On Wednesday, following controversy about inconsistencies in her résumé, President Trump withdrew his nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat to become Surgeon General, and gave the nod to alternative medicine practitioner and author Dr. Casey Means.
“Her academic achievements, together with her life’s work, are absolutely outstanding,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Dr. Casey Means has the potential to be one of the finest Surgeon Generals in United States History.”
Her academic achievements include dropping out of a medical residency in otolaryngology because, she says, she was frustrated that the discipline did not focus on “root causes.” Means’ medical license is inactive, according to Oregon medical board records.
Means’ medical opining has occasionally veered in a New Age direction.
Her life’s work includes co-founding Levels, a business that sells glucose monitors, co-writing the book Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health, and promoting an eight-day online course on metabolic health.
Means has promoted the idea that the national epidemic of chronic disease is attributable to diet and lifestyle choices, an argument that largely echoes the talking points of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. That’s no coincidence: both Means and her brother Calley, who describes himself as a lobbyist and evangelist for healthy food, played a central role in advising Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Calley Means, who now works with Kennedy as a White House health advisor, is said to be assisting with the creation of a “Make America Healthy Again” commission, set to focus on chronic disease and preventable illnesses in children—meaning ones influenced by lifestyle factors like diabetes, rather than vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles. Last September, at a four-hour Senate hour roundtable hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) that was meant to welcome Kennedy’s MAHA movement to the GOP fold, the senator hailed Casey “the person who is the catalyst for this event.”
In her writing and speaking gigs, Casey Means highlights the importance of metabolic health, an enthusiasm for many alternative health practitioners. Like many of them, she assigns a mystically important role to the gut: In Good Energy, Means states that “conditions like depression and schizophrenia” are “tied to poor gut bacteria,” adding that “researchers can identify a person with depression or schizophrenia just by analyzing their gut bacteria composition.” (The study Means appears to be citing specifically says that more research is needed to determine whether there’s a causal link between schizophrenia and the gut microbiome.) She’s also hailed raw dairy, writing how she wants “to be free to form a relationship with a local farmer, understand his integrity, look him in the eyes, pet his cow, and then decide if I feel safe to drink the milk from his farm.”
But Means’ medical opining has occasionally veered in a more New Age direction. She has claimed that “the universe” speaks to her and that people can “manifest” what they want by writing it down. “Perhaps the body is simply the material ‘radio receiver’ through which we can ‘tune in’ to the divine,” she wrote in an October 2024 newsletter. “We will get instructions (through human inspiration and reason) for what we need to do to raise the vibration of humanity and create a sustainable future… The future of medicine will be about light. I don’t exactly know how yet.”
“Humans are out of alignment with the Earth and depleting its life force,” she wrote the next month. “And human bodies are now exhibiting signs of blocking the flow of energy through them. This is insulin resistance. We are the Earth.”
Means’ track record of statements about medicine and health that aren’t backed by science are troubling to Jonathan Jarry, a science communicator at McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. He noted that Means’ treatment modality of choice, functional medicine, is not a recognized medical specialty, and that it often involves unnecessary tests and unproven supplement regimens. Functional medicine is “using a veneer of medicine to sell supplements in the hope that these fix a patient’s health problems,” he said. “It is not evidence based.” Jarry was “appalled, yet not surprised in the slightest” about her nomination, which, he said, “shows a continuing disregard for expertise and an embrace of make believe.”
It’s not just people in the scientific community who are displeased with Means’ nomination. Despite seemingly crowd-pleasing views on topics like life forces and raw milk, some of Kennedy’s allies in the anti-vaccine and alternative health worlds have intimated that they see the Means siblings as sinister functionaries of Big Pharma, Big Food, or something much worse. Some of those people greeted Means’ nomination with outrage and dark suspicion, with many claiming Dr. Kelly Victory, a health influencer and ivermectin fan, was Kennedy’s preferred choice.
“I was promised that if I supported RFK Jr…. neither of these siblings would be working… (and that people much more qualified would be).”
Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, the founder of the anti-vaccine group Americans for Health Freedom, tweeted that Victory had told her she was being chosen for the position last week, but that she ultimately “was passed over because of her outspoken stance against the mRNA shots. Clearly RFK has no power.” Several other major anti-vaccine figures also tweeted their anger that Victory hadn’t been chosen, including Steve Kirsch, a wealthy Silicon Valley figure turned anti-vaccine crusader. “As surgeon general, @DrKellyVictory would have advocated to pull the mRNA shots from the market immediately,” he tweeted. “Probably why she was not selected. Trump does not want those shots to be pulled.”
Kennedy’s former running mate Nicole Shanahan also expressed immediate displeasure, tweeting that Means’ nomination was “very strange,” as she hinted at a longtime distrust of the Means siblings.
“Doesn’t make any sense,” she wrote. “I was promised that if I supported RFK Jr. in his Senate confirmation that neither of these siblings would be working under HHS or in an appointment (and that people much more qualified would be). I don’t know if RFK very clearly lied to me, or what is going on. It has been clear in recent conversations that he is reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions (and it isn’t President Trump). With regards to the siblings, there is something very artificial and aggressive about them, almost like they were bred and raised Manchurian assets.”
Shanahan didn’t respond to a request for comment about whose “Manchurian assets” she believes the Means siblings to be.
Shanahan’s tweet was, in turn, a quote tweet of Dr. Suzanne Humphries, an osteopathic physician who’s been critical of vaccines. (Humphries appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast last month to promote those views.) Humphries, too, was critical of Means as a choice, tweeting, “I can’t help but think this is a very carefully groomed and selected person. Just about no clinical experience. Talks a great game about everything but vaccines. Feels all wrong. Why? There were so many better choices.”
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.