but these younger patients had reported very similar symptoms to Lewis, sudden mental and physical decline with no warning or prior genetic condition.

The other similarity was that nearly all the patients, Lewis included, lived in the same two regions of Canada, the city of Moncton, which is the most populous city in New Brunswick, and the Acadian Peninsula, a strip of the northeast coast known for scenic fishing villages and blueberry farms.

However, Dr.

Marlowe couldn't imagine why the people in these two specific areas of New Brunswick would be more vulnerable to this strange and deadly disease.

Dr.

Marlowe buzzed his secretary to schedule a meeting with Jane to share the results of her husband's examination.

Dr.

Marlowe wondered what to tell her after breaking the news that her husband had not in fact died of CJD.

He knew she'd want to know the same thing he did.

What had killed Lewis?

Dr.

Marlowe just hoped he could eventually find the answer.

Six months later, in the depths of winter, Dr.

Marlow poured himself another cup of coffee in the break room and looked out the window.

It was barely 3 p.m., but it was already getting dark out.

Dr.

Marlowe felt spread thin by his workload recently.

Over the past six months, his medical practice had been filled with a string of complicated cases, all very similar to Lewis Benchley's.

Patient after patient had come to him after suffering an abrupt mental decline, followed by physical degeneration.

As with Lewis, many of the patients exhibited symptoms similar to CJD, but something was always slightly off.

No matter how many tests Dr.

Marlowe ran, the results never quite aligned with CJD.

The symptoms either developed too slowly or too rapidly.

or they didn't respond to medications that they should have.

But the strangest thing was how young most of these these patients were.

And this made Dr.

Marlowe think, ever since Lewis's post-mortem examination showed that he was negative for CJD, Dr.

Marlowe had begun to have the sneaking suspicion.

Maybe what happened to Lewis was something totally new, something other doctors hadn't recognized yet.

Something still unnamed.

Dr.

Marlowe admitted that that was a bit far-fetched.

But it was the only working theory Dr.

Marlowe had.

However, despite his suspicion that perhaps he was looking at this brand new condition here, Dr.

Marlowe still reported each of these new mysterious cases to the Creutschfeld-Jakob disease surveillance system, run by the Canadian government.

He hoped that by keeping the government informed, it would help them spot larger trends that maybe Dr.

Marlowe couldn't.

He figured that if they did see a bigger trend, healthcare providers like himself would be notified of any special actions they should take in response.

In the meantime, though, Dr.

Marlowe decided to do a little investigating on his own.

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A little over a year later, on an early morning in 2021, Lewis Benchley's son, Ted, opened his morning newspaper and saw that the mystery disease that had killed his father was finally getting some public attention.

After meeting with Dr.

Marlowe Ted and his sister Ellen had been scared to death.

They wondered if the disease might have some genetic basis and whether, as a result, they were at risk of meeting the same fate as their father.

But since at this point nobody knew what the disease even was, there was no way to determine if they were in danger or not.

That morning, Ted read that Dr.

Marlowe, along with a variety of other experts, had been meeting at the Public Health Agency of Canada to discuss a new disease that had afflicted more than 40 people in the region, which meant Dr.

Marlowe had discovered at least 20 new cases since Ted's dad got sick.

These experts were referring to this disease by the name New Brunswick Neurological Syndrome of Unknown Etiology.

Ted continued reading and he saw that patients with the syndrome spanned different ages, lifestyles, and backgrounds, but they all seemed to develop dementia in the exact same way his father had.

And so far, six of these people had died.

Ted was relieved to read that the scientists did not see any genetic link in this disease.

In fact, scientists found that these patients had only one thing in common.

They all lived in the same geographical area.

And this made scientists suspect that something in the environment might be to blame.

Some scientists had apparently drafted a memo to warn local doctors about this horrible mysterious illness, while others feared it would cause panic and argued against sending it out.

However, that disagreement no longer mattered because somebody had leaked the whole memo to the press.

And so the mysterious disease now had global attention.

With this mystery disease now out in the open, Ted hoped to connect with other families affected by the syndrome.

And he would quickly discover that somebody had already set up a discussion group for New Brunswick Neurological Syndrome on Facebook.

And soon, Ted would share to this group that the Canadian Institutes of Health Research had offered Dr.

Marlowe's group $5 million

to fund a clinical investigation of New Brunswick disease.

However, two months later, the New Brunswick provincial government announced it would be taking over this investigation, which meant Dr.

Marlowe and his team of scientists would no longer be involved.

Ted and the other members of this Facebook group could not understand why the government would exclude Dr.

Marlowe.

He had done more than anybody else to identify the strange condition and its victims.

Ted thought the government should be looking to include more scientists rather than leaving people out.

It just made no sense to Ted or anybody else in this group.

Unless something was going on behind the scenes that they weren't aware of.

Five months later, in October of 2021, Ted was driving to work on a crisp fall morning.

He kept the windows cracked to enjoy the fresh air, with the radio turned on low.

Ted was doing his best to enjoy the morning, but his mind was preoccupied.

His father, Lewis, had been dead for over two years, but his cause of death was still unknown.

Ted and his Facebook friends had been anxious for more information, but ever since the provincial government had taken over the investigation, there had been zero updates on the issue.

As Ted passed an 18-wheeler loaded with lumber, his ear happened to catch a snippet from the radio.

He turned up the volume just in time to hear the announcer mention the New Brunswick disease.

The province had been studying a cluster of 48 cases, eight of which had been fatal so far.

To conduct autopsies on those eight fatalities, they had turned to an independent doctor from the province of Ontario, Dr.

Robert Hansen.

And now, Dr.

Hansen had finished his investigation.

And his preliminary conclusion was that there was no connection between the cases.

They were all separate incidents, unrelated to each other.

Dr.

Hansen determined that each of these patients had contracted a well-known disease, such as cancer, Lewy body dementia, or Alzheimer's.

There was no new disease here.

Ted couldn't believe what he was hearing.

He was certain there had to be a connection between all these cases.

Also, Ted had seen his father's autopsy report.

He wasn't sure which disease Dr.

Hansen thought had killed his father, but he knew that his dad had absolutely not died of CJD or any of those diseases listed in Dr.

Hansen's report.

It was something new, something that still was not recognized by the medical community.

And so now, Ted wondered if maybe the Canadian government wanted to keep it that way.

Something just felt off about this whole situation, and so Ted decided he was going to do something about it.

Over the next few months, Ted and his family communicated with dozens of families through that New Brunswick disease Facebook group.

And they all agreed that Dr.

Hansen was wrong.

There was a connection between all these cases.

And the cause had to be environmental since almost every patient lived in the same area of Canada.

Working together, Ted and the others had come up with possible strategies to continue searching for an answer.

One idea was just to crowdfund their own environmental testing.

Another idea was to invite famed environmental activist Aaron Brockovich, whose life was actually made into a movie starring Julia Roberts, to have her lead an outside investigation.

And at the same time, week after week, they campaigned relentlessly, hoping that Dr.

Hansen's panel might change their conclusion that the condition was not real.

They hoped they were having an effect, but Ted couldn't tell for sure.

Then one day, on February 24th of 2022, Ted picked up the newspaper from his front lawn and saw a headline about the case.

He brought the paper inside and spread it out on the kitchen table and flipped to the article.

And there it was, in print, the Provincial Oversight Committee's final report on the so-called New Brunswick disease.

After supposedly much consideration and debate, the committee ruled in agreement with Dr.

Hansen's assessment.

The cases were not connected.

A new disease did not exist.

Ted's heart sank.

All of their efforts had been for nothing.

It seemed like the truth behind his father's death would now stay unknown forever.

Over eight months later, as the sun was beginning to set on an autumn afternoon in 2022, Dr.

Marlowe slumped into his chair behind his desk and sighed deeply.

His last patient of the day had just left.

Finally, he could take a moment for himself.

Even after the government shut down his research into the New Brunswick disease, Dr.

Marlowe's workload of patients who appeared to have the non-existent condition continued to grow.

Eventually, it totaled 430, 111 of whom were under the age of 45 and 39 had died so far.

And almost all of them suffered a similar pattern of sudden cognitive and physical decline.

Dr.

Marlowe could find little connection between the age or background of the patients themselves, but he did notice a striking pattern in when they got sick.

Most of his new cases were clustered around late summer and early fall.

He tried to think about what environmental factors might change at the end of the summer.

Glancing out the window, Dr.

Marlowe let his eyes settle on the line of trees at the horizon, a common sight across heavily forested Canada.

But today, it sparked something in his mind.

Dr.

Marlowe wondered if the late summer spike in cases had something to do with forestry schedules.

Dr.

Marlowe knew that most logging is done in the summer.

Once the trees are felled and hauled away, new seedlings are planted to regrow the area, so it can be logged again in the future.

But in order to keep weeds and shrubs from choking choking off the new trees, loggers spray herbicide.

As with many chemicals, Dr.

Marlowe knew that their effects on humans sometimes took generations to identify.

If it was discovered that exposure to these herbicide chemicals was sickening people in this area, it would be a massive liability for the Canadian government.

Was it possible that's what they were afraid of and why the government had closed the investigation?

To keep a connection like this hidden?

Logging was one of New Brunswick's oldest, biggest, and most profitable industries, and messing with an economic engine of that size was a dangerous business.

If the forestry industry feared they might be tied to a public health epidemic, Dr.

Marlowe had no doubt that calls would be made to top political leaders to put pressure on them to stop that information from getting out.

Too many people stood to lose too much money.

Dr.

Marlowe wanted to test this new chemical theory.

but it would take weeks before he finally found a laboratory that was willing to discreetly run some tests for him.

It was a six-hour drive away in the province of Quebec, but Dr.

Marlowe was thankful to have anyone willing to take on this work.

In December of 2022, Dr.

Marlowe collected blood samples from over 100 of his New Brunswick disease patients, and he shipped them to this laboratory.

His goal was to test as wide a spectrum of patients as possible to make sure his results were scientifically sound.

Weeks later, Dr.

Marlowe finally got word from the lab that the tests were complete.

He swiped open his tablet to check the results, and what he saw astonished him.

Dr.

Marlowe's hunch had been correct.

The results from the Quebec laboratory proved it.

90% of Dr.

Marlowe's patients' blood samples contained elevated levels of glyphosate, which is a herbicide routinely used in forestry work.

In one case, the levels were 15,000 times higher than the lowest detectable numbers.

The chemicals in glyphosate block an enzyme necessary for plant growth, so any weeds or grasses sprayed with it eventually die.

Dr.

Marlow was certain that this chemical was having a long-term, sometimes devastating effect on people's health.

But despite his findings, not everyone agrees that glyphosate can be harmful.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency ruled in 2022 that glyphosate causes no health risk, even to children.

But in Canada, the debate is beginning to tilt in Dr.

Marlowe's favor.

Eventually, the province of Quebec Quebec acknowledged a link between glyphosate and an increased risk for Parkinson's, a brain disorder that can cause stiffness and serious problems with movement.

Other recent studies have shown that glyphosate disrupts the naturally occurring bacteria in the gut that play a key role in overall health.

When bacteria in the gut are imbalanced, it can cause inflammation throughout the body, including in the brain.

Some scientists believe this inflammation can lead to Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative disorders, just like Lewis and the other patients experienced.

Dr.

Marlowe continues to hold out hope that the government will resume their research, and he may get his wish.

On November 15th, 2024, the newly elected premier of New Brunswick, basically the province's new governor, said she wants to reopen the investigation, which means, finally, the people affected by New Brunswick disease may get the answers they've been seeking.

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From Bollin Studios and Wondry, this is Mr.

Bollin's Medical Mysteries, hosted by me, Mr.

Bollin.

A quick note about our stories.

They are all inspired by true events, but we do sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and also some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

And a reminder, the content in this episode is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

This episode was written by Britt Brown.

Our editor is Heather Dundas.

Sound design is by Ryan Patesta.

Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan.

And our coordinating producer is Taylor Sniffin.

Our senior producer is Alex Benedon.

Our associate producers and researchers are Sarah Bytak and Teja Palaconda.

Fact-checking was done by Sheila Patterson.

For Ballin Studios, our head of production is Zach Levitt.

Script editing by Scott Allen and Evan Allen.

Our coordinating producer is Samantha Collins.

Production support by Avery Siegel.

Executive producers are myself, Mr.

Ballin, and also Nick Witters.

For Wondry, our head of sound is Marcelino Villipando.

Senior producers are Laura Donna Palaboda and Dave Schilling.

Senior managing producer is Ryan Lohr.

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