Scientists thought that Parkinson’s was in our minds. It could be in the water

Amy Lindberg settled down Fast forward to life in Lejeune. He played tennis and ran on his lunch break, drawn by the sprinklers of Turgid Carolina in the summer. But something dark filled under his feet.

Some time before 1953, a large layer of Trickorethylene, or TCE, had entered the ground water below the lejee camp. TCE is a very effective solvent – one of those midcentcent levels of chemicals – that quickly dissolves and reduces whatever the grease touches. The source of the spill is disputed, but the grunts at the base are used for the last preservation of the equipment, and the clean one sprinkled on the dress blues. It was a war in Lejene and all over America.

And TCE came from Berign, too – you can rub it on your hands or inhale its fumes and not feel immediate results. It’s playing the long game. For nearly 35 years, marines and sailors living in Lejeune have unknowingly breathed in Vaporized Tce whenever they wake up at the tap. The Navy, which smokes marine corpses, first denied that the plume was toxic, then refused to admit that it could affect marine life. But as Lejeune’s vets got older, drugs and unexplained illnesses began to beckon them in surprising numbers. Marines stationed on base had a 35 percent higher risk of developing kidney cancer, a 47 percent higher risk of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a 68 percent higher risk of multiple MULMELOMA. In the local cemetery, the section reserved for infants had to be expanded.

Meanwhile, Langston had spent the rest of the 1980s setting up the California Parkinson’s Foundation (later renamed The Parkinson’s Institute), a laboratory and treatment facility equipped with everything necessary to finally reveal the cause of the disease. “We thought we were going to settle,” Langston told me. Investigators affiliated with the Institute created the first animal model of Parkinson’s, identified a pesticide called paraquat as a chemical match close to MPPP, Then they showed that identical twins developed Parkinson’s at the same rate as foraternal twins – something that would have made sense if the disease was not identical, because identical twins share. They even noted that they are a possible cause of the disease, Langston said. Each revelation, the team reasoned, represented another nail in the coffin of the Parkinson’s genetics concept.

But there was a problem. The Human Genome Project was launched in 1990, ushering in a new era of personalized medicine. The goal of the project, to identify all the genes in a person, was interesting, and when it was completed in the year 2000, frothy comparisons in the moon’s offerings were common. Unraveling our genome “would revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of many, if not all, human diseases,” said President Bill Clinton.

But Langston and his colleagues, the human project took a breather outside the realm of environmental health. The icons became “800-porilla,” as some scientists put it. Sam Goldyman says: “All the research dollars are going towards Genemen. “It’s more gendered than epidemiology. The latest gadget, the big rocket.” A generation of young scientists was being trained to think of genetics and genomics as the default place to look for answers. “I picture science as a bunch of five-year-olds playing football,” said one researcher. “They all go where the ball is, running around the field in a herd.” And the ball was blocking environmental health. “Donors want a cure,” said Langston. “And they want it now.”