(COVER PHOTO: Ben Curtis/AP/FILE through NCS Newsource)
By Sarah Owermohle, NCS
(NCS) — A outstanding voice within the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) motion is dealing with sharp questions from senators in a bid to turn out to be the nation’s high physician.
Dr. Casey Means, finest-promoting writer, wellness influencer and Stanford medical graduate, turned an early ally of now-Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA marketing campaign and has a number of vital backers throughout the Trump administration.
Along together with her brother Calley, who serves as an adviser to Kennedy on the Health and Human Services division, Means has championed wholesome consuming, restricted pharmaceutical use and different treatments. Means can be a co-founder a well being tech firm, Levels, that connects glucose screens to a well being monitoring app on customers’ telephones.
Means’ affect made the 38-12 months-outdated a recognizable, early advocate of the MAHA motion. President Donald Trump chosen Means to be surgeon common final May, the identical day the White House withdrew its nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat. Means was initially scheduled to seem earlier than the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee final October, however went into labor together with her first youngster within the hours earlier than the listening to. She stated Wednesday that her child boy was born on the day of her authentic listening to.
In her opening remarks, Means described the “unraveling” of psychological and bodily well being” within the United States, a “nation with a broken heart” and “a society losing its mind” to dementia and despair.
“As a physician, I have always been inspired that the root of the word healing means to return to wholeness,” Means informed senators on Wednesday. “Nothing is more urgent than restoring wholeness for Americans, physically, mentally and societally.”
Means instantly confronted questions from senators about her stances on mifepristone, one of many capsules utilized in abortion, contraception and vaccines, and feedback about her {qualifications}.
Advocates and a few former officers have criticized Means’ nomination as a result of the surgeon common is often a doctor with medical expertise; Means had dropped out of her medical residency program and her Oregon medical license has lapsed. She defined her determination to depart residency in her 2024 e-book, “Good Energy,” as disillusionment with the medical system and its incentives.
“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,” Means wrote within the memoir, revealed in 2024.
Means has critics inside Trump’s circle, too. Self-appointed “loyalty enforcer” Laura Loomer has steadily criticized Means, questioning her help for Trump and her {qualifications} for the job. Loomer additionally steered Means may harness the surgeon common place to tip federal insurance policies in favor of business pursuits by which she has private stakes, akin to her tech firm.
Means stated in her financial disclosures that she left her place with Levels in 2023, and would divest any curiosity within the firm.
Means on vaccines, contraception, pesticides
Means testifies throughout a fraught second for the administration’s well being agenda. A string of excessive-profile departures and shakeups have renewed questions in regards to the route of vaccine coverage underneath Kennedy. An ongoing measles outbreak, already the biggest for the reason that US declared the illness eradicated, is threatening to achieve 1,000 circumstances within the close to future. Republican senators, together with well being committee chairman Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, have publicly pressured the administration to curb entry to abortion capsules. MAHA advocates, in the meantime, are railing towards Trump’s govt order to shielding pesticide producers.
While the position of surgeon common doesn’t carry coverage or regulatory authority, surgeons common usually assist form the nationwide well being dialog and construct public momentum for coverage change. Most famously, previous surgeons common led the push so as to add warning labels to cigarettes.
Means has advocated for “unbiased research” into the childhood vaccine schedule and questioned the security of giving a hepatitis B vaccine shortly after start.
“I bet that one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism, but what about the 20 that they’re getting before 18 months?” she stated on Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2024. While Means’ feedback echo the skepticism of Kennedy and others within the administration, there isn’t a proof linking the childhood vaccine schedule to autism diagnoses.
On Wednesday, Means stated “anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been a part of my message.” She added, “don’t think it’s responsible to say that we’re not going to study when kids are getting many medications.”
In response to questions on Wednesday about abortion and the tablet, mifepristone, that has prompted Republicans’ ire and a number of lawsuits about prescribing it remotely, Means stated “all patients need to have a thorough conversation with their doctor and have true informed consent before taking any medication.” She stated the present well being care system usually doesn’t enable that.
The nominee additionally stated “oral contraception should be widely accessible,” however stated sufferers want “informed consent before getting on a medication that’s often prescribed for several years without follow up.”
In the previous, Means has stated widespread contraception use is an indication that “we have lost respect for life,” as she stated on Tucker Carlson’s present in August 2024.
Those feedback introduced consternation from public well being advocates, akin to Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science within the Public Interest, a nonprofit shopper advocacy group, who informed NCS final 12 months that she is unqualified for the surgeon common place.
Means may also testify as MAHA acolytes rally for the administration to take sturdy motion towards pesticides akin to extensively used glyphosate, generally recognized by the model title Roundup.
In that enviornment, MAHA may have an ally in Means, who has likened widespread pesticide use to the harm she sees from lengthy-time period contraception.
“You’ve got the pill, and it just goes hand in hand with the rise … of industrial agriculture, the spraying of these pesticides,” she stated 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.”
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