amy lindberg settled Take a quick dive into Lejeune’s life. She played tennis and ran through sprinklers during her lunch breaks in the harsh Carolina summers. But something black was hidden beneath his feet.
Some time before 1953, a huge plume of trichlorethylene, or TCE, entered the groundwater beneath Camp Lejeune. TCE is a highly effective solvent – one of those wonder chemicals of the mid-century – that quickly vaporizes and dissolves whatever grease it touches. The source of the leak is debated, but grunts at the base used TCE to maintain the machinery, and dry cleaners sprayed it on dress blues. It was ubiquitous in Lejeune and throughout the United States.
And TCE also appeared to be benign — you could rub it on your hands or inhale its smoke and feel no immediate effects. It plays a long game. For nearly 35 years, Marines and sailors living in Lejeune unwittingly breathed vaporized TCE whenever they turned on their faucets. The Navy, which oversees the Marine Corps, at first denied the existence of toxic plumes, then refused to acknowledge that it could affect the health of Marines. But as Lejeune’s veterinarians aged, cancer and unexplained illnesses began to follow them at surprising rates. Marines stationed at the 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 myeloma. In the local cemetery, the section reserved for infants had to be expanded.
Meanwhile, Langston spent the remainder of the 1980s establishing the California Parkinson Foundation (later renamed the Parkinson Institute), a laboratory and treatment facility equipped with everything needed to finally reveal the cause of the disease. “We thought we were going to solve it,” Langston told me. Researchers associated with the institute created the first animal model for Parkinson’s, identified a pesticide called paraquat that is a near match to MPTP, and proved that farm workers sprayed with paraquat developed Parkinson’s at extremely high rates. They then showed that identical twins develop Parkinson’s at the same rate as fraternal twins – something that would not make sense if the disease were entirely genetic, because identical twins share DNA and fraternal twins do not. They also noted TCE as a possible cause of the disease, Langston says. Each revelation, the team thought, represented another nail in the coffin of Parkinson’s genetic theory.
But there was a problem. The Human Genome Project was launched in 1990, promising to usher in a new era of personalized medicine. The project’s goal, to identify all of man’s genes, was revolutionary and when it was completed in 2000, it frequently drew frothy comparisons to the moon landing. Then-President Bill Clinton said that uncovering our genome would “revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of most, if not all, human diseases.”
But for Langston and his colleagues, the Human Genome Project blew up the environmental health field. As one scientist put it, genetics became “the 800-pound gorilla.” “All the research money went toward genetics,” says Sam Goldman, who worked on the twin study with Langston. “It’s much more erotic than epidemiology. It’s 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 find answers. “I picture science as a group of 5-year-olds playing soccer,” says another researcher. “They all go to where the ball is, running in groups around the field.” And the ball was definitely not environmentally friendly. “Donors want a cure,” says Langston. “And they want it now.”
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