The public health survey of Estrie concerning cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in Val-St-François goes to another stage. The data collected by the widow of a victim being now verified and confirmed, the researchers begin the analysis.
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Tuesday evening, a state of the situation was presented to the population of Windsor during a public assembly.
At the end of 2024, Julie Dubois reported a worrying situation to the Estrie public health, the discovery of 18 cases of SLA in the vicinity of Windsor. Her husband, Marco Brindle, is one of the victims of this terrible neurodegenerative disease, also known as Lou-Gehrig’s disease. It leads to the sagging of the muscles. The life expectancy of affected people is an average of two to four years.
Following this report, public health had sparked an investigation. The generous Dr. Mélissa, who is now piloting the file, indicates that her team was able to confirm 20 cases of victims or sick people in the Val-St-François between 2012 and 2024: “It is still too early to talk about excess, but it certainly deserves that we continue our steps to understand what is going on.”
Over the next few months, researchers will linger to the analysis of each confirmed case: “We will explore the history of people affected. Who are they? In what environment did they evolve? Do they have common points together? There are plenty of things to verify in order to be able to portray the situation, ”explains Dre generous.
-Already, public health has noticed that out of the 20 cases under study:
– 60 % are women
– The average age of cases is 68 years
– 80 % of cases lived at least 5 years at the VSF (latency not known)
– 65 % of cases still resided in the VSF during the diagnosis
– 25 % of cases would have worked in a sector factory
Another point that seems to come out of preliminary data is that several affected people remained near the river. “It could be the result of chance,” says generous Dre, but cyanobacteria is a factor potentially associated with SLA in the literature. We’re going to look more carefully. ”
Then, it will be necessary to calculate and compare the rate of people affected with other places in Quebec and in the world, then check if there is an environmental link which could explain the situation.
