-
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a 2012 statement that he has a worm in his brain.
-
A key tenet of Kennedy’s long-distance campaign was comparing his health Trump and Biden.
-
The New York Times reported that he was also hospitalized four times for atrial fibrillation.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a decade-old statement that he believed he had a dead worm in his brain.
First reported by The New York Times on Wednesday, Kennedy brought up the worm in a 2012 statement during his divorce proceedings with his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy.
“I clearly have cognitive problems,” he said at the time. “I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me.”
He also noted in the statement, the Times reported, that he had been diagnosed with mercury poisoning around the same time. Mercury poisoning can also cause neurological problems.
The problems of both ailments, he argued at the time of his divorce, affected his ability to make money.
He recently told the Times that he no longer has memory problems.
In the statement, Kennedy said he visited several neurologists in 2010 to determine the cause of his blurriness. While some doctors thought he had a brain tumor, someone thought there was a worm in his brain.
Kennedy said the doctor told him his brain scan showed no tumor, but that the dark spot “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate part of it and then died.”
Kennedy’s brain and mercury problems weren’t the only health problems he’s had over the years: As the Times noted, he has been hospitalized four times for atrial fibrillation, a condition in which the heart beats fast and out of rhythm. In the 2012 statement, Kennedy said he once had to have his heart shocked by doctors to get it to beat in sync again.
The Times report on Kennedy’s health problems contrasts with the way he portrays himself in his long bid to win the White House. The 70-year-old has positioned himself as a physically and mentally fitter candidate than 81-year-old President Joe Biden and 77-year-old former President Donald Trump. He even included a shirtless outdoor workout.
“Mr. Kennedy traveled extensively in Africa, South America and Asia in his work as an environmental activist, and contracted a parasite in one of those locations,” Stefanie Spear, press secretary for the Kennedy campaign, told Business Insider. “The problem was resolved more than a decade ago and he is in strong physical and mental health. Questioning Mr. Kennedy’s health is a hilarious suggestion given his competition.”
Kennedy hasn’t polled high enough to pose a significant threat to topple Biden or Trump and take over the job themselves, but he has siphoned off enough support to hurt their campaigns in swing states.
Several of Kennedy’s backers have an inordinate amount of power and wealth, such as billionaire Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and PayPal founder and director David Sacks.
Read the original article on Business Insider
