If you've been on the political side of Twitter / X any time in the past 10 years, you've likely encountered the insult "brain worms" used to describe an addled politician or pundit.

The idea is that the insultee is so dumb that a parasitic worm must be eating their brain. However, this was said in jest, and no one who was jokingly accused of having "brain worms" actually had them. Until now.

This morning, the New York Times reported that longshot Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. literally had a brain worm in 2010. Kennedy admitted this in a 2012 divorce proceeding deposition, saying a doctor diagnosed the parasite when Kennedy was experiencing cognitive problems such as memory loss.

The memory loss “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” the now-70-year-old Kennedy stated. He also testified to experiencing neurological problems due to mercury poisoning caused by his love for tunafish sandwiches.

A major tenant of Kennedy's appeal to voters has been his relative virility compared to Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who have both faced questions about their age and cognitive ability to do the job of president.

The report inspired jokes and memes on social media, as Kennedy has long been a controversial figure in American politics due to his anti-vaccination rhetoric, which coincidentally became one of his major passions in the years after he said a parasite ate part of his brain.

At the time of writing, Kennedy is polling around 10 percent nationally, 30 points behind both Trump and Biden.