President Trump’s choice of Dr. Casey Means, a Los Angeles holistic medication doctor and wellness influencer, as his nominee for surgeon general seems to mark one other try and defy institution medication and longstanding federal coverage.
Trump portrayed Means — a 37-year-old Stanford medical college graduate and creator who describes herself on LinkedIn as a “former surgeon turned metabolic well being evangelist” — in his announcement as totally in sync with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s mission to “Make America Wholesome Once more.”
“Casey has impeccable ‘MAHA’ credentials, and will work intently with our great Secretary of Well being and Human Providers, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to make sure a profitable implementation of our Agenda with a view to reverse the Power Illness Epidemic, and guarantee Nice Well being, in the future, for ALL Individuals,” Trump stated in an announcement on Fact Social.
However some who know Means query whether or not she is utterly aligned with Kennedy.
Robert Lustig, professor emeritus of pediatrics in the division of endocrinology at UC San Francisco, who is a buddy of Means, advised The Occasions he was shocked and stunned.
“What’s shocking to me is that she wished the job, as a result of she had difficulties adopting RFK’s full portfolio,” Lustig stated, citing Kennedy’s controversial pronouncements on vaccines and fluoride in public water provides. “She didn’t need to be a part of the administration, partially as a result of she couldn’t accede to these views. So what has modified is not clear.”
Means didn’t reply to requests for remark. Nonetheless, she celebrated in February when Kennedy was sworn in, saying on an X put up that “his imaginative and prescient of the future aligns with what I need for my household, future kids, and the world.”
Over the final yr, she has raised public considerations about some vaccines. In August, she spoke out on X towards CDC tips that each one infants ought to obtain a dose of hepatitis B vaccine at start.
“The thought of giving a new child the hepatitis B vaccine (adopted by 2 extra doses) if the child is born to oldsters *with out hepatitis B* is absolute madness and ought to make each American pause and query the healthcare system’s mandates,” she stated.
“I’ve stated innumerable occasions publicly I feel vaccine mandates are prison,” she stated on X in November.
However when Lustig spoke to Means 4 weeks in the past, he advised The Occasions, Means had left her dwelling in Pacific Palisades, frightened about poisonous air and water after the L.A.-area wildfires, and had moved to Hawaii. He stated she wished to begin a household and didn’t specific curiosity in working with Kennedy at the time.
“I do know that her views aren’t his — that’s why she didn’t settle for it earlier,” Lustig stated. “In the event you’re an worker, you must take the complete portfolio. You don’t get to decide on components of it, and she was uncomfortable.”
The president introduced Means as his decide a day earlier than his preliminary choice for the place, New York household doctor and Fox Information contributor Janette Nesheiwat, was scheduled to have a listening to with senators Thursday.
Trump has but to elucidate why Nesheiwat was changed as his nominee, however he stated she would work at the Division of Well being and Human Providers in “one other capability.”
The U.S. surgeon general is often called “the nation’s doctor.” In line with the Division of Well being and Human Providers, the position is to supply Individuals with “the finest recommendation on the way to enhance their well being, by issuing advisories, reviews and calls to motion to supply the finest obtainable scientific info on essential points.”
Lustig stated he had little question Means — whom he bought to know by advising Ranges Well being, a digital metabolic well being firm she co-founded — would deliver a special perspective to the U.S. authorities.
“Right here’s the downside: We’ve got an epidemic of persistent illness and there are not any medicines that repair any of those illnesses,” Lustig stated. “They’re not fixable by medicine. They’re fixable by meals. And the motive is as a result of all of those illnesses are mitochondrial illnesses, and we don’t have medicine that get to the mitochondria.
“We’ve got to alter the meals provide,” he added. “There is no choice. Casey is aware of that. In order surgeon general, she would have the ability to make that case.”
In that sense, Lustig agreed with Trump, who stated, “Dr. Casey Means has the potential to be one in every of the best Surgeon Generals in United States Historical past.”
“I feel she’s a terrific particular person,” Lustig stated. “She is going to deliver a really completely different mindset to the workplace.”
However Lustig stated he believed Kennedy was flat out incorrect on vaccines.
“I do know why he’s incorrect on vaccines,” he stated. “I perceive the place his mind is, as a result of I bought a half hour with him on the telephone, one on one. However I can’t alter my integrity to match that — and I believed that Casey couldn’t both.”
Means is an unorthodox decide for a president famed for his food plan of Huge Macs and Food plan Cokes.
Her web site options footage of broccoli and almonds. Her Instagram web page reveals brilliant bowls of tofu scrambles with heirloom tomatoes, avocado and beet sauerkraut.
Her e-newsletter recounts how, at the age of 35, after she moved to L.A., she embraced the “woo woo (aka, the thriller),” arrange a meditation shrine in her dwelling and sought relationship recommendation from bushes.
Means was raised in Washington, D.C., the daughter of mildly spiritual, Republican dad and mom. Her Californian-born father, Grady Means, a retired American enterprise govt and authorities official, served in the White Home as assistant to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, led the Meals and Vitamin Process Drive to reform the meals stamp program and offered oversight to the Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Experiment.
After graduating from Stanford Medical College, Means was 4½ years right into a five-year residency to be a head and neck surgeon at Oregon Well being & Science College when she dropped out, disillusioned with the healthcare system.
“Throughout my coaching as a surgeon, I noticed how damaged and exploitative the healthcare system is and left to deal with the way to maintain individuals out of the working room,” she says on her web site.
“The rationale she give up was as a result of she noticed that the similar sufferers have been coming again with the similar issues, and her mentors, the college at Stanford, when she would ask, ‘Why is this taking place?’ would say, ‘Shut up and function,’” Lustig stated.
“She had a disaster of confidence that she was really not serving to the downside, or was really a part of the system that was really making the issues.”
In 2019, Means co-founded Ranges Well being, which works to “empower people to radically optimize their well being and wellbeing by offering real-time steady glucose biofeedback.”
Two years later, her break with institution medication turned extra intense — and extra private — when her mom was identified with Stage 4 pancreatic most cancers.
“What put her over the edge was when her mom handed away of pancreatic most cancers, and it was missed,” Lustig stated. “She had all the signs and indicators of metabolic syndrome in her and none of her medical doctors addressed any of them.”
Means served as Ranges Well being’s chief medical officer till final yr, when she and her brother, Calley, printed a 400-page food plan and self-help e book titled “Good Vitality: The Shocking Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Well being.”
In August, she catapulted to mainstream fame — significantly on the proper — when Tucker Carlson featured her and her brother on his podcast for a present titled “How Huge Pharma Retains You Sick, and the Darkish Fact About Ozempic and the Capsule.”
“The system is rigged towards the American affected person to create illnesses and then revenue off of them,” Means advised Carlson.
Over the previous few months, Means and her brother, who now serves as a White Home well being advisor, made public appearances at “Make America Wholesome Once more” occasions.
In September, she addressed a U.S. Senate roundtable on persistent illness itemizing all the issues she didn’t study in medical college: “For every extra serving of ultra-processed meals we eat,” she stated, “early mortality will increase by 18%.”
Critics have been fast to take to X to mock her statistics.
“I’ve simply had 1000 baggage of chips in my life,” stated Brad Stulberg, adjunct scientific assistant professor of well being administration and coverage at the College of Michigan’s College of Well being. “If this is true, it means my mortality danger has elevated by 18,000 %. That appears unlikely.”
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