Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has had a series of health problems lately, including an anomaly that he said was attributable to a worm that invaded his brain after which died. The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
In 2010, Kennedy, now 70, suffered from severe memory loss and mental numbness, he said in a deposition two years later. According to the Times, he consulted with leading neurologists conversant in the medical history of his uncle, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died of brain cancer in 2009. That's what a New York doctor told him after examining a scan of his brain. His health problems “may have been caused by a worm that entered my brain, ate part of it and then died,” Kennedy said within the 2012 statement discussing his divorce from his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy. Robert Kennedy said on the time that his earning potential had been negatively affected by the cognitive problems, the Times reported.
Around the identical time, the Times said, he suffered from mercury poisoning, which might cause neurological problems resembling lack of peripheral vision, muscle weakness and problems with movement, hearing and speech, in addition to memory loss. Kennedy told the newspaper he had recovered from the memory loss and brain numbness and that the parasite didn’t require treatment.
In addition, he has struggled with atrial fibrillation, or A-fib, an irregular heartbeat, for a long time. He told the Times it had been greater than a decade since he contracted the disease and said he believed he not suffered from it.
Kennedy's campaign declined to supply the Times together with his medical records. In a press release to CNN, Stefanie Spear, a spokeswoman for Kennedy's campaign, said he “traveled extensively throughout Africa, South America and Asia” as a part of his work as an environmentalist and have become infected with a parasite during one among those trips.
“The problem was resolved greater than 10 years ago and he’s in robust physical and mental health. Questioning Mr. Kennedy's health is a hilarious suggestion given his competition,” the campaign said, referring to the advanced ages of 81-year-old President Joe Biden and 77-year-old former President Donald Trump.
In his first public comments after the report's release, Kennedy said in a Social media post offered to “eat five more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate.”
“I'm confident in the result, even with a handicap of six worms,” he joked.
Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious disease expert and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told CNN that it would be difficult to fully verify Kennedy's claim without looking at the scans. “It’s an incomplete story,” as he put it.
In general, however, Hotez said people with pork tapeworm infections in the brain – a condition known as neurocysticercosis – are more likely to experience seizures and sometimes need to take anti-seizure medication for a longer period of time because the worms form a calcification cyst in the brain when they die, which leads to this can cause the brain to release inflammatory chemicals called cytokines.
The connection to memory problems and dementia is currently being investigated, Hotez said. These symptoms have also been linked to mercury poisoning, and Kennedy told the Times that he had been consuming large amounts of tuna and bass at the time he was diagnosed with the disease.
“Yes, the worms don’t feed the brain. They live in the brain,” said Dr. Hotez. The worms obtain nutrients from the body but do not eat the brain tissue, he said.
Pork tapeworm infections can be difficult to diagnose because when the worm is alive, it masks itself and does not show up on scans. It's more common to find the worm after it dies, leaving behind a calcified cyst in the brain, Hotez said.
Kennedy said he made lifestyle changes after these health episodes, including sleeping more, traveling less, reducing his fish consumption and undergoing chelation therapy, which aims to eliminate metals in the body.
Kennedy's views on personal health, including his longstanding skepticism about certain vaccines, are a defining feature of his public image. He has denied claims that he is “anti-vaccination,” although he’s the founding father of Children's Health Defense, a bunch that has been accused of spreading falsehoods about vaccines.
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