Feb. 25 (UPI) — Dr. Casey Means is scheduled to appear before the Senate Wednesday to discuss her confirmation to become surgeon general.
Means, 38, a friend of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wellness influencer and Make America Healthy Again advocate, was scheduled to appear in October before the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pension Committee virtually because she was pregnant with her first child. But it was postponed because she went into labor.
Her brother, Calley Means, is a lobbyist and senior adviser to the Health and Human Services Department.
She attended Stanford University for undergrad and medical school. She published a 2024 book, Good Energy, in which she described quitting her residency at Oregon Health and Science University. She had completed almost all of the five-year residency but said she was disillusioned with modern medicine. She advocates for healthy eating, limited pharmaceutical use and alternative remedies.
Her medical license lapsed in January 2024.
Because of this, she has faced questions over qualifications for the job, which would give her the authority to issue warnings and advisories for Americans.
HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said that Means’ “credentials, research background, and experience in public life give her the right insights to be the surgeon general who helps make sure America never again becomes the sickest nation on Earth.”
Kennedy recommended Means to President Donald Trump, who nominated her in May. Trump had withdrawn his previous nomination, former Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat.
Means has said she is for “unbiased research” in the childhood vaccine schedule. She has specifically questioned the safety of the hepatitis B vaccine being given soon after birth.
“I bet that one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism, but what about the 20 that they’re getting before 18 months?” CNN reported she said on Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2024.
There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism.
