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Fredericton & WestNew BrunswickThe IssuesHealth care
Province, which once notoriously funded sham treatment, sets a new standard for testing of neurological illness
Author of the article:
John Chilibeck • Local Journalism Initiative reporter
Published Nov 17, 2025 • Last updated 1 day ago • 3 minute read
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Dr. Chadi Darwich, the head of neurology for the Vitalité Health Network, says new testing for people who have the disease multiple sclerosis will be faster, cheaper and more effective. Photo by John Chilibeck/Brunswick NewsArticle content
New Brunswick will perform new tests on an unpredictable disease that will be cheaper, faster and more effective for treatment, says a leading neurologist.
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On Monday, officials with the provincial government, the two health authorities, Research NB and the large Swiss biotech firm Roche announced a new program for patients with multiple sclerosis, more commonly known as MS.
New Brunswick has one of the highest rates in the world of the mysterious disease.
“It’s a blood test that will notify us if a patient is having a relapse,” explained Dr. Chadi Darwich, the head of neurology at the Vitalité Health Network, following the announcement at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in Fredericton.
“By having this test done, we will be able to establish if it’s a true relapse or an infection. We’ve been doing this testing for five years, but we’d have to send it to Ottawa. And sometimes it would take six to eight weeks to get the results back. So now with this in-house blood testing, we’ll get results in a timelier fashion.”
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The neurological disease of the central nervous system still has no specific cause or cure, despite decades of research. According to MS Canada, about 2,000 people in New Brunswick are thought to have the disease and about 90,000 are afflicted across Canada. The country is said to have one of the highest rates of MS in the world, but New Brunswick and the rest of Atlantic Canada have an even higher rate than the Canadian average.
Most people with MS, overwhelmingly women, are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 49. It’s an unpredictable, progressive, and lifelong disease, with some sufferers eventually needing a wheelchair.
Symptoms include fatigue, balance problems, weakness, tingling and numbness, blurriness of vision, bladder and bowel issues, and brain fog.
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Blood samples from New Brunswick patients afflicted with the illness will be conducted at the Chalmers, the first time a province has offered such a service for everyone with the disease.
In the past, only a select number of patients from New Brunswick had blood samples sent to Ottawa for the so-called neurofilament light chain testing.
The biomarker testing measures proteins in the blood that signal active disease in the nervous system. It can aid in the detection of the disease in adults with MS, helping doctors make better treatment decisions.
The deal with Roche, however, which specializes in medical tests, will come at a higher cost.
Jennifer Sheils, a vice president at the Horizon Health Network, told Brunswick News that the two health authorities spend about $217,000 a year sending roughly 870 MS biomarker tests out of province.
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Those tests cost $250 each and take several weeks to come back.
Under the new, in-province model announced Monday, 3,000 tests will be conducted per year, about two per patient, at a much lower cost of $94 per test.
That will bring the total to about $282,000 a year, roughly a $65,000 increase.
“This incremental increase allows us to offer far more equitable, timely testing to every eligible patient, while significantly reduces the cost per test, dramatically improving the turnaround time for results and providing more efficient treatment and therapy for patients,” Sheils wrote in an email.
Horizon treats about two-thirds of the province’s patients, in southern New Brunswick and Miramichi. Despite the program being offered at one of Horizon’s hospitals, Vitalité patients will also be referred there, covering the whole province.
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Health Minister John Dornan said the in-house testing had another bonus: MS patients won’t need as many MRIs, freeing up the scanning machines for people with other illnesses.
Health Minister John Dornan says New Brunswick is the first province to come up with an innovative research testing method for people suffering from multiple sclerosis. Photo by John Chilibeck/ Brunswick News
“This gives better care for people who are here,” Dornan told reporters. “We had access to testing in other parts of the country, but it was expensive and there were delays.”
It wasn’t long ago that New Brunswick was known for being the only province to help with sham treatment for MS.
Under the Alward Progressive Conservative government in 2011, the province offered patients $2,500 each to seek “liberation therapy,” a now widely discredited treatment to remove blockages from veins for people with MS.
Dozens of patients in New Brunswick sought the treatment in foreign countries, often at great expense, with a $2,500 allowance subsidized by taxpayers.
Dr. Darwich said he was glad the subsidy was gone.
“I personally had patients who had to resell their houses to go outside the country to seek those treatments, which were not very ethical,” he said. “They didn’t respond to treatment. Again, with this new testing being here, it gives patients hope and keeps them one step ahead in following their disease activity and treatment.”
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