Censored: 48 cases of human prion (mad cow) disease have been identified in people. Cause supposedly “unknown”.

News this week that a cluster of more than 40 cases of an unknown neurological disease have been identified and found only in New Brunswick has residents of several communities on edge.

The mystery illness has similarities to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal brain disease.

According to an internal Public Health memo sent this month to medical professionals, the disease affects all age groups and appears to be concentrated in the Acadian Peninsula in northeast New Brunswick and the Moncton region in the southeast. Read more.