Casey Means is Donald Trump's nominee for surgeon general of the United States. She was nominated on May 7th 2025, on the recommendation of Robert F. Kennedy junior, the secretary of health and human services and leader of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. She must be confirmed by the Senate.
Means is 37 years old. She graduated from Stanford Medical School and began a five-year surgical residency but quit months before completing it. She does not hold an active medical licence. After leaving her residency she co-founded a company to help people monitor their glucose levels. She co-wrote a bestselling book, "Good Energy", with her brother Calley Means, who is now a top adviser to Kennedy.
Means is a prominent wellness adviser and MAHA adherent. She argues that rising rates of disease—from cancer to Alzheimer's to erectile dysfunction—stem from plastics and chemicals in the food chain, over-medication, needless surgery, bad lifestyle choices and disregard of nature. She has described the issue as ultimately "a spiritual issue" and urged followers to "embrace the 'woo woo'", describing full-moon ceremonies and asking trees for guidance.
She has called vaccine mandates "criminal" and the childhood vaccine schedule "insane", though some anti-vaccination campaigners consider her scepticism insufficiently radical. During her confirmation hearing she avoided committing to recommending vaccines, instead encouraging families to talk to their doctors. No vote has been scheduled. Jerome Adams, surgeon general during Trump's first term, said "She is not the right person for the moment," pointing to over 1,500 cases of measles in 2026. Trump has given her muted support, telling reporters: "I don't know how she's doing in the nomination process…We have a lot of great candidates for that."
In her weekly newsletter she has described women as "lunar beings who exist on a 28-day moon cycle" and criticised modern life for demanding "constant productivity, endless yang energy, and punishing speed."
The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.