Following the stock market turmoil after the April 2, 2025, announcement of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on foreign imports, a rumor spread online that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the economic crash could be reversed if investors drank cod liver oil.
Social media users on X, Facebook and LinkedIn shared the claim, prompting Snopes readers to reach out to ask if it was true that Kennedy made such a comment.
One X user posted a screenshot of a link to an article, including text that claimed the health secretary also said: "Stocks are crashing because investors are in a bad mood, and the reason they are in a bad mood is because they are not getting enough Omega-3 fatty acids." The user captioned the post: "He's out of his ever living mind!"
(X user @Suzierizzo1)
The article in the screenshot originated from the The Borowitz Report newsletter. It was published on April 7, 2025, and was titled: "RFK Jr. Says Stock Market Crash Could be Reversed if Investors Drink Cod Liver Oil." The copy read:
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Offering a remedy to last week's devastating crash on global stock markets, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Monday that the plummeting trend could be reversed if investors would drink high doses of cod liver oil.
"Stocks are crashing because investors are in a bad mood, and the reason they are in a bad mood is because they are not getting enough Omega-3 fatty acids," he said. "This is what caused the Great Depression."
Bolstering the credibility of his suggestion, he added, "Dr. Oz [the TV physician] is with me on this."
Kennedy's prescription, however, was met with skepticism from financial experts, who noted that tariffs on cod liver oil had made the liquid virtually unaffordable.
However, The Borowitz Report describes its output as satirical in nature. Its about page states that it is a "satirical news" site and that the author, Andy Borowitz, has been writing "news satire" on the internet since the early 2000s.
Some readers seemed to interpret the rumor as true. However, a Google News search using the terms "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cod liver oil" produced no results indicating that Kennedy ever actually said the stock market slump was due to financiers lacking omega-3 fatty acids.
The fictional story spread as the U.S. economy was rattled by Trump's April 2, 2025, tariff announcements, prompting U.S. stocks to plummet to their lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic. Kennedy, who is the top health official in the U.S., has previously faced scrutiny for comments he has made regarding health matters. In late January 2025, Snopes investigated whether he said that COVID-19 was "ethnically targeted," and in early April, we looked into his historic suggestions that there was "strong" evidence vaccines caused the 1918 Spanish flu.
Snopes has reported on similar satirical claims from The Borowitz Report in the past, including a fabricated rumor that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth crashed a tank into the Pentagon and another satirical claim that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said the best part about heaven was knowing Trump would not be there.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.