Trump’s pick for surgeon general, Casey Means, heads to Senate hearing months after maternity delay

By Sarah Owermohle, CNN

(CNN) — A prominent voice in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement appears before a Senate committee this morning in a bid to become the nation’s top doctor.

Dr. Casey Means, best-selling author, wellness influencer and Stanford medical graduate, became an early ally of now-Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA campaign. Along with her brother Calley, who serves as an adviser to Kennedy at the Health and Human Services department, Means has championed healthy eating, limited pharmaceutical use and alternative remedies.

That’s made her a recognizable, early advocate of the MAHA movement. President Donald Trump selected Means to be surgeon general last May, the same day the White House withdrew its nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat.

Means’ nomination drew criticism from advocates and some former officials at the time because the surgeon general is typically a physician with clinical experience; Means had dropped out of her medical residency program and her medical license had lapsed. She explained her decision to leave residency in her 2024 book, “Good Energy,” as disillusionment with the medical system and its incentives.

Means was originally scheduled to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee last October, but went into labor with her first child in the hours before the hearing.

Now, Means will testify during a fraught moment for the administration’s health agenda. A string of high-profile departures and shakeups have renewed questions about the direction of vaccine policy under Kennedy. An ongoing measles outbreak, already the largest since the US declared the disease eliminated, is threatening to reach 1,000 cases in the near future. Republican senators, including health committee chairman Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, have publicly pressured the administration to curb access to abortion pills. MAHA advocates, meanwhile, are railing against Trump’s executive order to shielding pesticide manufacturers.

While the role of surgeon general does not carry policy or regulatory authority, surgeons general often help shape the national health conversation and build public momentum for policy change. Most famously, past surgeons general led the push to add warning labels to cigarettes.

Means has advocated for “unbiased research” into the childhood vaccine schedule and questioned the safety of giving a hepatitis B vaccine shortly after birth.

“I bet that one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism, but what about the 20 that they’re getting before 18 months?” she said on Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2024. While Means’ comments echo the skepticism of Kennedy and others in the administration, there is no evidence linking the childhood vaccine schedule to autism diagnoses.

Means has not directly addressed abortion and the pill, mifepristone, that has prompted Republicans’ ire and multiple lawsuits about prescribing it remotely.

But the nominee has talked in interviews about other aspects of women’s health, including the common use of contraception, as a sign that “we have lost respect for life,” as she said on Tucker Carlson’s show in August 2024.

Those comments brought consternation from public health advocates, such as Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, who told CNN last year that she is unqualified for the surgeon general position.

Means will also testify as MAHA acolytes rally for the administration to take strong action against pesticides such as widely used glyphosate, commonly known by the brand name Roundup.

In that arena, MAHA could have an ally in Means, who has likened widespread pesticide use to the damage 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 said on Carlson’s show. “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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