By Sarah Owermohle, NCS
(NCS) — A outstanding voice within the “Make America Healthy Again” motion is dealing with sharp questions from senators in a bid to change into the nation’s high physician.
Dr. Casey Means, best-selling author, 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 necessary backers inside 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 various treatments. Means is additionally a co-founder a health tech company, Levels, that connects glucose displays to a well being monitoring app on customers’ telephones.
Means’ affect made the 38-year-old a recognizable, early advocate of the MAHA movement. President Donald Trump chosen Means to be surgeon general final May, the identical day the White House withdrew its nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat. Means was originally scheduled to look earlier than the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee final October, however went into labor together with her first little one 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 general is sometimes a doctor with scientific expertise; Means had dropped out of her medical residency program and her Oregon medical license has lapsed. She defined her resolution 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, printed in 2024.
Means has critics inside Trump’s circle, too. Self-appointed “loyalty enforcer” Laura Loomer has frequently criticized Means, questioning her assist for Trump and her {qualifications} for the job. Loomer additionally prompt Means may harness the surgeon general place to tip federal insurance policies in favor of business pursuits during which she has private stakes, reminiscent of her tech firm.
Means stated in her monetary 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 high-profile departures and shakeups have renewed questions in regards to the route of vaccine coverage underneath Kennedy. An ongoing measles outbreak, already the largest because the US declared the illness eradicated, is threatening to succeed in 1,000 instances 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 government order to shielding pesticide producers.
While the function of surgeon general doesn’t carry coverage or regulatory authority, surgeons general usually assist form the nationwide well being dialog and construct public momentum for coverage change. Most famously, previous surgeons general 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 beginning.
“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 is no 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 capsule, 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, reminiscent of Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science within the Public Interest, a nonprofit client advocacy group, who told NCS last year that she is unqualified for the surgeon general place.
Means may also testify as MAHA acolytes rally for the administration to take sturdy motion towards pesticides reminiscent of extensively used glyphosate, generally identified by the model title Roundup.
In that area, MAHA may have an ally in Means, who has likened widespread pesticide use to the harm she sees from long-term 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.”
The-NCS-Wire
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