Benjamin Bement spent nearly two decades working in a chemical plant before he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at 44 years old.
Now 55, the Louisiana native told DailyMail.com he thinks the nearly daily exposure to dozens of chemicals had something to do with his early-onset diagnosis. The average age of diagnosis for PD is 60.
Mr Bement said during his career he was ‘chronically exposed to miniscule amounts of 60 different chemicals,’ despite being dressed in personal protective equipment, or PPE.
He told this website: ‘After 18 years of working at a chemical plant, I believe the micro exposures I sustained accumulated over time and contributed to my Parkinson’s.’
In recent years, experts have theorized exposure to certain chemicals and factory fumes are to blame for the rise in PD diagnoses in certain areas of the US, where rates of the debilitating disease are nearly 50 percent higher than national averages.
Experts have dubbed southern California, the rustbelt and the sunbelt – which includes Louisiana – America’s ‘Parkinson’s Belt.’
A 2022 study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania identified Parkinson’s clusters in Southern California, Southeastern Texas, Florida and Central Pennsylvania. Most were in or near large industrial or agricultural operations, or both.
These clusters have led researchers like Dr Ray Dorsey, a neurologist at the University of Rochester, to conclude something in the environment must be raising local risk of Parkinson’s disease.
For 18 years, Mr Bement worked at BASF, a chemical company with three manufacturing plants across Louisiana.
Prior to that, Mr Bement worked onboard a US Navy Nuclear Submarine where he handles ‘all of the chemicals to be added to the nuclear and steam plants.’ He had also worked as a radiation safety officer in the oil field.
Looking at his work environments, Mr Bement said he can’t prove anything, but he believes his Parkinson’s disease was ‘like death from a thousand cuts. It was exposure to each small whiff, drop, and splash. It must accumulate.’
Mr Bement said he first began to deal with the symptoms of Parkinson’s while he was working at a BASF chemical plant.
The BASF group produces a wide range of chemicals, along with fertilizers, plastics, synthetic fibers, dyes, inks and printing accessories.
DailyMail.com has reached out to BASF for comment but has not received a response.
Detailing the chain of events that led up to his Parkinson’s diagnosis Mr Bement said: ‘It should be known that Parkinson’s symptoms often “kick in” after a shock to the system.
‘My shock to the system was an adverse reaction to medication.
‘I took a blood pressure medicine and experienced full body hives, and a large fluid build up in my legs. It took a full three weeks to get over the reaction, but I never returned to full normal.’
While the hives subsided and his legs returned to normal, Mr Bement said he was then hit by extreme fatigue and his body felt ‘sluggish.’
He added: ‘I felt like someone was adding weight to my arms and wrists, an additional pound week after week.
‘Eventually, I began to walk with a cane, not due to instability but because I felt like I needed an extra limb just to hold myself up.
‘A 20 minute trek to Walmart felt like a marathon.’
Along with physical symptoms, Mr Bement said he noticed a number of psychological changes and didn’t feel as ‘sharp.’
Aside from the hallmark tremors of Parkinson’s disease, mental and emotional signs may arise, such as depression, anxiety, memory problems and dementia.
Mr Bement said: ‘I also began to notice slowness of thought and lack of remembering things.
‘At the time I was qualifying in a position that required studying and remembering pipe and equipment layouts, how things flowed from point to point, the purpose and limitations of each component. I had little difficulty learning the system 10 years prior.
‘This time around, I would study a section of the plant, go inside and promptly begin to forget everything I had just looked at. I could remember each piece, but I couldn’t link them together. It was as if my mind was a dry erase board.
‘I would write a bunch of things on it, then portions of it would fade away. It was alarming. I was always the one who rarely had to study for a test. Now I couldn’t remember things an hour later.’
Like many sufferers find, it took Mr Bement a long time for his Parkinson’s Disease to be diagnosed.
As there is currently no single or definitive test that can diagnose the disease, doctors find it difficult to pinpoint and there are other conditions that have similar symptoms.
It was after Mr Bement was referred to a movement disorder specialist by a neurologist, that a DaTscan (dopamine transporter scan) confirmed his diagnosis.
A DaTscan – which involves injection of a small amount of a radioactive drug – can show if there is reduced function of the dopamine system in an area of the brain involved in controlling movement.
While Mr Bement believes working in a chemical industrial plant as an operator for almost two decades played a role in his deteriorating health, he does not have any concrete evidence and he says there could be many factors.
He explained: ‘I cannot prove or even theorize what chemicals may or may not have contributed to my Parkinson’s. But the facts remain: I served onboard a US Navy nuclear submarine dealing with all of the chemicals to be added to the nuclear and steam plants.
‘I worked as a radiation safety officer in the oil field for a couple years. I worked in a chemical industrial plant for 18 years.
‘That plant was near or across the Mississippi River from sugar cane fields that used various forms of fertilizer and pest controls.
‘In the plant, we had a truck that would go around and spray all the ditches with a chemical that would prevent any vegetation growth. We weren’t advised to wear any PPE when they sprayed it, although the person spraying it had PPE on.’
Dr Tim Greenamyre, the director of the Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative diseases had been conducting lab studies on one of the chemicals thought to be a factor in Parkinson’s – a pesticide known as Rotenone.
Rotenone is a chemical used across the country as a pesticide on crops and live stock and to manage fish populations, as well as by home gardeners.
It turns out Dr Greenamyre himself had developed the disease he was studying – which has no treatment and slowly erodes the control someone has over their body, eventually, leading to death.
The Pennsylvania doctor suspects he developed the disease because of the very chemicals he was studying in the lab, which could be one of the reasons rates are also so high in his area.
Dr Dorsey, the neurologist at the University of Rochester, told NBC News: ‘If Parkinson’s disease was just due to chance, you wouldn’t expect to see parts of the country or parts of the world that have higher rates than other parts.’
His theory is that the chemicals released from historic factory and farm work have contributed to Parkinson’s risk.
Dr Dorsey’s work focuses on a chemical called trichloroethylene (TCE), a chemical which is used in dry cleaning, de-greasing and the manufacture of disinfectants, dyes, perfumes and soaps.
The EPA clamped down on this chemical in 2023, proposing a ban on all uses of TCE, which it deemed ‘extremely toxic.’ It has been linked to cancer, nerve damage and reproductive problems.
In a 2023 study, Dr Dorsey said studies have also linked the chemical to a 500 percent increased risk of developing Parkinson’s.
Experts are unsure how the chemical might do this, but suggest it could change the way that brain cells use energy, the study said.
While Parkinson’s has impacted Mr Bement’s life in many ways, with shaking, stiffness and bad balance being among his symptoms, the veteran says he likes to maintain a positive attitude and he has become an advocate for the Parkinson’s Foundation in a bid to help others.
He told DailyMail.com: ‘Parkinson’s has changed my life. In fact, my wife Kelly and I agree that it may have been the best thing that ever happened to me.
‘Not in the sense that I now face difficult challenges, but before, I was truly only working for a paycheck.
‘I would work just about all the overtime I could. As a result, I was either working or recovering from working.
‘I never saw my son or family members. No amount of vacation was long enough to rejuvenate. Who knows? Perhaps the chronic stress of working so much had an effect as well.
Mr Bement continued: ‘Now, I am surrounded by people who battle Parkinson’s every day. They are doing things they aren’t supposed to be able to do. Those are miracles.
‘I prefer to stay in the moment serving others and celebrating victories rather than dwelling on what I can’t prove or blame what put me here. I choose joy. I choose serving others. I choose celebrating what I can still do versus what I can’t.’
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