There are certainly a lot of things to be said about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the man pegged by Donald Trump to head up the nation’s health services — ranging from his vocally anti-vax stance to his half-baked and utterly insane conspiracy theories, such as the notion that chemicals in our drinking water are making children transgender.
However, whether you love or hate the guy, there’s one thing about him that is utterly unmistakable — his voice.
Go to the comments section of any video that has RFK Jr. speaking in it, and you’ll find dozens if not hundreds of people asking why he sounds like that.
Kennedy has an undeniable and unmistakable scratchy rasp to his voice — and now we know why.
As noted by Business Insider, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now 71, has revealed in the past that he was diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological condition, in his early 40s.
Speaking with Oprah Winfrey back in 2007, Kennedy said, “It began as a mild tremble for a couple of years,” adding that he believes his condition has worsened over time.
The controversial Trump HHS pick has also claimed to have numerous other health conditions, including his claim to the New York Times that he developed mercury poisoning from eating a diet high in tuna and perch and once contracted a parasite that traveled into his brain — the now-infamous Kennedy brain worm.
Kennedy is also reported to have an irregular heart rhythm (AFib).
The spasmodic dysphonia that is responsible for the controversial politician’s raspy voice is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary spasms in the muscles of the voice box. The condition causes the vocal cords to vibrate abnormally, leading to an unmistakable rasp, horseness, or breathiness in the speaking voice. The condition can also make things like humming, laughing, singing, swallowing, and crying more difficult.
The cause of spasmodic dysphonia remains unknown.
According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, “Spasmodic dysphonia is thought to be caused by abnormal functioning in an area of the brain called the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia help coordinate the movements of muscles throughout the body.”
The NIDCD has further stated that additional research shows abnormalities in areas of the cerebral cortex — the section of the brain that controls muscle movement.
It is possible that spasmodic dysphonia may have a genetic component that allows the disorder to be inherited, but a specific gene related to the disorder has not yet been isolated.
There is NO research to indicate that spasmodic dysphonia is caused by or in any way related to vaccinations, however, that hasn’t stopped Kennedy from suggesting that his condition may have been triggered by a run-of-the-mill flu shot.
Speaking with podcaster Joshua Lane in 2021, RFK Jr. said, “I haven’t been able to figure out any other cause.”
He later went on to tell NBC News that the idea is just “my own speculation.”
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0