Tapeworms have been making headlines ever since an investigation by The New York Times turned up a deposition Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave in 2012. In it, the independent candidate running for president claimed doctors found a one inside his brain. Infectious disease experts and neurosurgeons that the Times spoke with agreed that it was likely a common pork tapeworm. Or rather, a cyst created by pork tapeworm larvae.
I’m particularly interested in this topic because I, too, had a tapeworm. How do you catch such an infection?
I called Philip K. Budge, Associate Professor of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, to find out. Budge sees patients with parasite infections in the university’s infectious disease clinic, and conducts research into parasitic worms in Africa. He also helped the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) investigate and respond to parasitic diseases in his former role in the Epidemic Intelligence Service.
“In areas where pork are infected with Taenia solium [the technical name for the pork tapeworm], if you eat undercooked pork, you get a tapeworm in your gut,” Budge says. “Having a…
