THE WASHINGTON POST - Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed that he was diagnosed with mercury poisoning around the same time doctors discovered a parasitic worm in his brain, adding to questions about cognitive fitness that have roiled the 2024 campaign.
“It’s not necessarily a problem right away to have this infection, but it’s really when the parasite is starting to die in the brain,” said Simon Groen, assistant professor of evolutionary systems biology at University of California at Riverside, who has researched parasitic worms. “That’s when a lot of molecules are released from the parasite cells that brain cells can respond to with an innate immune response that causes inflammation. And that in turn can lead to neurological disorders like seizures.”