Earlier this week, President Donald Trump done went and announced that he gonna nominate Dr. Casey Means for U.S. surgeon general, takin’ over from his previous pick, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, ’cause there be some questions ’bout her credentials n’ all. Means been all up in that “Make America Healthy Again” movement backed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Prez, in a post on social media, said Means gonna team up with Kennedy “to make sure our Agenda gets put into action real good to turn around the Chronic Disease Epidemic and guarantee Great Health for ALL Americans in the future.”Means calls herself a “former surgeon turned metabolic health evangelist” who be tryna make the world and planet a happier and healthier place. Let’s dig into what we know ’bout Means’ background and what she thinks ’bout different health topics.Medical backgroundMeans graduated from Stanford University back in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in human biology and a doctor of medicine degree from Stanford School of Medicine in 2014, according to her LinkedIn profile. She was over at Oregon Health and Science University as a resident physician with the goal of becomin’ an otolaryngology surgeon, also known as a head and neck surgeon, but she dropped out durin’ her fifth year.”While I was trainin’ as a surgeon, I saw how messed up and exploitative the healthcare system is and bailed to focus on keepin’ folks outta the operatin’ room,” she wrote on her website.Means then shifted her focus to studyin’ functional medicine, which aims to prevent disease and illness. She ain’t board-certified in a medical specialty. Her medical license is currently listed as inactive by the Oregon Medical Board.After leavin’ the residency, she did some guest lecturin’ at Stanford for less than a year and was an associate editor at the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention for two and a half years, as per LinkedIn. Along the way, she co-founded Levels, an app that lets people track their food and biometric data like sleep and glucose monitoring to see how their diet affects their health.Rise to prominenceMeans co-authored a book with her brother, Calley Means, called “Good Energy,” which got published in May 2024 and supposedly looks at why Americans be sick and how to fix it. The Means siblings made appearances on podcasts, includin’ The Tucker Carlson Show in August 2024 and The Joe Rogan Experience in October 2024.On Tucker Carlson’s show, Casey Means said birth control bein’ handed out like candy and that Ozempic got a “stranglehold on the U.S. population.”The siblings gained attention within the Trump campaign and among Trump allies, includin’ Kennedy. They showed up at a September 2024 roundtable discussion on health with Kennedy hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc.”The message I’m here to share and reiterate is that American health is gettin’ destroyed,” Casey Means said durin’ her openin’ remarks. “It’s bein’ destroyed ’cause of chronic illness.”Meanwhile, Calley Means is currently workin’ as a White House senior adviser and special government employee. He been workin’ closely with Kennedy and has been supportin’ many of his health proposals.Controversial viewsMeans’ views align with Kennedy’s focus on tacklin’ the chronic disease epidemic, improvin’ the food supply, and expressin’ some vaccine skepticism. She been callin’ for gettin’ rid of ultra-processed foods in school lunches and pushin’ for organic, regenerative foods in school meals.In 2021, she wrote in a post that glucose “as a molecule has caused more destruction of the human mind and body than any other substance in human history.”Glucose be a naturally occurring molecule that our body needs for energy.Means been skeptical ’bout the safety of childhood vaccines and has called for more research on the “safety of the cumulative effects” of vaccines when followin’ the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine schedule, as she wrote in her Good Energy newsletter.”There be growin’ evidence that the total burden of the current extreme and growin’ vaccine schedule be causin’ health declines in vulnerable children. This needs to be looked into,” she continued.She also criticized the administration of the hepatitis B vaccine among infants, which is recommended by the CDC.There ain’t no evidence right now suggestin’ that childhood vaccines or the current CDC vaccine schedule be unsafe.
