Why the brain worm went viral
🧠 🪱 Taenia solium, or pork tapeworm, is the most likely former inhabitant of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s brain. Taenia is Latin for “band” or “ribbon” because these worms are usually quite flat.
Issue #86: keeping corporate promises, a creativity tip, and layered writing
By Harris Sockel
Three weeks ago, two words entered my consciousness that I haven’t been able to forget: brain worm. In a 2012 deposition analyzed by the New York Times, U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. uttered this terrifying sentence: “A worm… got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.”
Oh no.
It was a single line spoken 12 years ago, but the idea of a worm chomping away at a brain (sorry) and then dying (of exhaustion? starvation? satiation?) was so captivating it was repeated for weeks by journalists and pundits. It was even used by RFK Jr. himself, who bragged that he could eat 5 more worms (please don’t) and still win the presidency.
On Medium, one writer calls the context-less coverage a case of journalistic malpractice: “The available information is extremely vague, with only a few sentences of the deposition quoted in news articles, none of which come from a medical professional.”
He cites a neurologist who clarifies that it wasn’t a full-grown worm but a tiny worm larva (only a few millimeters long). Parasite larvae don’t actually “eat” much brain tissue; instead, if they end up in the brain, your immune system will form tiny cysts around them, killing the larva before they can do much damage. (RFK Jr.’s larva died, remember?) These cysts are what cause symptoms — usually seizures — not the larva themselves. The World Health Organization estimates that between 2 and 8 million people have this condition, called neurocysticercosis. Many are asymptomatic.
A computational biologist on Medium adds more context: Humans are the definitive host of T. solium tapeworms (the species likely in RFK’s brain), meaning they can reproduce only inside us (sorry) after we eat undercooked pork. They need us to survive! Their genes reveal an ancestor dating back 1 million years, meaning humans and T. solium tapeworms have had a symbiotic relationship since the very earliest hominids.
What else we’re reading
- Companies that succeed make a direct promise to their customers — we will do [insert thing] for you — and they follow through on it. Tangible promises are effective (FedEx: “when it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”) but emotional promises are even better (DeBeers: “a diamond is forever”).
- I keep thinking back to this story by designer Kelly Smith about how to be more creative: Simply connect things that don’t typically go together.
- Essayist Steph Lawson (featured in a previous issue) is still on a quest to spend 100 days at the library. This time, she visits the chic Beverly Hills Library (palm fronds, art deco light fixtures, aspiring screenwriters huddled over laptops) and observes that “libraries are simply microcosms of the communities they serve.”
📝 Your daily dose of practical wisdom: about writing in layers
“Like great paintings, [writing] comes to life bit by bit,” as you approach it from different angles with each revision.
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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis
Questions, feedback, or story suggestions? Email us: tips@medium.com
