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Comment by m00x | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why you're linking all these when the disease has been identified to most likely be a prion disease, and not a side-effect of herbicides.

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In terms of chronic exposure of the majority of the population to herbicides, New Brunswick is fairly unique. Why do you think that it is not a plausible hypothesis for "an unknown neurological disease"? If this is a new prion disease from game animals, why has it not shown up in Maine, Québec, or Vermont?

How is it unique?

I used to work for the Ministry of agriculture there and we shared most of our data and procedures with Quebec's.

Are you serious?

Québec land area: 1,365,128 km²

Québec total annual timber harvest: 4.8 million m³

New Brunswick land area: 71,450 km²

New Brunswick timber harvest from Crown lands: 5.4 million m³

New Brunswick timber harvest from private lands: 3 million m³

Québec protected areas alone are more than twice the size of the whole of New Brunswick.

What other populated region in North America is as intensely logged as New Brunswick? Maybe rural Oregon or Washington?

Yeah, but rural PNW is mountainous valleys. Lots of geographic separation from population centers in terms of tree farming areas. If it’s some sort of “runoff” from logging, unless it hits the water table (water tends to come from wells, not lakes/rivers) it’s unlikely to be easily exposed in the populace.

The article we are talking about says specifically that no prion diseases tested for have been found and that readers should not jump to the conclusion that this is a prion disease.

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