President Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated Casey Means to serve as surgeon general of the United States. Means never finished her surgical residency, does not have an active medical license, and hawks dietary supplements and pseudoscientific "treatments" to her hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers.
Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post, writing:
I am pleased to announce that Dr. Casey Means, will be nominated as our next Surgeon General of the United States of America. Casey has impeccable “MAHA” credentials, and will work closely with our wonderful Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to ensure a successful implementation of our Agenda in order to reverse the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and ensure Great Health, in the future, for ALL Americans. Her academic achievements, together with her life’s work, are absolutely outstanding. Dr. Casey Means has the potential to be one of the finest Surgeon Generals in United States History. Congratulations to Casey! Secretary Kennedy looks forward to working with Dr. Janette Nesheiwat in another capacity at HHS. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Means is an anti-vaxxer who has cast doubt on vaccines and the childhood vaccination schedule.
For example, she railed against giving newborns the Hepatitis B vaccine, writing in a post on X in August 2024: “There is no benefit to the baby or the wider population for a child to get this vaccine who is not at risk for sexual or IV transmission. There is only risk. Kids who don’t have this unnecessary pharmaceutical can’t go to school in many states. EVERYONE should become curious about why these interventions are institutionally jammed down our throats and people are made to be heretical whackos for questioning it.”
President Donald Trump
Of course, actual doctors say hepatitis B—which has no cure—can be transmitted to newborns through their mother in childbirth or through touching infected blood on a surface.
“The younger someone is when they get hepatitis B disease, the worse the consequences. Kids don’t show symptoms like adults do. If infected at a young age kids are more likely to go undiagnosed and become a chronic carrier of the virus. Chronic carriers have lifelong problems and issues from this infection,” the University of Michigan Health System wrote in a fact sheet urging parents to vaccinate their children against the virus.
And like fellow conspiracy theorist Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Means also rails against the food industry, even writing a book with her brother discussing the supposed connection between metabolic function and diseases like “depression, anxiety, infertility, insomnia, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, dementia, [and] cancer.”
Means is also nuts.
In her newsletter, she described making a shrine, holding full-moon ceremonies, talking to trees, and doing psychedelic mushrooms to help her find love.
“There were so many ‘out there’ things I did to try to tap into the ‘mystical’ side of evolving my consciousness and ultimately being ready for partnership,” she wrote about how she found love at the age of 35, writing that she “prayed to photos of my ancestors asking for support on my personal journey, and wrote mantras and manifestations on small pieces of paper and tucked them around the shrine”; did “full moon ceremonies with grounded, powerful women where we called in abundance and let go of what wasn’t serving us, and amplified each others’ dreams”; as well as “did plant medicine experiences with trusted guides and wrote extensively about my experience and insights,” adding an emoji of a mushroom at the end.
Janette Nesheiwat, in 2023.
Ultimately, Trump nominated Means after pulling his initial nominee for the role, Janette Nesheiwat. Bigoted right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer complained that Nesheiwat—who is the sister-in-law of Mike Waltz, Trump's former national security adviser whom Loomer has a vendetta against—was too pro-vaccine.
Nesheiwat had called the COVID-19 vaccine a "gift from God"—which apparently was too much for the anti-vaccine crowd around Trump.
But now Loomer is railing against Means as well, writing in a post on X that Means is pro-transgender and "never supported Donald Trump, and she doesn’t even have an active medical license in Oregon where she says she’s a doctor."
"So basically, we are now going to have a Democrat US Surgeon General who doesn’t even have an active medical license and whose family is writing books about how to make children transgender. What a mess," Loomer wrote. "Donald Trump has the WORST VETTING TEAM EVER!"
With Loomer now against Means, let’s see how long this pick lasts.
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