I Am the Brain Worm

And I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.

Look, I don’t like the limelight, but I have to speak out because at this point it’s about my reputation, too.

Word is getting out about these weekly MAHA media calls, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s embarrassing. Shirtless Russell Brand? “Fluoride disconnects one from God?”

When I set up shop in here (that is, in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s cerebrum), I thought I had it made. A brain juicy with generational wealth and privilege, stable with smug complacency and none of that acrid stress-hormone tang. He was in his politics era but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and in general the son of a fading dynasty is a “no harm, no foul” situation for brain worms. He isn’t going to miss his grey matter and neither will the world.

But then my host had to go and get in with the MAGA crowd. He kissed the fool’s-gold ring and was rewarded with a fiefdom that turned out to be all of Health and Human Services.

America, I’m sorry—it’s just not what you expect from a hard-living nepo baby on the downswing of a checkered career. Yes, I saw the autism conspiracy thinking taking corrosively strong root, but I never thought my host would be in a position to force national institutions to mirror his own brain rot.

If there’s one thing I know, it’s what happens when you eat away at the brain of a thing. It doesn’t just die right away—and you don’t need to take my word for it, as much as my host is Exhibit A. Decerebrate cats, for instance, can keep walking around and seeking food, seeming to the outside observer something close to functional while really being in a kind of twilight autopilot, unable to take in new information or respond to threats.

I’m sorry to bring household pets into this (unlike my host, I am an animal person), but the decerebrate cat was a favorite metaphor of a management guru I like. He said that organizations can be decerebrate, too, and what that looks like is slowly disempowering those who actually know how to do their jobs while papering over the Swiss cheese tissue of a less and less functional institution.

In other words, it looks a lot like Dr. Oz saying on a recent MAHA media call,

“To me, MAHA is primarily about being curious.” “If you really are curious, you’ll ask real questions about things that matter.” “And you have to be courageous enough to share what you learn with others.” “If you’re a true scientist, you’re always asking questions, you’re always kicking the tires, you’re always double checking.”

…all in the shadow of the Trump administration laying off scores of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists, canceling grants for lifesaving National Institutes of Health research, and defunding vital public health services.

Who are these true scientists, Dr. Oz? Russell Brand in the bathtub? The member of The Pussycat Dolls who said the COVID vaccine made her dance worse? My host is no scientist, I’ll tell you that much.

While I’m on the record, I’d like to make clear that I’m not anti-vax. Do you know what kind of havoc long COVID can wreak on a brain? Or measles? Meningitis? Tetanus? I’m looking out for my health, and diseased tissue gives me indigestion.

Some of you might be saying I’m not blameless, and I won’t deny it. It’s very possible some of the neurons I’ve munched were responsible for my host’s critical thinking faculties. I wouldn’t know. I’m not a scientist either.

But I’m tired of sitting here in headquarters getting blamed as the mastermind of my host’s bad decisions. Believe me, he’s still got a mind of his own.

What I can’t figure out is what everyone else is thinking.

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