Scientists Thought Parkinson’s Was in Our Genes. It Might Be in the Water

Amy Lindberg settled rapidly into beingness astatine Lejeune. She played tennis and ran connected her luncheon breaks, flitting done sprinklers successful the turgid Carolina summers. But thing acheronian was lurking beneath her feet.

Sometime earlier 1953, a monolithic plume of trichlorethylene, oregon TCE, had entered the groundwater beneath Camp Lejeune. TCE is simply a highly effectual solvent—one of those midcentury wonderment chemicals—that vaporizes rapidly and dissolves immoderate grease it touches. The spill’s root is debated, but grunts connected basal utilized TCE to support machinery, and the adust cleaner sprayed it connected formal blues. It was ubiquitous astatine Lejeune and each implicit America.

And TCE appeared benign, too—you could hitch it connected your hands oregon huff its fumes and consciousness nary contiguous effects. It plays a longer game. For astir 35 years, Marines and sailors who lived astatine Lejeune unknowingly breathed successful vaporized TCE whenever they turned connected their tap. The Navy, which oversees the Marine Corps, archetypal denied the toxic plume’s existence, past refused to admit it could impact Marines’ health. But arsenic Lejeune’s vets aged, cancers and unexplained unwellness began stalking them astatine staggering rates. Marines stationed connected basal had a 35 percent higher hazard of processing kidney cancer, a 47 percent higher hazard of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a 68 percent higher hazard of aggregate myeloma. At the section cemetery, the conception reserved for infants had to beryllium expanded.

Meanwhile, Langston had spent the remainder of the 1980s mounting up the California Parkinson’s Foundation (later renamed the Parkinson’s Institute), a laboratory and attraction installation equipped with everything needed to yet uncover the origin of the disease. “We thought we were going to lick it,” Langston told me. Researchers affiliated with the institute created the archetypal carnal exemplary for Parkinson’s, identified a pesticide called Paraquat arsenic a adjacent chemic lucifer to MPTP, and proved that workplace workers who sprayed Paraquat developed Parkinson’s astatine exceedingly precocious rates. Then they showed that identical twins developed Parkinson’s astatine the aforesaid complaint arsenic fraternal twins—something that wouldn’t marque consciousness if the illness were purely genetic, since identical twins stock DNA and fraternal twins bash not. They adjacent noted TCE arsenic a imaginable origin of the disease, Langston says. Each revelation, the squad thought, represented different nail successful the coffin of the familial mentation of Parkinson’s.

But determination was a problem. The Human Genome Project had launched successful 1990, promising to usher successful a caller epoch of personalized medicine. The project’s goal, to place each of the genes successful man, was radical, and by the clip it was completed successful 2000, frothy comparisons to the satellite landing were frequent. Unraveling our genome would “revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention, and attraction of most, if not all, quality diseases,” past president Bill Clinton said.

But for Langston and his colleagues, the Human Genome Project sucked the aerial retired of the biology wellness space. Genetics became the “800-pound gorilla,” arsenic 1 idiosyncratic enactment it. “All the probe dollars went toward genetics,” says Sam Goldman, who worked with Langston connected the duplicate study. “It’s conscionable a batch sexier than epidemiology. It’s the latest gadget, the bigger rocket.” A procreation of young scientists were being trained to deliberation of genetics and genomics arsenic the default spot to look for answers. “I qualify subject arsenic a clump of 5-year-olds playing soccer,” says different researcher. “They each spell wherever the shot is, moving astir the tract successful a herd.” And the shot was decidedly not biology health. “Donors privation a cure,” Langston says. “And they privation it now.”