Four suffering from arsenic poisoning in Blackville
Published Friday November 28th, 2008
BLACKVILLE - There is a medical mystery in Blackville.
Four residents in the Digby Street/Shafer Lane section of the village have been diagnosed with arsenic poisoning and nobody knows what is causing it.
The sudden appearance of four cases in a short-period of time has prompted the provincial Health Department to step in, testing blood and water and offering water testing kits to residents as they try to find out what is making people sick.
"My department has committed to testing wells in the surrounding area to reassure homeowners of the quality of their water," Health Minister Mike Murphy said in a release from his department. "The results will be reported to individual homeowners as they become available."
However residents have already been told water does not appear to be the sources of the poisoning, meaning something else is causing it.
Whatever that something is, Coun. Jake Stewart wants to know and he wants to know now. He lives on Digby Street with his wife and two sons - age two and one. Both are sick and nobody knows why.
"My kids have been sick all year. I go to the doctor they get tested for iron and kidney infections. They don't check for arsenic," he said.
He said to date no cause for his children's illness has been found despite numerous trips to the doctors. He said the first confirmed case of arsenic poisoning came in May. Since then three more people have been diagnosed.
He is angry with the Public Health Department and with Dr. Denis Allard, the chief medical officer for the region. Stewart said he spoke with one of the doctors treating patients with arsenic poisoning and they said he informed the department in May, but no action was taken until November.
That anger boiled over during the interview, when Stewart received a call from Allard about the poisoning.
"Listen Dr. Allard I spoke with the doctors who informed you," Stewart said during the call. "They informed you in May. Well let me tell you that record is going to be in existence because this is likely going to go to a court case and you're going to have to sit there and use the word September while three doctors are going to say May."
"Why November…why not September when you say you found out?" the councillor asked.
After Stewart raised his voice with Allard the doctor hung up.
In an interview the following day Allard said he only found out in September.
"I was informed of the situation on Sept. 4. I got a call from the family physician indicating to me that he had found in one of his patients a higher than normal level of blood arsenic and he wanted our assistance in terms of trying to determine a little bit where the cause of that poisoning might be coming from," Allard said.
He said a letter from the doctor also says Allard was informed on Sept. 4.
He said some of the confusion might be the result of the Miramichi office finding out about the illnesses informally.
He said a public health inspector was dining in Blackville when he was approach by an individual who asked him about arsenic poisoning. That person's water was tested.
"Following that the public health office in Miramichi got a result of a well water in July and at that time the arsenic in that water was below any level of concern. Never-the-less the inspector, as is usually the case, for reporting the water results, phoned the person who submitted the water results who appears to be the same person who appears to have asked him something while he was dining and reported the results," Allard said.
"Then after that, as far as we know, there has been no other official contact until the general practitioner gave me a call the fourth of September," he said.
Stewart said even if that was the case, he found out Allard's office only recently notified the local hospital to be on the lookout for arsenic poisoning. He wanted to know why it wasn't done in September.
Allard said the reason was that he did not hear about the last two cases until Nov. 20 at which case he realized he was dealing with something larger. A letter was sent to the hospital asking that they notify doctors to be vigilant for arsenic poisoning when dealing with patients from Blackville.
"We really didn't realize this thing was certainly larger than one or two cases," he said.
However Stewart said his wife Shannon had their youngest son to the hospital on Wednesday and when she asked staff about arsenic poisoning in Blackville, they knew nothing about it.
While there are four cases confirmed, Stewart is also wondering if an elderly man, who lived in the same area of the village, who died earlier in the year, may not have also had arsenic poisoning.
"This guy had numbness in his hands and feet, constant nausea, no energy and really poor colour in his face. And all of this happened in the last year of his life, particularly between January and July," Stewart said.
"It's strange when you look at the effects of arsenic poisoning and what killed him despite his age. In talking with his VON nurse and with another woman who lived and worked with him on a daily basis, they were shocked to see how he deteriorated so quickly," he said.
A quick search of Wikipedia shows symptoms of arsenic poisoning include stomach pains; tenderness and pressure; retching; excessive saliva production; vomiting; sense of dryness and tightness in the throat; thirst; hoarseness and difficulty of speech; the matter vomited, greenish or yellowish, sometimes streaked with blood; diarrhea; tenesmus; sometimes excoriation of the anus; urinary organs occasionally affected with violent burning pains and suppression; convulsions and cramps; clammy sweats; lividity of the extremities; countenance collapsed; eyes red and sparkling; delirium; death. Some of these symptoms may be absent where the poisoning results from inhalation, as of arseniuretted hydrogen.
Mayor Glen Hollowood said he is very concerned about the case. A meeting of the council and Southwest Miramichi MLA and Human Resources Minister Rick Brewer was held earlier in the week. Hollowood said Brewer informed the Environment Department.
He also said he didn't realize how big it had gotten.
"We thought it was an isolated incident until the third person got it," he said.
He also said he doesn't know what is causing it but he said he does not believe it's in the water or the village's sewer system and lagoon are to blame.
Stewart, meanwhile, simply wants answers.
"My worries right now are with the community, my wife, my kids," he said.
None of the patients known to be diagnosed wished to speak.
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