Study links dry cleaner proximity to 14% higher Parkinson's risk

A study of nearly 19 million Medicare records has quietly surfaced a troubling geography of risk: older Americans living within 500 feet of a dry cleaner face a 14 percent greater likelihood of developing Parkinson's disease, with risk fading as distance grows. The suspected agents — chlorinated solvents TCE and PCE — are not fleeting presences but persistent ones, lingering in soil and groundwater for decades even after the facilities that released them have closed. Researchers at Barrow Neurological Institute frame this as part of a broader reckoning with how the built and chemical environme