A sequence of tumultuous well being coverage modifications appear to have shaken religion in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s quest to deal with persistent illness and query science.
Fifty-nine % of Americans now disapprove of the Health and Human Services secretary’s efficiency, in line with a KFF poll launched final week.
And six surgeons general from Democratic and Republican administrations, together with President Donald Trump’s first time period, say he’s “endangering the health of the nation.” Jerome Adams, Trump’s surgeon general from his first time period, even mentioned he should be fired.
Dr. Casey Means, Trump’s nominee for the put up, would play a key function in making an attempt to convince Americans that Kennedy is, in reality, “Making America Healthy Again.”
Young, Stanford-educated and a medical physician, Means is well-connected to the MAHA motion as the writer of a best-selling ebook, “Good Energy,” a wellness entrepreneur and a detailed Kennedy ally.
She has additionally questioned established science, however casts that stance as one in every of empowerment – telling individuals they need to take cost of their very own well being and push for solutions.
And the 38-year-old Means has vital backers. Besides Kennedy, White House deputy chief of workers Stephen Miller and his spouse Katie Miller, a former Trump spokesperson turned podcaster, are early allies in the second administration.
“It was becoming a new mom, I would say, that radicalized me in the health space,” Katie Miller instructed NCS. “That’s when I came across Casey and Calley and their book, ‘Good Energy.’ And kind of used it like my food Bible.”
Trump’s chief of workers Susie Wiles was additionally influenced by the message of “Good Energy,” two sources accustomed to the White House dynamics mentioned.
Surgeons general can play an outsized function in shaping the public consciousness on well being. Past ones have pushed for initiatives from warning labels on alcohol to e-cigarette regulation.
A 1964 report commissioned by then-surgeon general Luther Terry on tobacco propelled Congress to require warning labels on cigarettes.
That, in the end, is the degree of affect that may include the place, mentioned Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit client advocacy group.
Lurie and CSPI oppose Means’ nomination, citing her lack of medical expertise and positions resembling skepticism on vaccines and contraception use, and the perception in singular causes of autism, that are all aligned with the MAHA motion however outdoors the mainstream of science.
“She’s a monumentally unqualified person. It’s such a high-profile position, from a symbolic point of view, [that] it’s just tremendously worrying,” Lurie instructed NCS. “Then the question is, what will she do with that position?”
Trump named Means as his surgeon general nominee in May after his first nominee, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, was abruptly withdrawn amid questions over her credentials. Asked by a reporter why he picked Means, Trump replied: “Because Bobby thought she was fantastic.”
Means and her brother, Calley, a lobbyist turned MAHA supporter and Kennedy adviser, have lengthy been a part of the secretary’s inside circle.
Casey Means, who didn’t reply to NCS’s requests for remark, has usually instructed the story of her conversion to the trigger. The daughter of a former HHS and White House adviser, she rose to fame as a West Coast-based guru of other, holistic therapeutic.
In “Good Energy,” co-written together with her brother, she describes waking as much as the issues of the country’s medical system after attending Stanford Medical School after which leaving an Oregon medical residency she was months away from ending.
“I felt an overwhelming conviction that I couldn’t cut into another patient until I figured out why — despite the monumental size and scope of our health care system — the patients and people around me were sick in the first place,” she writes in the memoir, printed final 12 months.
The ebook earned her followers amongst wellness advocates, meals coverage activists, and ultimately, on the political proper.
A Tucker Carlson interview in August 2024 has racked up over 3.8 million views on YouTube, making it one in every of Carlson’s most-watched interviews of the previous 12 months.
That was adopted by interviews on “The Joe Rogan Experience” (1.9 million YouTube views), actuality star Kristin Cavallari’s “Let’s Be Honest” podcast (episode title: “Plastic in Our Brains?!”), and “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
“I’ve met very few people like Casey,” Carlson instructed Kelly when he individually appeared on her present shortly after his interview with the duo.
When Kennedy endorsed Trump final August, the MAHA motion, and the Means siblings, have been thrust additional into the highlight. Kennedy name-checked each as he rallied voters about kids’s well being, “an issue that affects all of us far more directly and urgently than any culture war issue.”
By that time, Casey Means was writing a well-liked publication named after her ebook. One of her last dispatches was a want record for presidency well being coverage that reads like an early draft of Kennedy’s eventual MAHA fee report — bans on conflicts of curiosity in authorities funded analysis, reforms to high school and welfare meals packages, and restrictions on pharmaceutical promoting, amongst different issues.
“Her and Calley and Bobby…a lot of people in HHS have a certain sort of star power or cultural cache, or whatever you want to call it, that I think enables them to reach a broader audience and maybe penetrate a little bit more broadly than that is the norm,” mentioned Emma Post, a former MAHA Action spokesperson and supporter of Means’s nomination.
Loyalties and controversies
Yet there’s consternation amongst each Kennedy and Trump’s supporters. Trump ally and self-appointed “loyalty enforcer” Laura Loomer has frequently criticized Means, questioning her help for Trump and her {qualifications} for the job.
More lately, Loomer prompt to The Atlantic that Means was additional unqualified as a result of she was pregnant and on account of give delivery this month.
Some Trump insiders view the Means siblings, and MAHA, with a skepticism rooted in suspicion over rumors that Kennedy is positioning himself for a presidential run in 2028 and amassing energy by means of influential allies like the two Meanses. Kennedy has flatly denied this.
Other influential voices in the MAHA motion lamented the pick as a result of Means has been noncommittal about actions on vaccines.
Fueled by Loomer and others, critics of Means have additionally prompt that she may harness her place to tip federal insurance policies in favor of economic pursuits wherein she has private stakes.
In 2019, Means co-founded a well being tech firm, Levels, that connects glucose displays to a well being monitoring app on customers’ telephones.
Loomer resurfaced Means’ hyperlink to Levels after Kennedy instructed a congressional committee this June that HHS would launch a marketing campaign encouraging Americans to make use of wearable well being trackers.
“This is corruption at its finest,” Loomer wrote on X, suggesting in the put up that each Means and Kennedy may revenue off of wearable well being know-how.
Kennedy’s former operating mate Nicole Shanahan called Means’ nomination “very strange” and later prompt that her concern was rooted in Means’ monetary entanglements.
While she is still listed on Levels’ web site as its chief medical officer, Means mentioned in her monetary disclosures that she left the place in 2023, and would divest any curiosity in the firm. She is at the moment nonetheless an adviser to the firm however mentioned she would resign if confirmed.
Her disclosures additionally revealed that she had household investments in Altria Group, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes and fashionable e-cigarette merchandise, from which she additionally promised to divest.
Loomer “plays an important part in keeping everyone honest” however altering political opinions shouldn’t be disqualifying, mentioned Katie Miller.
“There are a lot of people in President Trump’s second term who were not with us in President Trump’s first term, or even with us in the beginnings of 2021. But we should welcome the opportunity to expand the tent and take on people who are there to fulfill specific missions, who now have seen the light,” she instructed NCS.
Though the authorities shutdown has halted affirmation hearings, Means met with senators and staffers on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee final month, in line with two individuals accustomed to the course of.
She now treads a effective line between assuring senators more and more cautious about anti-vaccine rhetoric that she needs to be confirmed as the nation’s prime physician, and MAHA acolytes who wish to see the administration — and Means herself — take a tougher stance on vaccine insurance policies.
HELP chairman Republican Bill Cassidy has publicly fretted about eroding vaccine confidence and the committee continues to be reeling from the abrupt ousting of Trump’s decide to steer the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Monarez, lower than a month into the job.
Monarez instructed senators in September that conflicts with Kennedy over vaccine suggestions sparked her firing.
Among the points Means has spoken about are calling for ending legal responsibility protections for vaccine producers — a shared precedence with Kennedy — and elevating considerations about the childhood vaccine schedule, although she has couched that vaccines are usually not her space of experience.
Means has additionally talked loads about ladies’s well being — specifically household planning — in addition to meals and pesticides.
She has advocated in opposition to pesticides generally utilized by industrial farmers, even drawing hyperlinks between the contraception tablet and environmental points.
“You’ve got the pill, and it just goes hand in hand with the rise…of industrial agriculture, the spraying of these pesticides,” she mentioned on Carlson’s present. “The things that give life in this world, which are women and soil, we have tried to dominate and shut down the cycles. We have lost respect for life.”
Pesticides are one other thorny patch in MAHA politics — key senators from agricultural states wish to defend entry, however activists have to this point been disenchanted with the lack of extra motion on the difficulty.
If confirmed, Means would have the energy to form the nationwide dialog on public well being and belief in nationwide well being messaging.
“The number two spokesman for health crisis is the surgeon general,” mentioned Michael Caputo, a political adviser and HHS spokesperson throughout the first Trump administration. “MAHA requires a top-notch Surgeon General to communicate the reforms, especially because Bobby is not a doctor or a scientist.”
The path she’s anticipated to carry into the surgeon general function will be rooted in broadly fashionable habits like higher meals and extra train, Calley Means instructed NCS.
“She’s going to be talking about people taking control of their own health in the midst of a lot of challenges from the system,” he mentioned.