Who is Casey Means? Trump’s pick for surgeon general faces sharp questions from Senate panel

By Sarah Owermohle, CNN

(CNN) — In a bid to become the nation’s top doctor, a prominent voice in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement faced sharp questions from senators on Wednesday about vaccines, pesticides and birth control.

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 and has several important backers within the Trump administration.

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. Means is also a co-founder a health tech company, Levels, that connects glucose monitors to a health tracking app on users’ phones.

Means’ influence made the 38-year-old 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 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. Her baby was born that day.

In her opening remarks, Means described the “unraveling” of mental and physical health” in the United States, a “nation with a broken heart” and “a society losing its mind” to dementia and depression.

“As a physician, I have always been inspired that the root of the word healing means to return to wholeness,” Means told senators on Wednesday. “Nothing is more urgent than restoring wholeness for Americans, physically, mentally and societally.”

Means faced sharp questions from senators about her stances on mifepristone, one of the pills used in abortion, contraception and vaccines, and about her qualifications.

Advocates and some former officials have criticized Means’ nomination because the surgeon general is typically a physician with clinical experience; Means had dropped out of her medical residency program and her Oregon medical license is inactive. She explained her decision to leave residency in her 2024 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 in the memoir, published in 2024.

Means acknowledged on Wednesday that her license is not active and she cannot write a prescription. She said she has no plans to reactive her license.

Means on vaccines, contraception, pesticides

Means testified 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 shield 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 said Wednesday that she would push to address root causes of chronic illness through nutrition, steering away from “frankenfoods made in factories.” She said she wants to focus the health care system on understanding “why we are sick and not just reactive sick care.”

However, she faced sharp questions on several key health topics.

Vaccines

On vaccines, 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.

On Wednesday, Means said “anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been a part of my message.” She added, that she doesn’t “think it’s responsible to say that we’re not going to study when kids are getting many medications.”

Means said she believes vaccines save lives, but wouldn’t directly answer whether the flu vaccine reduces illness or hospitalization, despite longstanding evidence of its impact.

Mifepristone and contraception

In response to questions on Wednesday about abortion and mifepristone, the pill that has prompted Republicans’ ire and multiple lawsuits about prescribing it remotely, Means said “all patients need to have a thorough conversation with their doctor and have true informed consent before taking any medication.” She said the current health care system often doesn’t allow that.

The nominee also said oral contraception should be widely accessible, but said patients need “informed consent before getting on a medication that’s often prescribed for several years without follow up.”

Speaking on Tucker Carlson’s show in August 2024, Means said widespread contraception use is a sign that “we have lost respect for life.”

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.

Pesticides

Means’ hearing comes 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. Last week, Trump signed an executive order declaring glyphosate “central to American economic and national security.”

The order unleashed criticism and blowback from the MAHA movement. In the past, Means has likened widespread pesticide use to the damage she has attributed to 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.”

On Wednesday, she walked a careful line, saying farmers, like doctors, are in an “impossible situation.”

“Obviously, changing anything overnight would be devastating to the American farmer,” Means said.

However, “we need to understand how these chemicals are affecting our bodies.”

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