Editor's note: This post originally published on May 9 and has been updated. "A worm ..
. got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died." These are words nobody wants to say.
They were spoken by a U.S. presidential candidate and President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
According to a 2012 deposition, uncovered and reviewed by The New York Times in May, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he sought medical attention after experiencing mental fogginess and memory loss.
Eventually, he said, a doctor helped him determine a brain abnormality found on a scan was caused by a worm. He now tells The Times he has recovered with no long lasting consequences. The story has created a lot of buzz in the world of politics.
But it's not just a story about one politician's health history. The World Health Organization estimates over a billion people are infected with parasitic worms. The implications are often serious and lifelong.
NPR spoke with Francisca Mutapi , a professor of global health infection and immunity at the University of Edinburgh who has studied parasites for 25 years. She shared her insights on what might have happened to RFK Jr. — and the toll that parasitic worms take around the world.
The conversation was edited for length and clarity. Let's start with RFK Jr. What we know about his particular case is vague.
Do you have an instinct about what this worm might have been and how he might have been infected with it? So I hav.